Buddy Finds a Home

Buddy's Story   

What are we looking at?

 Buddy first came to our attention when he began showing up in our driveway. We fed strays outside, who it seems ended up inside eventually.

We thought he had a home and didn't pay much attention he would eat whatever the others didn't. He has always been a pushover at the food bowl. A real gentleman.

He was friendly, we did notice he didn't have any front claws, which we thought was a.) cruel, b.) not ideal for a cat to be outside.

He adopted the name "Buddy". We'd say, Hi, how're doing buddy when he would show up. And he decided it was his name.

Working his way into the house

We came home from work one night and found he had a deep hole like gash and fur missing on his neck, from someone/something. Without any front claws he had no way to defend himself. Rushed him to the Vet for cleaning and repair.

He became a house cat. 2008

With Baby Grayce 2014 

He’s our Greeter:  Rusty is our watchcat- if he sees anyone coming up the walk, he growls and runs to the other side of the house to hide.  Buddy is right there, saying Hi, come on in.  I like people.  

With Baby Rusty 2014

It's my bed, I made it..  2014 

You know what else I like.  

Christmas, so much fun.  

Xmas 2015  

Love the boxes, the stuff, not so much.  2016

                     

Cautious Update

After a week and a half of the new diet experiment, he’s been having fewer splats, more contained and some normal.  He did throw up for the first time in 2½ months, but that was because he got into some mashed potatoes and they didn’t agree with him.  Nix that forever.  Those who have the mashed potatoes work for their ill cats, I applaud you.  We tried and it’s been a failure. There are only so many options and we are keeping our fingers crossed as we continue this regime.

The photos are from a homage we are trying to put together on Buddy.  We are finding that we have a lot of photos missing from 2008 to 2013.  We have some printed copies, but not scanned and even those are sparse. 

TIP:  If you have family that you take for granted, remember they aren't forever.  Make sure you have photos and other reminders for your memory box and label them.  You won't remember when you need to down the road.  

Buddy's Life-Getting Old is....

Buddy Sickness

If you are familiar with our blog you know that we have an older and ill cat.

We have been quiet on this end as we are dealing with Buddy's illness. 

He was better for a while, even gained some weight.

He was playing and even running around.

But things have gone downhill in a hand-basket rather quickly.  We aren't able to contain the diarrhea, got the vomiting under control and gone, BUT. 

He's continued to drink and stay hydrated, giving him homemade pedialite, chicken soup, water and water.   He's continued to lose weight and pumpkin and other remedies are not doing it. He's 15 and it appears it's his time soon. 

Buddy with Baby in 2014 she was 6 months old.

You can get a sense of how big he was in the photo.  That’s him with Baby when she was six months old in 2014.  At most she's 7 pounds.  He’s never really been a lap cat, but boy can he purr… sitting next to you.

He's always been a huge cat, has pretty blue eyes, even though they are crossed, he's been agile over the years. Not so now that he's dwindled away. 

He’s hanging on, and the constant diarrhea is slowly turning into smaller, less runny splats. BUT still splatty.

Changing the diet to deal with this

Thank goodness the vomiting stopped. His appetite is good and we’ve beefed it up with food that has grains in it mixing the wet and dry foods into a mush for him.  We leave dry food, but he ignores it until we wet it. Hence the mix of wet and dry mush. We tried the chicken with rice, the chicken with mashed potatoes, no go on either. Tried just plain canned chicken, cooked pieces of chicken breast.  Nada!

The vexing part of this is that it alternates from a good to splatty all in one day.  We can’t get a handle on what is working.

We’re seeing some improvement in the splats with the grain food and canned food.  We’re trying not to get too optimistic and too hopeful.  Because we’ve been down this road before with him.  So roller coastery –probably not a word-but it describes the emotional toll of the ordeal.

No more grain-free for him, the others have problems with the dyes, so they are still on grain-free and are okay.  I, Grayce and Rusty used to throw up the food with red dyes all the time. 

The pumpkin worked for a while, the antibiotic, unfortunately killed all the good flora and can’t be used much and it didn’t do anything anyway.  He won’t take yogurt or yogurt drinks to counteract the antibiotic damage. Tommy who had chronic impacted bowels was easy.  Tommy loved the yogurt and it was great for him.  Biggles loves yogurt, he’s not sick. Isn’t it always the way?

Squeekie will miss him very much, she's not a people cat, but a Buddy cat, she's 10.

Squeekie 

Baby will miss him too, that's her pal, her favorite target to headlock.  The tiny 7 pounder taking a flying wrestling leap at the 25 pounder was always fun to watch.  She has taken to just tiny head-butts and a soft head rub without knocking him down.  As a kitten she took care of It, until he passed.  Now 7 years later, her Buddy is going.