#pets – Pet Momma

Hector Goes to the Vet

It’s been too long since Hector has had a check up. I’ve known this for a while, but have hesitated for various reasons, my Avian vet is an hour away, the mobile vet I found is super expensive, she seems fine and healthy, I don’t want to put her through the stress of a vet visit, etc.

With having two foster birds in the last few months, it made me think about the fact that Hector isn’t getting any younger. In fact, she’ll be 32 in January.

When I met the adoptive parents for the last cockatoo I had, they mentioned an Avian vet that is only 20 minutes from me. I decided it was time Hector had a check up. After having that thought, I also started realizing that Hector was drinking a bit more than usual.

I called the new vet earlier this week, and they were able to get me in this morning. The vet was awesome! I am shocked at how well behaved Hector was for him. Hector steps up for me, when she feels like it. She lets me scratch her head, when she feels like it. Today she just did whatever that vet asked of her like it was nothing. It was almost like she realized there was no point in fighting this guy. He was going to do what he wanted, and she should just cooperate. I half expected the poor vet to end up with bloody fingers, but no, Hector was an angel.

The vet said she looked great from the visual exam, but birds are good at hiding things. Considering how long it had been since she had a check up (about 10 years) we decided to do blood work, and a urinalysis. The vet said they usually have to do a mild tranquilizer to do the blood draw, but Hector was perfect for that as well and didn’t have to be sedated!

It turns out the Bird Street Bistro food that I’ve been feeding might not be the best base food for Hector now that she is getting older. The vet wants to wait until we get all the test results back, and then he will give me more specific diet feedback. As she is getting older, less grains and pastas is probably going to be a healthier choice for Hector. She’s not going to be happy about that!

Books say captive grays average life expectancy is about 50 years, but I’ve always found that a bit hard to believe in my personal experience. I asked this vet what he thought about average life expectancy for greys. The first thing he asked me was if I knew about Dr. Pepperberg and Alex the parrot and if I had read her book, which I have. He reminded me that Alex had the very best of care all his life, and he lived to be 34. He said in his experience anything beyond the 30s is rare. He said a 40 year old African Grey is like a 90 year old man. It happens, but it’s not the most common thing. I’m having a really hard time processing that thought.

I’ll update when I get test results.

The Hardest Part of Fostering…

I think any foster parent would agree that the hardest part of fostering is saying good bye!

The house is really quiet today. The extra cage has been cleaned and moved to the garage to be returned to the shelter. Spare toys and perches are drying on a towel after being cleaned.

On Saturday, I brought Magoo back to the shelter to go home with his new parents. They seem like lovely people, and Magoo really seemed to like them. I was able to meet them and introduce them to Magoo a couple of weeks ago. I miss his little baby voice yelling “hello” and “Scratch Head!” but I do feel like I did the right thing letting him go.

We like to travel, and we are very lucky that Hector D. Byrd does OK with alone time. She enjoys our company, no doubt about that, but she is also fine with daily visits and background music when we go away for a few days. With Magoo already being nervous and plucking, us traveling isn’t great for him. His new home has people that are home a lot and other birds to keep him company.

Another reason I feel good about him moving on, I didn’t realize until his new people picked him up. Apparently, he stepped right up for the new people, and he never really wanted to step up for me. He liked me, he let me pat his head, but I realized when I saw him with his new people, that he hadn’t chosen me. Birds are really picky, and they know who they like.

When the new people came to meet Magoo, he really liked them. He talked to them, he had them scratch his head, and he even kept yelling “Bye Bye” when they left.

I really enjoy fostering. I get to know different animals, and I get to help them acclimate to home life. It frees up shelter space for another animal in need. With Magoo being adopted, I’ve got room for another foster whenever the right new friend comes along! I miss you already Magoo, but I’m so happy that you seem to have found new people to spend the rest of your life with!

