A Felix Update

Felix gets his own post because I tried adding it to my next post and it just got too long. If you don't do cats and their ailments, feel free to skip.

Ninja practice?

To recap the baby cat's December adventures:

December 3 or 4, Felix started vomiting blood. He went to the vet that week, who couldn't find anything on the x-rays to explain it other than he had a lot of gas in his intestines. He got an anti-nausea shot, a pepcid shot, dewormed, and fluids under the skin. He went back the next day for a repeat of the anti-nausea and pepcid shots and more fluids.

He was good until the next Sunday (December 11), when I took him to the emergency vet for vomiting a lot of blood about every hour. They did more of the same (no obstructions, just gas, more shots and a hefty bill), and on the way home the liquid diarrhea started. By this point, we had acquired a large dog crate from a neighbor friend and Felix was spending his time in there because it's hard to clean blood vomit and diarrhea out of the carpet. He went to the vet every day for the next 3 days for more fluids and shots, plus a few more x-rays. Work was a godsend that week- they let me work from home to properly medicate Felix who was on 3 different medicines that couldn't be given near each other and had to be given once a day, every 12 hours, and every 8 hours.

He doesn't hate it.

He was good for about a week and a half and we started letting him out of his crate unsupervised, and then the vomiting started again after he was free all Christmas weekend (we felt bad locking him up for 36 hours while we were gone). We noticed that he was eating his cat litter (World's Best Litter, corn based), before this vomiting blood episode. He went back to the vet, who took more x-rays (I swear, this cat is going to be radioactive), and found that his intestines all looked good, but his stomach wall had thickened to be about 4x thicker than it should be. They did what was now 'the usual', aka shots and things, and Felix came home with the order that if he throws up again, bring him back immediately for another x-ray to see if there is a moving blockage that keeps vanishing on the x-rays. They also recommended changing his food to something for sensitive stomachs. I decided at this point to give Felix a Pepcid pill (for the stomach), a vitamin (since he may have a mineral deficiency causing him to eat litter sporadically), and a probiotic (for his very sensitive gut), on a daily basis.

Around New Years, we got a cat fountain for all the cats because Sophie seemed to have a UTI, and all of the cats seem to enjoy drinking out of the tap (which is how this one flows). The TLDR version is that the cats' vet wasn't making it easy (or cheap) to get Sophie antibiotics, so I ended up getting them from Penn's vet after explaining everything my reasoning (don't forget that equine vets had small animal care too in their schooling!). We also started everyone on a dry food AM /wet food PM diet to help all of them (especially Sophie) get more fluids.

He's pretty good about not playing in it.

Felix started throwing up again on 1/2. By this point, Husband and I were very frustrated because we had been careful to not let him out of his crate unsupervised (so no eating funny things), and the vet never seemed to make any progress on the matter. We decided instead of taking him to the vet, since he's locked up and still looking frisky and hungry, we were going to keep throwing food at him in small doses, even if it comes back up. We were also going to try to keep food in front of him for as long as possible (so his stomach acid is always working on something and he doesn't bolt his food, and screw it if he gets too heavy). Throwing food at him seemed to work, the vomiting was done in one day.

Cue internet searching on the bus ride to work the next day. FYI, don't google chronic cat vomiting- it only pulls up IBD and lymphoma and is very negative. Cue being extremely upset in public, because both are only diagnosed by major surgery to take a full intestinal wall sample, and both are not easily treated since it takes powerful drugs to fix either of them and those can have disastrous side effects.

Luckily, still frisky.

I did some research on alternative treatments and found sensitive gut kitties seem to do well on a raw food diet (something I was not keen to take on because of the amount of work it takes to make it affordable). I decided to try RAD Raw Cat Food for Felix, available at a local but strange pet food store. Felix seemed to gobble it up no problem, so he's doing normal wet food in the AM, and raw food in the PM, with the goal of making the switch to all raw food. Apparently the meat sits longer in his stomach because it's more complex to break down than normal food (so his stomach acid is always working on something) and his poops should become less in volume, less in smell, and more pellet-like. Sure, let's give that a whirl.

