I wish I had my vet's amazing skill for weighing cats.  It takes several attempts to try to get an average, and guess which is one most accurate! 

( Stats, feeding habits, behavioral changes... )

Last weekend, we got a puzzle box for the cats.  While Sebastion rarely plays with it for our amusement, we've heard him playing with it at night, and often find the toys in the box have been removed during the day.

We thought it was just Sebastion playing with it, but it appears Sheba has also decided to get into the fun.

Long team sufferers readers of this journal and those who have spent time at our apartment know that Sebastion loves being in boxes. 

We have a large pile of them right now from M and I's recent deluge of online shopping.  Sebastion of course, has spent much time in this castle of cardboard.

But apparently, he's not the only one.

The scale finally got here today so I could weigh them in!

( Stats, eating habits, and behavorial changes. )

Now that the dust over the last few weeks has settled, I find myself with two fluffy and fat kitty cats.  Both have seen the vet very recently and have a clean bill of health, but the vet and I also agree that they should be slimmed down to pro-actively counter future health problems related to being overweight.  Further reading on my part (and veterinarian thumbs up) also convinced me to move my cats to a fully canned diet, for weight and other concerns.  I'm thinking about trying out a raw diet as well, but that will be further down the road.

I believe the canned/raw diets alone will handle a lot of the weight issues, and I'll also be adding in regular playtime--10+ minutes twice a day with a tassel toy.  I'll post updates weekly so those who care can watch their progress, and those who don't won't get spammed.

Cats are recommended to not lose more than 1-2% of their current (not ideal) weight per week, so I'm setting 1 year as our target time frame. 

( Current stats and diet. ...okay, so maybe it is turning into a cat blog... )

I've been pretty quiet lately, because my brain is all "cats, cats, cats, cats, cats". I'm not sure how this got turned into a cat blog, other than that's all I've had on my mind for the last month.

In short:

• Sheba has settled in nicely and is wandering the apartment now. She's still skittish and nervous, but is definitely getting more social with the family at a pace much more rapid than we expected. She still hisses at Sebastion sometimes, but they co-exist well. Once she's more settled, I think they are going to be great friends. She gets distressed when we close her in the bathroom now (usually because it's being used and her food/box are in there, and don't want her closed from it), which makes us think it may soon be time to move her stuff into the living room. She's displayed none of the "behavior problems" her previous owners described since moving in with us.

• Sebastion made his second trip, ever, to the vet yesterday. (The first time to get fixed.) He's overweight, which we knew--15.8 pounds! I think he weighed 12 or 13 back in his youth (he turns 10 next month). He may have weighed more two or three weeks ago, but Maddie's passing left him depressed and he doesn't eat much right now (less than half of what he used to). The vet is doing bloodwork and such, so we don't get the "clean bill of health" until later today, assuming they don't find anything concerning. He was also (re)vaccinated, because as I've learned more about cat health in the last few months, I'm not actually convinced he was vaccinated like I'd always assumed, nor can I prove it if he was. Better safe than sorry. Depending on how his bloodwork goes, she's thinking about putting him on the same "kitty valium" that Sheba is on right now to dull his depression and help him eat more.
• (Edit: Heard back from the vet.  All of Sebastion's levels look good!  Yay for one healthy, albeit, overweight, kitty.)

• Speaking of learning about cat health, my readings have convinced me to move my cats off kibble and over to canned foods. I'd rather like to try the raw diet as well, but one change at a time! Sheba was an easy switch and only eats canned now. We still give Sebastion a little bit of kibble for now (some calories are better than none). But we've finally found one brand and flavor of canned food he'll eat without coaxing or "tricks" (I tried many brands, many flavors, and many tricks). It is, of course, from the most expensive brand I've tried.  I talked to our vet about it to get her opinion, too, and she said she definitely prefers cats to have cats at least on some canned, if not all.

• We got back Madeline's ashes.

Okay, not so short.  But pending hearing back from the vet about any problems in Sebastion's bloodwork, all is well in Catland.

A record of what I've read this year.

Title/author/(medium)/date finished

Wild Ones v4 by Kiyo Fujiwara (manga) 1/1/2009
Wild Ones v5 by Kiyo Fujiwara (manga) 1/2/2009
The Gunslinger by Stephen King (audiobook) 1/8/2009
Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (novel) 2/2009
The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder (novel) 3/20/2009
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (novel) 3/29/09
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (novel) 4/2/09
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (novel) 4/18/2009