One other note, parrot food related. I have talked about Bird Street Bistro, a food I use daily and love. The people that adopted Magoo introduced me to a new parrot food that I’m really excited about called Avian Naturals. They make several different mixes, some can just be fed straight from the bag, others you add an equal amount of hot water, let it sit, and feed when it cools a bit. The thing I love about these mixes is that they are full of dried veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds. Bird Street Bistro is awesome, but it is very grain-heavy. I always supplement it with other fruits and veggies. My plan now is to use both of these foods, so that Hector gets a nice balanced mix of fruits and veggies instead of me just feeding her whatever we have. Avian Naturals has great deals on their samples. You can order 1/4 baggies of their mixes to try out. I ordered four of their mix with water blends, and 4 of the just feed it straight blends. So far Hector’s favorite is the “Comet’s Grain Free Mix” which is one of the mixes that is fed directly, and it is full of bits of nuts, veggies, fruits, and seeds. It’s a perfect addition to her normal Bird Street Bistro mix.

I usually feed Hector in the morning, then she has free choice pellets always available, and she gets bites of any fruits and veggies that I’m eating or cooking with throughout the day. The mix with water blend from Avian Naturals feels like it could be a great afternoon snack since I can just mix up a tablespoon of it anytime and give Hector a nice, warm treat!

What do you feed your pet birds? I’m always interested in trying new things!

Foster Return & Cali Update

Sadly, I had to return the foster bird on Monday. When I was home alone, he was lovely. He was sweet and fun. We danced together, he loved his toys and his treats. He called to me in his sweet little voice when I was out of sight, “hey, hi, hey baby.”

Sadly, Monster bird showed up whenever anyone else dared to come in the house. The screaming was horrific whenever my husband or niece were around. He even flew at my niece and landed on her, scary! Having my husband feed him treats didn’t seem to help at all. He would take the treats, some times he would try to bite the hand that fed him, and he still screamed.

I miss the morning dance parties, and that sweet little voice, but the screaming was making our house a very stressful place to be!

Hector D. Byrd was not the least bit interested in her foster friend. They barely looked at each other in the weeks K was here. Hector is very happy to once again rule the roost!

——————

Cali is doing OK. I tried to wean her off the pain meds, but it was clear that she still needs them. Another laser treatment today, hopefully it continues to help.

It has been a real challenge to find a kidney-friendly food that Cali will eat. I’ve probably gone through half a dozen of them. She eats for a couple of days, I order more of the expensive prescription food, and then she stops eating it.

Thankfully, she has been eating Dr. Harvey’s food pretty well for a couple of weeks now. I’m working with them to customize some kidney friendly food for her. They make an easy to use dry mix that just requires fresh protein, water and oil. Dr. Harvey’s even offers an amazing, free service to help customize their diets. They have a nutritionist on staff who called me to help me work out the healthiest diet for Cali. She even had me send in a copy of Cali’s blood test results so she could see everything that was going on with her.

Cali is eating the Canine Health formula and they are sending me a trial of their Paradigm food as well. The plan is to very slowly add some of the Paradigm to the Canine Health formula to see if we can get my picky eater to accept it. The food is super easy to use. Cali’s recipe is 2.5 oz of protein per day. I froze a bunch of different types of protein, chicken, ground turkey, ground pork, in 2.5 oz portions so I can just grab a protein from the freezer, steam it while the dry mix sits with warm water in it, add the protein and feed half to Cali for each of her meals.

Dr. Harvey’s also makes a Kidney supplement that I’m adding to Cali’s meals on the recommendation of their dietician.

From Cali’s blood work the dietician also noticed her blood sugar was a bit high, so she suggested I stop feeding Cali carrots as treats, and adding the vegetable-heavy Paradigm food to the Canine Health formula should help as well. I thought with her kidney issues I was doing a good thing with carrots, but they are too starchy. I even got advice on the best ways to give Cali her pills since commercial pill pockets I had been using also have a bunch of protein. Now I’m trying little bread balls to hide her pills, and baby food green beans and broccoli that don’t have protein or high starch. With a little luck all this healthy food will help, and it may even help the allergies Cali has always had!