I got two more containers of the Turkey for him on Saturday, and that's when I realized just how expensive it was. Felix should get 3-3.5oz twice a day of this food... I got 32oz of food in two 16oz containers to the tune of just under $22 from our local store (who I'm 99% sure has the best price even though I drive 40 min to get there- everywhere else charges about a $1 more with large surcharges for shipping frozen). It says that kittens may eat 3-4 times the normal adult amount (so let's just call it 4oz twice a day for Felix because he is positively ravenous these days and has been since this vomiting thing started), my $22 only buys food for 4 days. A month would cost me $165. Penn doesn't even get $165 worth of supplements monthly.

I feel like I should cook it and eat it myself for that price!

The store gave me a couple freeze dried samples of other brands they carry, one of which was Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried Turkey Morsels. They're not raw per se, but they are the same 98% meat with zero grains and fillers (which is really what we need anyway). The package said I could feed them dry or wetted, so for shits and giggles, I fed them to him dry like a treat. Holy cow, he ripped them out of my fingers. I gave him a couple nuggets and gave the girls each a nugget. He gobbled his nuggets down, then stole each of the girl's since they were just playing with them. I fed him the rest of the sample bag (after which he went to the fountain and got a good long drink).

I ordered a bag of that ($30 for 18oz) and we'll see how far that goes in meals. It really bothers me that these bags will list the weight in ounces, and then tell you to serve cups, and won't tell you how many servings you get out of the bag or how many ounces a cup of their food weighs. Oh well, we're still experimenting in how to make this affordable. I'm wondering how easy a grocery purchased, homemade turkey raw diet would be? I want to stay away from beef and fish for sure (allergy reasons), and probably away from chicken, so that leaves not as common foods like goose, turkey, rabbit, venison, etc.

Or maybe I will try making raw food myself- this website makes it really easy, and gives a turkey substitute. I would just need a very expensive grinder... but I could freeze it immediately into ice cubes and then thaw them one meal at a time... Husband, start looking for that deep freezer!

Knock on wood, things seem to be going well for Felix. He's not crazy about his wet food, but he loves the raw food and licks the bowl clean every evening. He's a champ about taking his pepcid and vitamin every day (down the throat since he won't eat it in his food). Just want my little guy to feel better, and stay feeling better!

If it goes downhill again, I'm going to call a not-so-local holistic vet to get his opinion on what to do. Traditional couldn't fix the vomiting, and if he develops IBD (which can develop into lymphoma), we're going to be up a creek with a very young cat.

The "normal" cats.

Anybody ever do raw food for their cats (or dogs)? Did you make it yourself or buy premade?

Riding Recaps and Horsey Products (Plus Pokemon, tires, and cats)

I've become kind of addicted to this. I finally got to do some egg hatching on a trail ride last night. It was very effective, and informative about how much walking we actually do on trail rides (3-5k!)

Things continue to look up riding wise. Penn learned a lot from the weymouth. The pelham's action isn't quite the same, so he's finding he doesn't has to be as cooperative and it can be tested a little. I try not to let him get away with it, but I still aim to be just as soft as I was with the weymouth. It's working out pretty well, but I'm finding he's starting to get his poll too low/curl in the trot. When he curled with the weymouth, he was looking for me to hold him up and I wasn't there (since that's the whole idea). I think something similar is happening, because the work will get hard, and he'll drop his poll in an effort to lay on my hand, but then I can bump him back up with my inside leg and a half halt from my seat.

