Cood and the Chipmunk

Warm weather means the doors and windows open in our house. First thing in the morning we open the back slider and the front door to get the fresh air circulating. For Cood, this is an exciting time of year as he doesn't move from the screens unless he has to eat or go to his litter box....it's that exciting. There are a whole lot of birds and chipmunks that tease him. We have decided they know he is an indoor cat and therefore he won't be able to come after them. They tweet, flit and run by the screen doors tempting their fate. Meanwhile, Coodie just sits there with his tail flicking back and forth looking as though he may pounce at any minute.

Sometimes, we do let him into the front yard as our condo is nestled in a "v" that allows some protection from danger for Cood. Ryan saw the chipmunk running around and decided to let Coodie out to see what would happen. Well.... not much! The chipmunk froze and did not move a muscle as soon as our front door swung open. At this point, we decided that Coodie might be somewhat blind (or maybe only detects motion) as Ryan held him up to the tree branch the chipmunk was perched on and Coodie had no idea what was going on....He was INCHES away from his nemesis and ... nothing.

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Meanwhile, he pretends to be a badass at the screen meowing and tail wagging at any animal that dare cross his path!

Coodie's Rough Week

Coodie has super long hair and he has to be combed daily. Once a year, it is also good to give him a bath because the shedding starts to get crazy as summer starts. Bathing is obviously a stressful event for Coodie so our vet recommended we give him a prescription medication to calm him down ahead of time, Acepromazine, also known as the "twilight" pill.

Last Sunday, we gave him the pill in the morning with the intention of bathing him and giving him a good comb out. Well, he was an absolute mess about 30 minutes after swallowing the pill. His back legs wouldn't function, his inner eyelid was omnipresent and he was so lethargic but seemingly unable to sleep. Then, we tried to comb him and he got nasty...he even hissed (which he has never done). He pretty much acted like he was drunk! We felt so bad for putting him through that almost immediately. We didn't think it would affect him like this because he is 13 pounds (bigger than a lot of cats) and it also lasted about 11 hours. I had to carry him up and down the stairs, into his litter box and give him little bowls of water as he was unable to jump up to his little water fountain. Below, is a photo toward the end of the day. Poor Cood was a complete mess.

He seemed to be pretty back to normal if not a bit tired the next morning as I headed off to Rhode Island for work for the week. Ryan then called me Monday night to tell me that his face looked a little swollen. At this point, we simply thought it was a side effect of those terrible meds. Ryan sent me this photo to show me his little face all puffy:
The next morning, Ryan called me around 6am and sent me the next photo:

Coodie looked like he was carrying nuts in his cheek! Being the good dad that he is, Ryan packed Coodie up and took him to the vet. He had to stay for the day and get some shots. The vet advised that it appeared to be a spider bite (he probably had no energy to swipe the spider off after that pill!) and Cood had to have some antihistamine shots and be watched for the day as it could be dangerous if this went back to his throat.

$150 later, the little orange guy is back to normal and as "sparky" as ever. I am now researching more natural methods to chill him out and if worse comes to worse, we will let him stress out a little when he is groomed!