Today’s Treat!

Cali is doing OK. She is slowly learning to get around a bit better, but I still have to carry her around a lot. I’m not letting her do stairs at all, so lots of carrying her in and out when she needs to go outside. The pen above is her night time set up for now. That’s in our bedroom, so she gets to stay close, but I don’t have to worry about her attempting stairs in the middle of the night. So far it is working out really well.

The Treat Planet goodies have been a life saver with Cali being hurt. The other night we were all in the living room and she was a bit restless so I pulled out a giant treat for her.

This was the Etta Says Mega Chew, Elk recipe. It’s huge! It’s about an inch around, and about 14″ long. It must smell really good to all meat eaters, because not only does Cali love it, but I’ve seen the cats chewing on it! This has been another great, long lasting chew. Cali worked on it for a couple of hours the other night and didn’t even chew up a quarter of it. Keep in mind, Cali is a 10 lb dog, so I’m guessing a bigger dog would go through it faster, but they do last. I love that Treat Planet is very careful about getting quality ingredients. Everything comes from the United States. I read that the elk is sourced from Texas.

I also read that Treat Planet has partnered with Goodwill Industries since 2010:

“Everyday, a dedicated team of adults with intellectual and /or physical disabilities, work to label our extensive chew line with the support of a supervisory team.

At Treat Planet, we’re proud to partner with our community and continually seek new ways to make a helpful impact.”

Cali was so excited when I gave her this chew. She sniffed it and then looked at me like, she just couldn’t believe her good luck! Once I told her it was OK for her to have it, she wasted no time at all getting to work on it.

Bean was also very interested in this chew and worked on it for a few minutes when Cali put it down! As with the other Etta Says chews I’ve tried, there haven’t been any stains on the carpet which I love!

I had to go out for a couple of hours this morning, so Cali got an Etta Says Chicken Yumm stick. This one smelled so good! These treats have no additives, they are all natural chicken, no hormones, no nitrates or nitrites, no MSG, and they are soy and gluten free. They really smell like something human-grade.

Cali has been hanging out in the little house above quite a bit since she got hurt. I had put the treat down just in front of the house, and she grabbed it before I could even pick up my phone for a picture.

As the cats smelled the treat and came to check it out, Cali managed to stand herself up to growl at them and explain it was her treat. When I got home, this treat was gone!

This morning I spent a couple of hours volunteering at a local shelter. Such nice people! I loved spending a couple of hours there with all the other animal lovers. I probably won’t foster again for a while , so it’s another way to help out and get some more animal time.

Does anyone else do any volunteer work with animals? What do you like to do? Share in the comments.

Happy Hatch Day Hector D. Byrd!

Busy day today! Picked up Skye the foster dog to bring her to an adoption event this morning. She was such a good girl! Lots of people really seemed to like her. Hoping she met her forever family today!

Hector D. Byrd is celebrating her 31st birthday today! She’s happily whistling away. She enjoyed making lots of fire alarm noises earlier today when my husband was checking batteries in the fire detectors! Tonight she will celebrate with a nice, fresh, birdie omelette!

http://Www.TreatPlanet.com sent me a lovely sample bag of treats to check out. Looking forward to sharing more info on their products soon! Cali is already going crazy just smelling the bag. I wonder what her favorite will be! Does anyone have a favorite Treat Planet treat, let me know!

Foster and Logan Update

I’m worried about my kitty. Logan had bloodwork done earlier this week because of her starting on Bexacat. Her blood sugar was remarkably better after just three days on this med, but there were some other numbers the vet was a little concerned about. For now we are continuing the med and doing more blood work on Monday. Logan isn’t eating very well since she started the medication, so I’m a bit concerned about that. We will find out more on Monday or Tuesday.

Foster dog Skye is really a dream foster. This puppy is so good! She loves to go on walks, but can also calmly chill. She is content as long as she is by my side. She’s currently sleeping in her little pen right next to me.

