Sean Reiser

Hi I'm Seán Reiser, this is my Personal Blog

“A person is what they think about all day long”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Frosty 1

Frosty had a followup appointment at the vet today after his TECA procedure.  After years of trying to handle his chronic ear infections, surgery to remove the ear canal was the only solution.  He's now deaf in his left ear, but should lead a better life.

I wonder why these animals love us.  Could you imagine being packed up in a box brought to a place where a doctor removes your canal leaving you deaf, spending the night in that unfamiliar place, coming home the next day and curling up next to the person who sent you to that place? It's not like you and I that have some reason I can't understand why things are being done all you know is this person who you love has brought you to a place to be tortured and damaged and yet you come home and you love on them.  It baffles my mind.

This is not a happy cat.  Frosty used his claws to put a hole in the bottom of our boxspring and would crawl up there and sprawl out as if it was a kitty hammock.  The other day, Anne and I took apart the bed and cut away the material from the bottom of the boxspring for a couple of reasons:

  • He’d hide up there when he wasn’t feeling well, which made it hard for us to care for him.  He could hide up there for days at a time.
  • We didn’t want all that dander building up in a place we couldn’t clean it.

He was very confused  while the bedroom was blown up.  I can imagine that when we were done he was planning on hiding up there and was disappointed to find it all gone.

On the plus side, we put a kitty bed at the foot of the bed which he seems to enjoy.

Another quick Frosty story….

The other day Anne and I were moving things around in the apartment, to make some space.  We decided that the cat carrier could be moved to the garage since we didn’t need it to be available at a moment’s notice.  I put the carrier on the couch with some other items to be moved.  Frosty comes out of the bedroom, sees the carrier, turns and bolts to the other room.  He was like a Loony Tunes character, I swear I saw his feet moving in circles without him moving.

 Since it's become traditional to ask for donations to a non-profit for someone's birthday I'd like to ask that people give to the Little Shelter, the animal shelter where Anne and I got Frosty.

I don't want to ask people to give facebook their financial information so I'm linking to their site where there is a donation page.

Thank you.

 A quick Frosty update.  He has some sores on the side of his mouth which is why he wasn’t eating.  The Cat “Pot” is working well.  He’s eating more than he normally does.

He has a new habit.  He won't eat in the kitchen any more.  When he was first sick I started bringing the bowl into the living room because he wasn't following me into the kitchen.  He's gotten used to room service.  Now, even through he follows me into the kitchen and watches me up the bowl on the floor and he'll ignore it.  Unless I carry it into the living room and place the bowl on the couch he won't eat.

The joy of being owned by a cat.

 Frosty has been sick.  He hadn’t eaten in a few days, he hasn’t been grooming.  So we had to take him to the vet yesterday.  Among other things they have put him on an appetite stimulant.  It’s an anti-depressant that stimulates the appetite, and makes his talkative.  Yup it’s Cat Pot.  

He’s back to eating and some of his other issues look better.

Dear Cat:

There are 2 sources of water in the bathroom. One is a lovely bowl of fresh water and the other is a toilet that smells like a toilet. HOW DO YOU KEEP MAKING THE WRONG CHOICE?

Love,

Your Stupid Humans

On top of some business meetings this morning, Anne made a follow up appointment for Frosty to deal with his latest bout of ear infections.

So as I'm getting myself into my business best (American Flag Bowtie for the 4th) and rehearsing what I'm going to say in the meetings I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to wrangle Frosty.

Since he's been sick he's been hiding under the bed. I know he's spooked and feeling like prey. Every time we meet over the last few weeks I'm grabbing him to put drops in his ear, clean the ear or I'm putting him in his carrier to go to the vet. So, for the moment he associates the pain he's going through with me. He no longer sleeps at my feet and only eats when I'm not around or am sleeping. At the end of the day, at the moment he doesn't trust me.

So I'm sitting on the couch thinking "how am I going to get him into his carrier". I said a quick prayer, literally "St. Francis, I could use a hand here" (I figure he already knows the details).. 5 mins later, he comes out of the bedroom and goes into the bathroom to do his business in his litter box. I close the bathroom door behind him, close the bedroom so he can't get in there to hide and set up his carrier with a towel on the bottom to make it comfortable. I open the bathroom, he scurries out of the bathroom and runs to the bedroom only to be blocked by the door. I scoop him up and get in in the carrier.

Results:

-My meetings went well.

-Frosty is making progress with his ears.

Getting a sick cat out from under the bed and into his cat box might be the inspiration for Pokémon

So some of you know that Frosty's litter box is in the bathtub (he uses the tub to do his business no matter where we put his box). Well he just went into the bathroom to do what he needs to do and CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND HIM. I went to open the door and his look was basically, "I'm using it, wait your turn".