He is so sensitive to it that I'm really glad we got our couple rides in it and can go back to the snaffle tonight. There's just something I don't like about how he goes in it- it's like he's afraid of it, yet super willing to go to the bit. His level of uncomfortable with the bridle is something I'm not comfortable with. This bit wasn't the end goal anyway, so it doesn't matter. It's was a helper bit. It's probably the level of sensitivity that I'm not used to. He's always there waiting for instruction and I'm quiet and not saying anything. He loves being told what to do (and busy fingers on the reins), so yea, I bet he was uncomfortable with the silence. We both need to become comfortable with it!

I had a few totally awesome moments when I rode on Monday: I was playing with transitions within the trot like we did in lesson. I got Penn fairly relaxed and trotting around (sitting trot), and then I'd give the biggest half halt ever, combined with my legs bumping his side in rhythm with his hind legs, and really slowing down my seat. He'd respond by shortening his whole frame, bringing his poll up, sitting down, and really trying to collect. He can't hold it for more than 5-7 steps, which is totally fine. Once he realized I'd let him out of it, he started relaxing a bit more and trying harder and fighting me less. I'd send him forward after and he'd be a little more uphill in his working gaits. It was totally cool to mess with.

The canter is coming along- it's sometimes hit or miss though. Sometimes I have nice balanced transitions up and down, and he's well balanced within the gait. Sometimes he's hauling butt within the canter and leaning on his inside shoulder (I can really feel that now!), and I can't quite get it back properly. The downward transitions at that point are not great, but they're still better than in the snaffle. I'm sure I'm doing something in the upward transition that let's him get all wonky. Trainer got after me in our weymouth lesson for giving away the reins in the upwards in an attempt to be soft. Instead, I need to allow him forward, but give it some structure too. Tossing him away entirely is probably what allows wonky canter to happen.

I have three bridles hanging in my locker right now (which is totally crazy): We have the 'good boy' bridle: his new FFE bridle with a HS loose ring french link bradoon bit. We have the 'bad boy' bridle: the black HDR bridle with damaged noseband (sans flash) and the rubber pelham. Finally, the trail riding bridle: the Micklem with the Korsteel equivalent of the HS bradoon.

Late evening trail ride on a 90 degree day. It was nice and cool on the ridge.
The sunset was super pretty too!

Riding in the last week or so has pretty much gone like this: Work day in the ring, trail ride, work day in the ring, trail ride, etc. I'm switching it up by ride, not by day. It gives me a very easy way to even out Penn's workload. A tough mental day followed by an easy trail ride, and vice versa (sometimes with a rest day in between). I'm still trying to make riding days Sun, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat. The weekends work out well since I work both mornings at the barn now, but the weekdays have been varying a little, which is fine. Doing it this way stops me from drilling him. Yay!


Other fun news:

Fancy white boots!

Penn's Majyk Equipe Infinity Series Sport/Dressage Boots came in, and he's been wearing them for turnout since last Friday night. Knock on wood, everything seems to be going well. When I took them off Saturday and Sunday mornings, his legs were tight and cool to the touch and not sweaty. There hasn't been evidence of sweating or swelling under the boot during the week either (confirmed by BO's daughter too). I'm going to give them another week, then I'll do a review. I'm using them for trail riding too since they cost enough and that way my fleece boots don't get mucky.

#ProjectBubbleWrap commenced last Friday night.
So far so good!

My truck tires are here! I actually couldn't find them after they were delivered because the tracking said, "Left next to front door." And well, they weren't on my porch, or next to the garage door (where all of our previous tire purchases have been placed). You might be asking, how hard is it to find tires shipped to your house? We've got too much stuff in the driveway right now- Husband is tearing out the old retaining wall for our driveway and putting in fresh timbers. No cars can be parked in that area right now because the driveway isn't supported, there's gravel piles everywhere, we have Husband's parent's open trailer (for fetching timbers and gravel), and the old railroad ties and new timbers are hogging up the space by the garage. Also, there's a hole in the ground were we used to park Husband's 1972 Super Beetle. Basically, the driveway has lost all parking organization and we do something new every day based on where we went that day, what was purchased for the wall, what construction went on, and where we're going the next day. That's how I couldn't find my $771 worth of tires that were "Left next to front door." I may have panicked and it's a good thing FedEx was closed for the day because they might have gotten an angry/hysterical phone call.

