The cat conundrum

So I have two wee little kitties, Max and Akaya. Akaya is going to be 12 soon, and as a member of the senior cat population, she has some health issues that I would really love to have solved. Mainly, this involves IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), or so the vet believes. It's impossible to know for sure without extremely invasive testing, which just seems unnecessarily cruel and, well, unnecessary. So I've chosen to treat the issue as if it is IBD. This has involved trial diets of specialty foods as well as medication, neither of which have been very fun.

This lack of fun is mainly because I have TWO cats and they're both whiny about food. Also, pilling a cat is never fun (saying "pilling a cat" is kind of fun, but not enough to make up for the actual deed). Because of the difficulty inherent in pilling a cat, I have finally put my mortar and pestle to use in crushing the pill, which is then mixed with some wet cat food (which I've pureed with some water to make it nice and soupy, just the way she likes it). Of course, one can't have wet food without the other getting whiny and shoving in, so Max has to have his own cat food (chunky with gravy, just the way he likes it). And when Akaya is done slurping up her wet food, she helps Max by licking the gravy off of the chicken chunks in his food. Ahhh, symbiosis. This will work well as long as Akaya doesn't spontaneously decide that she no longer likes the type of wet food that I am providing, which has already happened twice. Persnickity cat.

But now that Akaya is on a special-food-only diet, I'm having to separate their dry food as well. Akaya can't eat any of Max's food, and I don't want Max to eat Akaya's food since it's insanely expensive and he's got a big appetite (he's a growing cat after all, but mainly it's his spare tire that's doing the growing. And his fur - more on that in a bit). And naturally, Akaya would prefer to eat Max's food and Max would prefer to eat Akaya's food. I'm experimenting with feeding them in separate rooms and only leaving the food out as long as they eat their own food. They haven't eaten as much as they usually do, which is slightly worriesome as Akaya's weight recently dropped quite dramatically, and I'm hoping she'll put some back on. But hopefully they'll learn to eat the food that's given them.

As far as cat hair goes, hairball season is upon us. The cats are shedding all over the house. I think Max sheds his coat completely every night and regrows a new one before morning. I'm guessing he spends the majority of the night scampering around the house and depositing the spent cat hair on any available surface, because it multiplies faster than I can keep up with it. I'm definitely going to have to get better about combing him, because the layer of fur in the house and the hairballs on the floor are starting to get annoying. Perhaps instead of "Locks of Love" we can sponsor an organization for those poor little hairless cats and call it "Coats of Compassion" or something like that. Hey, it's an idea.