We’re back from vacation.  I picked most of the cats up this morning.  Dr. Val called me last night with an update on their status.  When I dropped them off, I asked them to check Delta and Floyd for urinary tract infections, and I had a couple of concerns with Natasha I wanted checked.  Floyd and Delta both had infections, and Delta responded well to treatment.  Floyd’s infection, however, was resistant to the treatment. Sometime Sunday night or early Monday morning, Floyd developed a blockage and moved from being a boarding guest to a hospital patient.  He’s still in the hospital. Natasha’s eye was worse than we thought, so she’s getting two medications.  Dr. Valeri heard her cough (finally) and treated that aggressively.  Thankfully, the other concerns appear to have been nothing to worry about.

Floyd has not been a completely model patient.  When the vet tech arrived this morning, he’d removed his Elizabethan collar and his catheter.  Poor Dr. Valeri had to catheterize him again (and she says he has the smallest penis she’s ever seen), and that’s troublesome.  When I got there and went back to see him, he was sitting in his litter box and glaring at us.  Poor fellow. He’s miserable, even with the Valium. I don’t see how he’ll be ready to come home on Monday, but we’ll see how he’s doing tomorrow morning. My slot machine winnings from Shreveport have almost covered his medical bills to date, and that was a blessing.

All the other indoor cats appear to be fine. The outdoor cats have been interesting to monitor.  I pulled the chip from the game camera yesterday afternoon and scanned from current time back (to make sure everyone was okay — they were). Almost immediately, I noticed a new cat has shown up. As you’ll recall, right before we left, we discovered there were three cats.  Now there appear to be four.

Beginning October 13, a little after one pm, this kitty appeared on camera numerous times through the 16th:

Far too much white to be Sneaky, but from the coloration, I’m pretty sure this is a girl kitty. On the 14th at 11:13 am, Sneaky appears to be looking into the doghouse.

At 12:21 pm, look who appears to exit the doghouse. I think someone is finally using it.

Below, we have the not-Walter kitty. Note he isn’t as silvery (and he isn’t neutered).  Mr. L has decided to call him Boomer, and he didn’t appear to object when asked. He’s not as skittish as Walter, but we can’t get closer than about ten feet to him at this point.

This is a uniquely Walter stance:

So, yes, we appear to have four kitties visiting the side porch and the food tower.  I suspect the young dark calico is either pregnant or will be pregnant soon. Nothing I can do about it now besides attempt to befriend her and Boomer and get them fixed and released.  If the girl is expecting, we’ll have to deal with that in due time (so far, I’ve only seen her on the game camera, and she didn’t appear before October 13th).

A pretty exciting couple of week for the kitties.  They seem glad to be home.