This is not next to my front door. This is on the driveway, 30-40ft from the house, hiding behind gravel and my truck!
Either way, they're safe and sound in the garage now.

The cats are getting along really well. Sophie and Felix seem to be bonding strongly. Penny is still mostly tolerant (but she does play with him), but she's not a snuggler in general (with humans or cats). When she wants to snuggle, she always seeks out a human. Everybody needs to go to the vet though- check ups for everyone, boosters for Felix, yearly vaccines for the girls, and Penny has been hacking for several days now and it sounds like a hairball that won't come up. I also want to talk to the vet about Felix's... smell. I'm going to try giving him a bath, but he's starting to smell like ass all the time. And it lingers on your clothes and hands after petting him. Anyone have something like this happen? I'm going to change his kitten food- right now he's eating Purina One because that's what the shelter was feeding him. I don't think he's been rolling in the litter box either. We watched him pretty closely as the smell was developing, and he never lingered in the litter box.

Snuggling!

I "pulled" Penn's mane last night using a new-to-me method. He doesn't care for regular pulling, so I tried a new method that uses an old clipper blade. Basically, you take tiny sections of hair, tease it back like you would if you were going to pull the mane out, and then you use the clipper blade in a straight down motion to cut the hairs as close to the crest as you can. The hair ends up being cut in a feathered fashion- not straight across. It took me a little while to get the method down because the original instruction giver didn't do a video, just hand written notes. I made it a lot shorter than I usually do (oops) but it'll have a month to grow before I need to braid him again, so we'll see how that goes over in August.

Halfway through. It took FOREVER. I'm not exactly pleased with the thickness that remains. I might use my tail rake on the middle section to try to thin it out. I also probably should have straightened his mane (it's been in training braids for a couple weeks now since his fly sheet pulls his mane over to the wrong side).

As a final, "random other item", I bought this this morning:

Black Fairfax Event Girth

I checked Ebay on a whim this morning and found this girth. I've been eyeballing them for a year and a half now and just haven't had the reasons to justify the money to buy it (I found it for $400 new in the USA). Penn uses a TSF girth that I do like, but I don't know if he likes it anymore. He's gotten really freaking girthy. The saddle fits, he's getting his chiropractor work (his last visit had sternum area adjustments), and was negative for ulcers when I had him tested about 9 months ago (plus did several months of Ugard with no difference), and I did some pressure point testing for ulcers and he didn't react. He actually humped his back up when I put the girth on yesterday. I'm really hoping this girth does what it says and helps relieve pressure points. I thought the final price of around $240 wasn't bad for an expensive girth in excellent condition. I was going back and forth between the regular and the narrow version (for smaller chested horses), but I decided to give this one a try anyway... worst thing that happens is I'll resell it.

I did look into the pop rocks that have probiotics (Abler Abprazole Plus) and I'm debating if I want to give that a 50 day ($105) or 100 day trial ($185) or get Omeprazole paste from Horse PreRace. I'd do a half tube for a month (about $150) since this is more on the preventative side than a problem side. I donno, we'll see. I have just under 2 weeks worth of doses of Omeprazole in the refrigerator at home, maybe I should just pop that into him in the meantime.

I have a bunch of other things waiting to be ordered (sigh), but I'm holding off for now. A couple good coupons came through for things I wanted, so I'm leaning towards ordering them sooner rather than later!

All the Recaps

ERMYGAWD TOES!!!!!!!

Ahem, now that I've hooked you with a cute kitten who is not only showing you all of his toes, but is also winking at you...