Unfortunately, there is something about this dog that is totally freaking out my cats. The cats have not ventured far from the underneath of my bed since she got here. She hasn’t chased them or barked at them, but there is something about her that has them really shaken up. I was hoping that they would come around, but it has been several days with no change. I’m looking for a new foster for Skye, or I’ll have to take her back to the shelter tonight. Sunday, I’ll take her to an adoption event, hopefully her new forever family will be looking for her there.

The good news is that other than the cats, fostering has been a great experience. She’s been super easy to take care of, and even my husband is willing to try fostering again. My cats aren’t usually wary of dogs. My Dad’s dogs come over pretty regularly and they don’t care, so I’m hoping fostering might be more successful in the future.

Happy New Year!

Lots of updates coming in later this week!

Cali got a new treat. It’s from Treat Planet. I hadn’t heard of this brand before, and the treat was literally an impulse purchase at my local pet store yesterday. I had no idea it would be such a huge hit! I got the Etta Says Crunchy Chicken and Chia chew bar. I’ll write up more about it later this week.

Today is a big day for Logan the cat. I start navigating her diabetes journey. She was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been waiting for test results to confirm and then making a treatment plan. We’ve decided to try a new Medicine called Bexacat. It’s an insulin-free treatment option. I picked up the medicine yesterday and will start the first dose today. Logan will need to have blood work done on Tuesday to make sure things are going OK. I’m finding it’s an interesting an involved path dealing with a diabetic cat. I’ll be sharing it all here and would love comments, questions and feedback from anyone else dealing with a diabetic cat. More on that later this week as well.

Bean and Puck

Bean and Puck enjoyed the holidays, and now they have been taste-testing a new creamy cat treat for me from Catit. This is another treat that seems to be a big hit in our house right now. More on that soon!

Wena the bearded dragon LOVES our new kitchen sink. Not sure if it is the color, size, material, whatever, but she is so happy bathing in it. She’s been pretty picky about her food lately, but I found a trick online that suggested baby food veggies for picky dragons, and it is working well. She had some purple carrot baby food with her breakfast today.

Cali isn’t a big fan of the cold. She’s spending as much time as she can snuggled up in blankets.

She also really likes the new candy cane pajamas she got for Christmas! Because I seem to have more than my share of pet issues these days, have I shared about Cali’s bump? She has a growth on her neck that the vet says is benign and nothing more than an annoyance, but it’s growing. It’s about the size of a dime and raised off her skin. She tends to scratch at it at times, and there is concern that eventually she will end up with an infection. We have tried to freeze it off twice, but it didn’t help. Surgery is the only removal option now, and I’m not sure I want to put my 14 year old dog with a heart murmur and kidney issues through surgery even if it is minor. For now, I’m keeping an eye on the lump and hoping it doesn’t get worse.

Thankfully Hector D. Byrd is thriving. She’s really my buddy. Someone would think I’m crazy listening to my house all day. Working at home, I find myself constantly chatting with her. She’s such great company!

Check back for all kinds of updates soon, and have a great weekend!

Super Quick Update

Bean and Cali went to the vet today. Bean for his annual check up. He’s all good, weighed in at his almost 16 lbs, and got his rabies shot.

Cali got her Cytopoint injection to help with her itchiness.

Mostly we talked about Logan. We’ve decided to try her on medication to try and help her anxiety. I don’t love the idea of medicating, but I hate the idea of having our couch peed on all the time even more.

We’ll start her on meds next week after my weekend trip when I’m home to monitor her for a while. Fingers crossed it helps!

Anyone else have cats with litter box issues? How did you solve it? Leave a comment.

Logan and Hector

Poor Logan is back in quarantine. If you read the post from a couple of weeks ago, you already know we thought she had some kind of urinary/bladder infection and treated it, but apparently there is something else going on.

