Like I mentioned in the last post, having cats can be incredibly expensive, especially if they get sick or hurt and start incurring medical bills. So, you have to be careful about how many you adopt, even if you want to take in every single one you see on the street. As great as it sounds, you could fast find your wallet empty. We do our best to take care the cats we have now. It’s hard not to want to make sure they’re in perfect health when they’re this cute:
The newest affliction to hit my cats is a case of ear mites or ear fungus or something. I’m not entirely sure, but I know it must have come into the house with Sushi. That’s one of the bad things about bringing in strays. You have to give everyone a flea and tick bath (unless you’re using Frontline or a similar product on your other pets) and then you have to fix everything that’s wrong with him or her. Sushi has a bad cough, which has already cost us around 200 bucks in medications. Now I find that all of my cats are scratching at their ears.
I didn’t really notice it until Thumper started going nuts and scratching at her right ear for an excessively long time. When I checked, she had scratched her skin raw and was even bleeding. So, I broke out the ear drops. Applying the ear drops was a bit harder than I expected. Thumper kept trying to get away. Luckily, she’s still small and easy to control. It’s not that hard squirting it in, but keeping them from shaking their heads long enough for me to massage the base of the ear to work it in was a pain in the ass, to be honest. Sushi, who probably needs it the most, was the hardest to deal with. She’s bigger, stronger, and, unlike Thumper, not afraid to use her claws. I wound up having to practically sit on her and squish her between my legs to keep her in position for the application and massaging.
Neither cat was happy about it, but Thumper was especially pissed. She kept her ears lowered for hours afterwards:
By the way, all three cats love that red bed, but Thumper has more or less staked her claim on it.
Bradley Farless 