Once again, things are happening and I'm not writing. I have some kind of block- I'm running so short on time that writing just isn't on the to do list. Here's a basic review of this post so you can skip around as desired (there's a bunch of pictures too):

1. Lesson 6/30 - the details are getting hazy because I messed up and didn't write the review soon enough, and I've had some meh rides.
2. Desensitizing
3. Riding Recaps
4. Spending All the Money I Don't Have
5. Felix
6. Lesson 7/5 - this ended up REALLY good!

1. Lesson 6/30
I love Trainer. I sent her a message last Monday that I was having a problem that I was totally not comfortable fixing on my own, She came out for an ad-hoc lesson (and a couple other people jumped on the schedule, which makes it a ton easier to have her out!).

She had me get on and walk around and tell her what was going on, then go to trot. Penn was not doing his bouncing on and off the contact, except he did jump into canter a couple times for no apparent reason (I asked if I did something, she said not that she could tell). She had me canter and he was generally good. She liked how he was much more uphill than before, so the collection work is working. She asked to sit on him at that point to get a feel for exactly what buttons are no good. I've got no problem with that- he gets a professional school and I get to watch him go.

Before she even got on, she readjusted my saddle: she set it a tiny bit further back, and loosened the girth one hole. I'm all kinds of messed up on girth holes- this saddle is the same as my old one, except the billets seem shorter, yet not, and I'm still settling into what holes the girth goes on.

She said he was very jumpy off the leg. Basically, I over-sensitized him to it. She put her leg on and he went, "OK I'M GOING RIGHT! OK I'M GOING LEFT!" She said he's living in halfway land with his connection- he's almost there, but when she half halts and connects him, he connects for a second and then ducks behind the contact and essentially whines about it (the hopping). When he gets hopping, she uses hard outside leg to send him in and basically does turn on the fore type movement until he's decided to stop hopping and ready to be a gentleman again. At that point, half halt and carry on like nothing happened. She said he's resisting meeting the outside rein (his favorite trick). She said she could tell that I was getting overly handsy with him too. :-( Sorry Penn.

She had me get back on after she worked him to the left a bit. She had me abandon the better bend idea, he's not going to bend properly if he's not meeting the bridle. I dealt with a couple tantrums, shut them down, then carried on like nothing happened. It was great! The lack of bend (or even looking to the inside) irked me, but again, not the point. First we had to fix what I broke, then we can start putting the wheels back on the bus.

Things to do:

• Keep the lines of communication working in my fingers- my hands tend to lock up and go stale and become a brick wall. I need to keep flexing my fingers as we go.
• I also need to half halt approximately every step.
• Open my inside rein when asking for canter.
• Canter on a circle, spiral in, then spiral out in this pattern: two steps out, one step back in, two steps out, one step back in

Basically, I got overzealous in working him and blew his brain, but he kept trying until he just couldn't. He also wasn't helping in that he was having tantrums when I was quiet again. We each had some fault, but it's of course mine because he wouldn't be having tantrums if I wasn't going crazy on him!


2. Desensitizing
This was probably the highlight of my weekend. I had a great time. Some of the ladies at the barn do obstacle trail, and they were out and about practicing on Saturday. They have: a bridge, tarp, hula hoop, snow sled drag, rope gate, and they had zig zag back up poles out. I don't know if they had anything else, I didn't get that far. I was more interested in the tarp and the bridge.

Penn is looking cute. At least he didn't look ridiculous in this picture.

When I have Penn out and about, he doesn't deal well with footing changes (ie puddles, soft ground, water crossing). Working with the tarp and bridge really appealed to me because those are footing changes. (by the way, I didn't ride him over anything, we did in hand work)

I anticipated a fight, so I had the chain on his lead rope, ready to go, gloves, and a dressage whip. I started by reaffirming Penn's forward motion. I stop, he stops. I walk on, he walks on. He was a half beat late to coming with me, so I tapped him with the whip. Stop, walk. He started promptly moving off with me, so off we went to the bridge.

