Nebelungs love TiVo Remotes

Not sure what it is, but when Sara saw the TiVo remote she beelined for it. Reminded me a certain fluffy Mancat that lives in the house that has a TiVo remote obsession.

Goodness Jack is Handsome

Yes, Yes I am.. 

The post about Jack

What can I say about my boy. Jack came to me in a litter of four kittens in 2002, and it was the third litter I fostered. One of the four got very ill and was put down rather soon after I brought them home. I think back then they had so many kittens coming at them all at once they just took four that were of the same general age and put them all together. I don't know that, but looking back it seems very possible.

Because of the early loss, I feel in love with them rather quickly and rather deeply, but wee baby boy Jack (known then as Houdini and for good reason) quickly stole my heart, right out through my ear lobe. That boy was OBSESSED over nursing on my ear lobe. I still ache to this day that he outgrew that. I know it isn't all that acceptable, but it was so endearing.

I had made my husband a promise when I started fostering that I wouldn't keep any of the kittens I fostered (feel free to laugh at both of us) but when Jack came along I was totally distraught at the prospect of sending him back. I had two cats at the time, Em and Ollie, and we really were foolish to bring another cat into the house full time, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I was home crying that night after returning them, and my husband pretty much said if you are going to cry over him, you might as well go get him. I FLEW down to the shelter the next morning and snatched him right up.

I was unemployed at the time, and as a result where ever I went that I could bring him, I brought Jack with me. He learned to love riding in the car, and he loved his harness, because it meant spending time with me. He would often go and sit by the door and ask that we go somewhere together, and I could never resist him. Sometimes we would go to the local ice cream shop and get him an ice cream. Weren't we a spectacle, how often do you see a cat getting an ice cream?!? Once I got a job, I wasn't able to take him out as much, and he lost some of the confidence he had in new places, but he still doesn't mind riding in the car and he still overflows with confidence in the house and constantly asks anyone who shows up if they might have a smackerel or two of honey treat for a roly poly kitteh.. (he is not fat, he's fluffy, and he has a big dulap)

A few years ago I was watching a TV show about different breeds of cats, and on that program the highlighted the Nebelung. I was looking at cats that looked exactly like Jack. Every Nebelung I have seen looks amazingly similar, and they all have that wonderful outgoing friendly personalities. I have since started calling Jack a Nebelung, and part of me wonders if I will avoid adopting any others once he passes, or if I am going to form a Nebelung rescue and have 100 of them.

Jack has had way too many health scares for my liking. First was he was exposed to FeLV and ended up testing positive back when I used to let my resident cats mingle with my fosters. He tested positive twice over six weeks apart and I then started supplementing him on Vitamin C.  A year or so later he ended up testing negative.  When he was a young cat, he ended up being blocked after developing urinary crystals. I had one cat who was diabetic, and Eli had also recently blocked, and I was determined to make sure everyone else was healthy, so I bought them 'premium' dry food. It had all the right key buzz words, and it felt like I was doing the right thing for him and my other cats (the word truthiness pops to mind at this point) Well he blocked, and then he blocked again and I was told he had a very narrow urethra. After his second blockage is when I started my crusade to figure out what I could do, and when I learned how snowed over the general population is when it comes to feline nutrition. Unfortunately Jack is a wee bit (OK fine, a lot) food obsessed, and he is willing to eat just about anything he can get his paws on... and sometimes he bypasses his paws and goes right for the gobble.

Since becoming blocked as a young mancat, he has blocked a few other times, mostly when I am not careful and he gets into too many treats with plant based ingredients (which are currently banned from the house) or I don't put the dry food I bring home for the kittens away fast enough and he chews through the bag and eats till he gets sick. The most recent time he blocked was when I was visiting Amy and Lisa, and I was absolutely beside myself.

And I think we have a reason for that.