After the “Sh*t Show” I’ve been cleaning up the aftermath, and making sure the Catlink boxes are working properly, but two days ago I found fresh urine by the fireplace. With three cats in the house (Marty moved with my son), I had to do a little detective work to make sure I had the right cat. Since Logan had recently been ill, I guessed it was her, and moved her to a nice big bathroom on her own. No more accidents in the house, so it was time to call the vet again.

Last time they told me bladder stones were very unlikely for whatever reason, but since the antibiotics didn’t completely clear up whatever Logan has going on, they think that might be the problem. Monday morning she’ll go back to the vet for an abdominal X-ray to see if we can figure this out. I’m hoping it isn’t anything too serious. Logan isn’t super old, but she is almost 1`5. For now, she is enjoying a break from the boy cats, eating and drinking well, and she seems to be acting fine. I’ll update after the vet on Monday.

Puck loves his heating pad in the colder weather, actually all year round!

I wish I could share the info on this pad because I love it, but I can’t find it on Amazon anymore. This particular pad stays safely plugged in all the time. It turns itself on with pressure, so when a pet climbs on, it heats up, and when it isn’t being used, it shuts down. It’s auto controlled not to overheat, it gets warm, but not hot. I’ll keep looking for something like it and post if/when I find one.

In Hector news, she took a bath this morning! I’ve posted about Hector hating baths before, so just wanted to update. I think I mentioned the green litter box that Hector has decided is OK for bathing in. She has a great bath routine now. About once a week, I fill her box with warm water and put it on top of her cage.

She doesn’t always touch it right away, and she didn’t use it at all yesterday, but this morning she decided it was bath time. She climbs in her box and splashes around, then chirps happily and I know it is time to go spray her. I have a fine mist spray bottle that I fill with warm water, then I stand there and spray her while she plays in the water, until my hands get sore, then I spray her some more!

She flaps her wings, dips her belly, and dunks her head in the water. It makes me so happy to see her enjoy a bath! It has been a very long road with lots of trial and error to find a bath system she likes!

Have a great weekend!

Life’s a Sh*t Show

It’s Puck!

Where to start… I’ve been traveling. We headed to Italy to visit my daughter. Absolutely amazing trip, but of course had to deal with the hassle of pet care while I was away. Cali to a friend, and a pet sitter to the house.

I still love my Catlink automatic litter boxes, but learning to live with them is definitely a learning experience, traveling definitely added to the learning curve.

Cali got to walk our local dog-friendly mall!

A friend took Cali for me, so that was easy. I prep her food in individual containers to make it super easy, no measuring! Just add a little water and Cali is fed.

The rest of the crew, Hector, cats, and dragon, stayed home to be checked on daily by a pet sitter. As usual, very detailed instructions were left, but I hadn’t traveled since we got the new automatic litter boxes. I figured it would be super easy! I taught the pet sitter how to change the bags in the bottom every few days and I figured all was good. I even left extra litter in case the boxes ran low. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about power outages because we have a generator, but there are still short power outages as the electricity goes out and the generator comes on.

The problem is that the new litter boxes are pretty picky about the power supply, and with the power flickers we had from a storm, the litter box goes went into some kind of LaLa land and didn’t auto clean.

Well, we came back from being away and found both of the automatic litter boxes had not been cleaning themselves. The poor cats clearly tried to use the dirty boxes, but picked our living room as their new “Box” when they couldn’t stand the mess anymore. They made a lovely poop circle all around the living room rug. Thankfully, they mostly peed in the boxes, but there were a couple of spots that I’m still trying to remove the smell.

I had to figure out why the boxes weren’t automatically cleaning anymore, and customer service at CatLink was excellent. I used their chat feature in the CatLink App and someone helped me right away. They emailed me directions on recalibrating the boxes which took a couple of tries, but now they are working perfectly again.

Lesson learned. We bought battery back-ups for both litter boxes to help eliminate the power flickers. I’ll also leave better notes for the pet sitter about checking and cleaning the “automatic” boxes if necessary.