He sniffed it, touched it, then willingly stepped on it. Like a freaking dunce. So maybe we need to work on terrain changes, because he kept stabbing his toes into this poor plywood bridge. I was certain he was going to put a foot though it. He wasn't taking light steps either. He was like "BOOM BOOM BOOM" as he walked across it. He never said no to it, but he did go around a couple times. As soon as I got him straight, he went across, NBD. BTW we were walking across the length of it, not the short side like the above picture suggests. When we walked across the short side, he just stepped over the whole damn thing.

We moved on to the tarp, which he sniffed, pawed, and walked across, before trotting off of it. I brought him back around until he would walk off of it.

No reaction to the tarp.

We repeated both the bridge and tarp, then went off to have a  meh ride... One of the ladies was interested in seeing if her mare would walk over the bridge later in the day, so we ended up pulling all the stuff back out and a bunch of us had a grand old time playing with our horses and scary things.

Penn has zero excuses to be spooky. Zero.

• He walked across the tarp and bridge with zero concern.
• He let me: drag the tarp across the ground in front of him, roll/bunch it up and feed it over his back, take a bunch of pics of him standing by himself, and snap and wave the tarp in front of him.
• He also walked and trotted while wearing the tarp like a blanket, then didn't panic when he stepped on a low hanging part and it dragged off his rump.
• He let me put the tarp on his head and over his eyes.
• He let me take a hula hoop (that when shaken makes rattle noises), shake it next to him on both sides, over his back, over his head, and put it around his neck (that was a little concerning for him because he couldn't figure out how to get away from it once he started walking).
• He "dragged" the sled (I held it's rope by his face and walked him).

His ears stayed just like that as I dragged the tarp around and pushed it over him. Not even a flick.

I was so proud of him. He was either looking out the arena doors or standing there with his ears pointed to the side, head down (that was while I was waving and flapping the tarp in front of his face). He then proceeded to be looky in the wash stall. Sigh. I'm still proud of him


3. Ride Recaps (one trail, two arena)
Friday night, I got to trail ride with Hawk and a couple of the trail riding ladies at the barn. We did a short ride to the hay fields and back due to an impending thunderstorm that ended up missing us, but we still got sprinkled on. At least it didn't downpour on us! Penn was a gem and led the whole way on a long rein. I'm so glad we got to do something fun with everyone! Penn and I both needed to get out of the ring.

"Look! Hell isn't raining down over there."

I tried to replicate my lesson in my rides on Saturday and Monday, and Saturday was OK- I was able to ride without Penn having any tantrums. He met the bridle well, but wasn't connected enough in the canter- he was in almost-there-land. He was still looking to the outside too much.

Monday was bleh. No tantrums, so that's good, but now he's starting to giraffe and stare again. Like, really badly. Like, how on earth did I manage to qualify for championships bad. I actually pulled him up on Monday and growled at him because I was so frustrated. I didn't want to pressure him into anything, I didn't want to get handsy on him, but I didn't want to be a wall either. I eventually settled for a semi wall while tracking to the right- I opened my inside rein to make him look to the right, I pushed him to the outside rein, and gave him the mother of all half halts- varying from inside leg to outside rein and outside leg to outside rein. I kept each set of fingers working. I made him trot and canter like that. He finally connected and got some pushing power from behind. Definitely too low in the poll and too deep, but he was just so locked in the jaw and unfocused before that point. I was not a happy camper.


4. Spending All the Money I Don't Have
For some reason, I'm losing all control on my horse spending habits. I was so good for so long. Things just need to be purchased!

