Just picked up Sydney from getting his teeth cleaned. Dental care for felines is pretty annoying since he’s on an anti-crystal prescription diet and so can’t really eat dental treats. I did buy a bag of dental food for $25 because it comes with a $50 rebate when your cat gets his teeth cleaned, though. He had to get gas anesthesia cause I guess he wouldn’t exactly sit in a chair and obediently open his mouth to get cleaned.
Combo time
Bunky and I have always hated the clay dust and clay particles that get in to everything and smear everywhere when wet. Unfortunately, previous forays (when Sydney was very young) resulted in “oatmeal-esque” litter messes. Fortunately, the last two weeks with Natural Scoop litter have been very encouraging.
The first thing is that the natural litter is fluffy and light. This lets me fill my giant litter box with just two bags instead of 34 lb. worth of clay litter. The cost savings isn’t huge, especially since I mix in a few crystals to help with the odor control, but the weight is much less, which makes it much easier to scoop the litter and carry the bags up.
We also switched up our litter mat situation. We got a food tray for really cheap to put just outside the door, since occasionally Sydney either kicks litter out or pees towards the door and some urine drips down and outside of the box. Then further away in the more narrow hallway to exit the laundry room where the litter box stays, the entire way is one of those more rubber carpet-esque litter mats so that the cats cannot avoid the litter mat the way they used to when the mat was immediately outside the door.
This means they can’t kick tons of litter on the difficult-to-clean mat or pee on the difficult-to-clean mat. The natural litter also tends not to fly as far and doesn’t really feel like anything when you step on a piece (unlike the clay which feels like sand and sticks in a mess on your foot. In terms of performance, it clumps moderately well, and with the crystals I can’t smell any urine or poop (or clay). With the new litter I think pee tends to go straight through it and then clump at the bottom, whereas with clay it would get absorbed more quickly and clump at the top. This isn’t a problem, though. So far so good, and I’m very happy with this new product!
The previous owners obviously preferred to set-and-forget, which resulted in disastrous results like a 2-story poplar planted about 6-inches from the side of the house, three 1.5-story blue firs of some sort planted less than 3-feet from the other side of the house (and too close to each other, so the inside was all ugly), and an old female holly planted less than 6-inches from one side of the house and less than 6-inches from a large meter.
We had to have a contractor take out the trees and poplar, while it took me 2 days of sawing and digging (and jumping and towards the end even drilling) on a stump to remove the holly. Of course the holly had a taproot next to some rocks that was nearly impossible to get to. I removed three purple-fringed vine-shrubs; I hate all plants that look like vines. I also removed two Rosa Sharons, because I have heard they are the bane of a garden with their weedy invasive seed pods (many of which fell before I could snip them off).
To avoid further gardening snafus, I’ve decided to begin cataloging and identifying what is planted around the house. It’s difficult to identify some of the plants since they seem dormant right now. Fortunately, a few had their ID tags on them.
Bunky and I jokingly refer to Sydney as our watchcat because he always alerts us when someone is at the door by growling (and then generally running away). Tonight I was sitting at the computer when I heard some extended hissing and growling, and I knew someone must be at the apartment patio. It’s unusual for Sydney to growl and hiss that much, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
When I turned on the light, I was disappointed to see it was another cat. Sydney has been in a condo for so long, that I haven’t seen him interact with other animals in years (plus those at the cottage tended to be much bigger, like deer and possums). It was a grey and black striped cat that I’d seen around the apartment pool, and it gave Sydney the eye since Sydney couldn’t go outside for some wrasslin’.
Of course I’d always take Sydney’s side anyway, but I didn’t like the intruder cat for always strolling around the pool and taking drinks like a big cat on campus. I immediately got out the squirt gun that I usually use for getting Sydney off of furniture and sprayed the intruder cat in the face. Naturally the intruder cat ran off, and Sydney high-stepped around the house in victory.
I have no clue where Toby was during all this, but my guess would be that he was cowering under the couch.