Due to my not being comfortable going back to my original vet, I have been shopping Jack around for the past few months / years with his urinary issue. I now have a list a mile long of vets I will not go to *sigh* and I had been attempting to help him myself and doing a very poor job of it. I finally broke down and tried 'one more' vet. There were a few that I was considering, most were more than 30 minutes away from my home. While Jack doesn't mind the car, most of my other cats do. A new clinic opened recently just a few hundred feet away from where my original vet (who took care of the cat I grew up with) and by a vet who used to work with a woman I used to work with who said (back then anyway) that he was very nice. So when Jack peed on the floor one too many times that week, I called them and asked to be seen. They squeezed me in - since it was a urinary issue in a male cat.  He tested normal once again - no obvious reason why he was peeing, and I suggested we do blood work to look at liver and kidney values - because I still believe and I always will that those treats I gave him harmed him - and the vet suggested we run a comprehensive panel - aka old kitty blood work.  Since cats are considered old at 8, and he is 12, I thought it a good idea.

Well his thyroid level came back at 5.4 (out of a 0.8 - 4.9 range) so we started him on thyroid medication. Originally we started him out at 2.5mg BID and in two weeks he tested at 0.8.  The 'other' vet at the clinic that called with the results said he was 'right where we wanted him to be' and I asked three different ways if I shouldn't be worried about him going too low, because we were told to test in 2-3 weeks so I assumed it hadn't fully settled yet, and each way I formed the question her answer was 'he is right in that range' and I was none too happy, especially since she completely avoided my concerns, and about ready to find a new vet, but I had scheduled an appointment with Muffin (perfect), Eli (perfect) and Fleurp (still dealing with anemia), and I decided to keep it and ended up having a nice discussion with the vet I had intended to have treat my cats anyway.

So truth be told, he should be around '2.something' not 0.8  After consulting on the yahoo thyroid board and reading more on thyroid, I took a day off of giving him the pills and lowered his dose to 1.25 BID. Since he really wasn't showing signs of being hyperthyroid other than the peeing (which oddly enough is actually a symptom - hence my 'unnecessary vet visit' post from Monday) it is very hard to tell if he is doing better with this new dose or not. The vet I intend to have as my primary vet agrees with my decision.  I am not overly pleased with this vet, but he is someone I can work with, and that is very valuable to me.

I am currently in the process of working up the courage to contact yet another vet to discuss doing the I-131 radioactive iodine treatment.  I am way too introverted and way too phone phobic to enjoy doing this, but I will get it done for my boy. Part of me, a very large part, wants to put off treatment until the end of October when I am going to be out of town at BarkWorld so I don't have to stress over him being stressed over my being gone, but we will have the discussion sooner than that and see what they think is best.

#howIwakeup is a regular feature on my instagram account

I do not know what the future will bring for my boy, but I do know that he will lay on my pillow each morning he can and lick my nose, because that is now his thing.. (I still wish it was my earlobe)

Henry

vote for Fleurp

I have noticed that Henry has started doing a "flat Jack".. the nickname I give to the way Jack lays around the house as flat as possible and if his arms can be hanging over something it is all the better.  It makes me smile and laugh because Henry looks a lot like Jack - except Henry has stripes.  Yup, those are stripes up there not just tricks of the light.  He is really quite handsome, but I'm not quite sure I can call him a Nebelung with those stripes.  Oh heck, who really cares right?  So I shall call him a Nebelung! :)

He is quite a goofball.  Some kitties are serious and all important.. Henry is neither (not that he isn't important to me)  He's just a fun little ball of fluff that enjoys doing silly things.  I started wondering if he was going to be a goof back when I did that photobomb shot, and I didn't want to peg him as one if he wasn't.  But he has developed a fun goofy streak.

Meira

I often find myself at the end of a fostering situation with very few posted pictures of the foster mom.  Since Meira seems to have such a unique situation (needing a very unique diet) I thought I might try to find her a home through additional methods (anyone want a raw fed Nebelung??) and as such, making sure I got good photos of her will be important..   Cause this one just won't do..

OK, so lets see what we get..

Not bad, but couldn't have kept your mouth closed?