• Penn needed a good snaffle bridle. I didn't have a noseband that he could wear, so FFE bridle. I don't regret it. I love that bridle!
• Penn has suddenly started marking up his legs again- badly. He's missing dime sized clumps of hair from 3 out of 4 legs (in the exact same spot- right on the fetlock joint), and one of them was oozing nicely the other day. I'm back on the hunt for turnout boots. This time around, I'm not going to cheap route. I'm going the route I originally wanted to take- buy expensive XC boots. Except, I opted to buy the DSB version instead because it was slightly cheaper and I don't need the strike plate on the back of the tendon, I need it over the splint. I ordered the Majyk Equipe Infinity Series Sport/Dressage Boot from Riding Warehouse- they should be here Thursday. I found excellent reviews where you can actually see daylight through the pin holes in the inner foam. I'm really hoping Penn doesn't have a reaction to the hypoallergenic foam, and that the breath ability is just as described!
• I bought truck tires. $771. At least I'll get 3% back from my CC company. This had to happen before we drive the 8+ hours to championships. My truck's tires are not in shape for a trip like that. I figured I'd jump on it now because my trailer needs to be inspected, and the guy who does that is super reasonable in pricing when it comes to tire swapping/balancing/disposal. I may as well have both done at the same time!
• I really want the Fly Turtle for Penn. He is shredding his Mio Flysheet- there are so many holes in it. I'll certainly try to mend them, but I'm curious if Blanket-Monster-Penn will rip this one. It has a year guarantee... while that's only a year, it's a lot more time than the Mio flysheet lasted. The Mio lasted one night before it had holes.
• I want this Horze saddle pad, in Navy. I have it in silver- I got it when I ordered my new saddle. Unfortunately, my tack shop doesn't have it (where I could get a steep discount on it), and I'm not ready to shell out $47 plus shipping. I really like it- I love the square corner, the stitching, it fits under my saddle, and the grippy bits under the saddle. I'd like to put the navy one in the saddle pad rotation that seems to only be the black Dover dressage pad, very rarely my navy BOT pad (I haven't used that one in a month or more- I should sell it), and the silver version that I usually use for lessons only. It makes me want the white version for shows too. #allthecolors #exceptpink
• Oh yea, Penn's insurance is due in August. But first I need to figure out a new value for him, because it's not his purchase price anymore.

Want, want, want. There are very few needs in that list (bridle to ride horse in, boots to prevent horse from laming himself, truck tires to make sure I don't kill horse and myself while hauling, insurance on said horse because he's young and getting fancy and I couldn't even hope to replace him).

Kitty snuggles.

5. Felix
Felix continues to be cute AF. He prances like a cartoon pony. He carries toys around in his mouth, while prancing. He particularly likes toys with tails- he holds it by the tail and jiggles the rest of the toy in front of him as he fancy prances. He is a cuddly love bug and Sophie has finally allowed him to snuggle with her. Penny doesn't hiss at him any more, and she's even gotten in on the run and chase games he and Sophie play. She even tolerated him sitting next to her.

Tolerance at it's best.
"Do you see what I have to put up with?"
Penny was also miffed because Sophie was in the top  shelf of the cat tree, which is Penny's, and was disinclined to move.

Sophie and Felix are going to be snuggle buddies for a long time.

I was going to put last night's lesson on here, except it was fabulous and needs its own post!

Meet Felix!

I said last week that we have been casually looking for a third cat. We're happy with our two girls, but the house was nice an full before we lost Nickels. My husband said it had to be a male (to even out the genders in the house, bah! I wanted another calico girl to confuse with the other two, but I lost on that front). I wanted it to be another Manx mix. I love the wiggly tails!

Felix loves the big cat tree! Husband hand made it for Nickels when Nickels was a wee hell raising kitten.

I put out a feeler with the shelter group that we got Penny from- no hurry, but when you have a manx come through, let us know. Well they got back to me much faster than I anticipated. I thought we had a few months, but they got a brother and sister within weeks.

