Introducing Betty White

daftcat75

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I think the heat is zapping her appetite. She left a 1/3 of daytime portion on her plate. So around 3:30 when she was following me into the kitchen (she still stopped short of coming into the kitchen--who taught her this?!), I decided to pick up her plate, and replace her afternoon remainder plus a bumper portion. She ate only six grams of that before I picked it up at 4:45.

Doh! She just showed up in the office, fifteen minutes later, and is giving me the look.
:whiskers:
Maybe I took her plate away a little too soon?

Get hungry, girl. There's another plate coming in an hour.

The good news is that 95 today gives way to the 70's for the rest of the week and weekend. She can under-eat tonight if she wants to.
 

tarasgirl06

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I think the heat is zapping her appetite. She left a 1/3 of daytime portion on her plate. So around 3:30 when she was following me into the kitchen (she still stopped short of coming into the kitchen--who taught her this?!), I decided to pick up her plate, and replace her afternoon remainder plus a bumper portion. She ate only six grams of that before I picked it up at 4:45.

Doh! She just showed up in the office, fifteen minutes later, and is giving me the look.
:whiskers:
Maybe I took her plate away a little too soon?

Get hungry, girl. There's another plate coming in an hour.

The good news is that 95 today gives way to the 70's for the rest of the week and weekend. She can under-eat tonight if she wants to.
Betty is on foodstrike, like Baby Su and Elvis and just about all the cats I've ever known when it gets hot. She should pick up as soon as it gets cooler. For some reason I thought you had AC. Guess it doesn't get that hot "normally" up there, as you said.
Hope she will get brave and start accompanying you into the kitchen. I used to love seeing the forest of cattails in here -- Elvis will come out sometimes, but Baby Su really doesn't any more because they both eat in the master bedroom and she knows I'm like clockwork on feeding.
 

daftcat75

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Betty is on foodstrike, like Baby Su and Elvis and just about all the cats I've ever known when it gets hot. She should pick up as soon as it gets cooler. For some reason I thought you had AC. Guess it doesn't get that hot "normally" up there, as you said.
Hope she will get brave and start accompanying you into the kitchen. I used to love seeing the forest of cattails in here -- Elvis will come out sometimes, but Baby Su really doesn't any more because they both eat in the master bedroom and she knows I'm like clockwork on feeding.
I have a portable AC unit that is loud as a jet engine. It's also a huge pain because I still haven't found a sliding door vent kit for it. I bought a couple door vent kits from Amazon and neither of them fit. In any case, we don't get more than a couple 90+ days at a time. For the last few summers, it hasn't been worth the noise, the venting fiasco, or the effort of taking it out and putting it away for the few miserable days each summer.

Betty has figured out the loophole in her training. She will still very rarely follow me into the kitchen proper. But if she’s hungry enough, which is often first dinner, she’ll climb the Katris as it was intended and join me on the kitchen counter. When she does, I make sure to give her a face rub and some scritches to let her know it’s okay for her to be there.

She has turned in a clean plate for first dinner. Second dinner may be a little lighter because the apartment is still heating up right now with the afternoon and evening sun coming in. Trying to cool this place down in the evenings/nights is like trying to unpop popcorn. That one big room just fills up with heat and the lack of airflow makes it terribly difficult to cool until the outside is significantly cooler than the inside. As I said, just one more night of this and the rest of the week should be a lot more manageable.
 

Margot Lane

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I think this was a suggestion to help cool Betty off, in case she would lick iced/cooled juice or broth or partly chilled food, along with my idea of ice cubes in the water bowl.
It was…I tried this experiment today on my hot cat. I partially cooled the catfood in the freezer and he suddenly perked up from his lethargy and gobbled it down. Whether this is good or not for their insides I have no idea, but hoping not to repeat this too often.
 

daftcat75

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She ate first and second dinners without issue. She’s only a bumper portion’s worth behind. She can make that up on a cooler day this week.
🐷👍
 

tarasgirl06

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That’s quite a lineup.
View attachment 421498
Indeed it is. A gallery of beauty and love.
I have a spray bottle of water beside my bed. On REALLY hot nights I just spray it on myself as needed. It does help to temporarily cool. I read that wetting a cloth and wiping down a cat will cool a cat, too, and I've done that. A lot of my cats have loved laying in the sink or on the shower tile floor in the heat, too. And yeah, I've put ice in their water at times. Anything to help.
Good on you, Betty! Keep up the good work.
 

daftcat75

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Oh shoot! 😿

I was thinking the last two days were hairball weather. And today, the first cooler day, up it came. 🤦🏼‍♂️ It wasn’t huge like last time. But definitely respectable. Poor girl. How could she possibly hoard that much hair in her belly for so long. Or did she build it in just a couple days? I have been pulling a huge amount of hair off her on our brushings the last few days.

I’m trying not to helicopter her. I have to shower after my run and fix some lunch and she’s loafed in the office like round two is imminent. 😿
 

tarasgirl06

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Oh shoot! 😿

I was thinking the last two days were hairball weather. And today, the first cooler day, up it came. 🤦🏼‍♂️ It wasn’t huge like last time. But definitely respectable. Poor girl. How could she possibly hoard that much hair in her belly for so long. Or did she build it in just a couple days? I have been pulling a huge amount of hair off her on our brushings the last few days.

I’m trying not to helicopter her. I have to shower after my run and fix some lunch and she’s loafed in the office like round two is imminent. 😿
*Hoping not*
Well, some may disagree, but in my lifetime of living with cats, I do know that no matter what, furballs happen. They just do.
 

daftcat75

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*Hoping not*
Well, some may disagree, but in my lifetime of living with cats, I do know that no matter what, furballs happen. They just do.
The worst part about these hairball days, besides the hairball itself, is that horrible warbling yowl that precedes her ejections. She just had a couple acid spits. But before she did, she was mrowling something awful. It got me thinking if there was something like burping a baby or the Heimlich Maneuver to help a cat bring it up, whatever that it is. I mean, I'm sure there isn't and it's probably not a great idea. But it was so hard to hear her mrowling like that. It sounded like an impending ER visit until she finally got it out. I wish there was more I could do for her on days like this. It would be nice to have a Cerenia shot on hand just for these occasions.
 

Margot Lane

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Have you tried Greenie’s Smartbites hairball control? I got them for Zorro after making him an indoor cat. Normally he’d nibble grass for a bit of roughage, but no hairballs here, since trying them. Each one is quite tiny, and they easily break in half.
 

tarasgirl06

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I can't recall one since introducing those, either, Margot Lane Margot Lane ! We've had regurges, and some acid spitups, but no furballs that I can remember, since Feline Greenies SmartBites Tuna Flavor "Hairball Control."
And that mrowling, daftcat75 daftcat75 -- well, yeah, it's a vocalization of misery, to be sure. :sickcat:
 
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