Probably not your best side

Now you look like an Elf..

not too bad, but there is a kitten butt showing..

Much better cropped..

Another fairly good shot..

So not bad :) Meira is so sweet, she wants attention, but she needs to be able to get to her kittens on a whim so she doesn't much like being 'held'.  If I gather her all up and snuggle her she lets me for a few moments before being asked to be put down (and then runs to sniff the kittens) so I bet she'll like it a lot more when they are older.  She loves to get kisses.  I can't wait to see her personality bloom when it isn't weighed down with the responsibility of motherhood..

That and once her fur grows back in.  The shelter did a clean up shave on her when she came in.. probably due to the diarrhea..

and she has the tiniest feet.. it ALMOST looks like her legs just stop at the floor because her toes only come out a wee little bit..

Meira

Meira is such a sweet sweet kitty.  She is really going to make someone an absolutely wonderful cat.. She reminds me of my own sweet Jack so much, I can't help but wonder if it is because they are both Nebelungs.. She is incredibly people orientated.  I forgot just how much since she has been taking care of her kittens so much, but now they are a bit older and she is leaving them a bit more it is coming back to me..

I've also learned something new about her recently.  She doesn't mind one iota if I hold the kittens.. she does get a little disturbed if they complain too loudly about being alone, but she tends to just groom the kittens around her.  However, she does object if I turn my back to the nest while I have a kitten in my hands.  I was checking over the kittens and I turned around to show my husband the little tortie, and Meira came over and grabbed the kitten from my hand and returned her to the nest.  I found it so odd as I hadn't made the connection about turning my back, but the next day I did something similar with the gray cat, and she did the same thing.  It was the first time I saw her move the kittens.  It is often disconcerting to watch a mother cat pick up her kittens, because they are not very graceful when they do it.  There is no set point they all grab.  Sometimes it is the neck, but often it is the head, or an arm..   I can see why someone who doesn't know what is happening to think the mom is trying to hurt the kitten..

Big news, and even bigger news..

Well I wrote to the shelter a few days ago and let them know my kitten fever was getting a little out of control.  Yesterday I got an email that I unfortunately picked up after the shelter had closed and found out that they had a pregnant cat for me. I went down this morning and picked her up.

She is VERY pregnant.. and VERY small.  and fairly underweight.  You can feel her spine, but not the spikes of a really emaciated spine, which is something.  She's also got some pretty horrific diarrhea going on.  and it takes a lot for me to say horrific.  Remember Bug?  Remember how she came back because it was leaking out of her?? Yea well we have that going on - but on a bigger scale cause she's a slightly bigger cat.

She also seems young.  If she is a year old I would be highly surprised.  She also seems to be fully versed in the ways of living with humans, because she understands the kissy noise to get attention, and the faked holding a treat to get her to come.  She also seems to have a good grasp of what catnip is and what it is for.  She didn't get to enjoy it as much as she might have because she is so darn uncomfortable with the diarrhea and the kittens dancing on the colon from the inside. She's is also painfully smart.  I had several conversations with her and she seemed to fully understand what I was saying.  Not to mention she seems embarrassed by her diarrhea and the condition of her rear end.  I had to reassure her each time she left my lap that she was welcome back and it was OK if she got some poop on me (I wore clothing that it was OK for her to do that with) oh, and btw, she's a lap kitty.. She also loves kisses on her head like Jack does.

So the bigger news?? She's a Nebelung!!  I so can't wait to see what she produces for kittens!!!  Since she looks so much like Jack, I was going to call her Jill, but my husband suggested that if she got out of the kitten room Jack might think the mirror kitty some how got out of the mirror, so we are calling her Meira. And while looking up the proper spelling, I realized it is Hebrew for "light"  Nebelung is German in origin and refers to "mist"or "fog"  I don't know why, but some how it just seems to go well together.

Sorta shows how wide her belly is

I'm not being replaced am I??

Oh you silly boy, You are the kitty of my heart, there is no one even remotely like you.. But I do hope that Meira's fur fills out and looks similar to yours while she is here.