Side note: Please donate what you can to shelters. We met and adopted Penny through Petsmart- the Petsmarts in our area partner with local shelters to help adopt cats. Penny had been fostered and then sent to Petsmart for exposure to be adopted. This time around, the kittens had been fostered and then placed with the shelter to be adopted. This shelter needs all the help they can get- they have very limited space (that really isn't all that pretty) for both dogs and cats, and it looks like they could use things like organizational systems, more volunteers, and better building. Unfortunately, they're over an hour from me so I can't go volunteer, but I do donate to them through Amazon Smile (my parents do too!). I can't do anything about the shelter space, but I can send food and items like fans up- they are close enough to the barn that I could go on a Saturday to drop things off. Anyway, I went back to this group because they do good work in getting animals in foster homes before adopting them out- Penny was far better adjusted to house life and living with humans than Nickels was (and he came from a pretty ritzy shelter).

We went up the shelter and met the little boy kitten last Friday- he was a bit timid, but willing to be snuggled and purred up a storm. The shelter was loud (dogs barking) with no real quiet meeting area, so we thought he was probably just overwhelmed by going from house to loud shelter and having strangers take care of him, etc.

Arrangements were made for us to pick him up from a local Petsmart on Tuesday- Husband was going to cut it really close if he had to drive to the shelter before closing time. I couldn't make it to the shelter at all, so they opted to drop him off with some other kittens so we would have a little more flexibility with the timing.

We got a couple new things for him- his information card said that he liked kitty hammocks for sleeping, and don't you know it, right in front of his cage was a scratching post/hammock combo for $26 (which I then got another $2 off because of adoption coupons!). A new tag, a collar, and his own brand new catnip carrot toy (we have a very chewed banana and pepper- they're canvas toys filled with catnip that hold up well to excessive biting, scratching, and licking- seriously, the pepper is stained because Penny licked it to the point of soppyness).

We kitten proofed the spare bedroom and put a screen door in the place of the real door. We used this method to introduce Penny and Nickels- Nickels wanted to kill her and it let them sniff and exchange smells without any danger to Penny.

'Sploring!

Felix was super timid and scared when we finally let him out of the cat carrier. Husband and I had to sit very quietly on the twin beds in the room before he'd come out from behind the curtains or out from under the bed. He'd hide immediately if one of us moved or talked. The girls didn't help much either- Sophie wants to kill him and Penny just tags along.

Passive watcher behind, aggressive hunter up front.

Both girls came right up to the door- Sophie started her mountain lion growl and hissing. Penny was being super polite until that point. Though it was hilarious- Sophie is growling and hissing at Felix, and Penny turned and growled at hissed at Sophie!

Just before his leap onto the giant plush bear! I missed it! He landed in the bear and it just enveloped him, haha.

I pulled out a favorite feathery toy to help encourage him to be braver about the space, and he was all over it.

When the girls lost interest in him, he finally went over to the door to have a better look around.

Which he then climbed.

Husband hooked up an extra back up camera to our security system so we could keep an eye on Felix while we're at work. Originally it was going to look in the door so we could see any harassment that was happening, but it just didn't work out. Instead I had an excellent view of Felix sleeping in the cat tree all day Wednesday.

I'm hoping the wall doesn't back up!

I caught him snuggling the bear!

He's coming around and losing his shyness- he wanted some hugs Wednesday morning before we went to work. He's quite chatty too. If he wants anything, mew mew mew mew! He's excellent about keeping his claws to himself too. I've found that cats that spend extra time with mom are MUCH better about this kind of thing (they just don't learn it from human moms). Penny and Felix did, and they seem very respectful. I'm fairly sure Sophie did too because I picked her up off the street, so that was probably self weaning instead of human intervention. Nickels didn't go to a foster home and was without his mom by 9-10 weeks old. He clawed us up like hell.

Anyway, Felix is becoming a purring love bug! He's not afraid of me and Husband anymore, and is slowly gaining confidence. He explored the house Wednesday evening - without me locking up the girls. Sophie is still growling up a storm, but it seems to be an, "I'm in charge here" type thing that she reminds him of every five seconds, not an actual "I'm gonna eat you!" type. Penny just oversees it all and reminds everyone that while they may be a little princess and prince, she's the Queen!

Sharing space! 

So much cuteness!