Followers of my cats will be glad to hear that Ursula, knock on wood, is doing a lot better. She's overcome her kidney infection and now just needs a couple of water shots a week. She's silky and active as ever, and has a better appetite than she's had for months if not years.
Ursula is cautious and doesn't like strangers, but it's nice to be one of her favorites. If she hears me on the floor exercising (attempting to stave off the 6 main injuries I periodically get from playing tennis), she will come up, purring and fluttering, rolling on the floor, bashing her head against my hand, leg, or head, etcetera. She also seems to really like it when I shave - perhaps the electric shaver sounds as if I'm purring.
She's remarkably astute about figuring out when I'm on the verge of grabbing her for a water shot. Turn your head for one second and she's gone. Luckily, she only has about 5 main hiding places. Once I get her, she simply issues a piteous mew and shrinks down, rather than fighting, but with her heart beating madly. There are no hard feelings afterwards, however.
Shadow, at age 18, is not doing so well as Ursula at age 7.
At this point he has diabetes, kidney disease, an ear infection, and either hyper- or hypo-thyroidism, each requiring extensive treatment that he bears in good spirit. He has little appetite or energy, and his litter box consistency has disastrously declined, but he still has one of the great temperaments I have ever known from an individual of any species. I fear we are in the endgame with him, and that is generally not pretty.
Daniel, new guy enjoying your blog, also a cat person. We had a situation with our cat Sammy analogous to yours with Shadow almost 20 years ago. It's difficult. Please don't take this in a bad way, but with Sammy I waited too long to have him put to sleep. I knew he was suffering, but put it out of my mind and he had an extremely bad final week until I took him to the vet, who correctly chewed me out for waiting too long. I've never really forgiven myself for this. It sounds like Shadow is quite a way from this, so I'm just suggesting when the final decision arrives, make it with his well being in mind. Best of luck.
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