Update

There's a couple of things I think it would be useful to note today.

The first is Nathan's health and how his rodent ulcers are going. Towards the end of May, his top lip began to swell and a scab came up. As we were going away, and wouldn't be in a position to take him to the vet for a biopsy if it did come up badly, we decided to give him some steroids to bring it down. We had a catsitter who was also able to pill him and we gave him a low dose. In the middle of reducing the dose he did his disappearing act so we couldn't complete the reduction but he didn't seem to have any ill-effect.

Since then, he's been absolutely fine. We've been very firm on not giving him any food other than the hypoallergenic stuff and really made sure that the flea control is done properly and in a timely fashion. I'm glad he's OK for now.

The second thing to update is both of their kidneys! After the visit to the vet a couple of weeks ago, we went out and got them some high quality wet food. Although we wonder if part of Nathan's allergy was caused by flea bites, I also think that some cat food has so much "stuff" in it that it may also be the trigger for the ulcers. We need to give them wet food to bring down the concentration of their urine (nice, I know) and to encourage them to take more fluid on board. This food has only got meat, rice and water in it and nothing else so it shouldn't cause Nathan any problems.

It's working out pretty good as they both love it, particularly Nathan. On Friday morning I was preparing it and he sprayed on the kitchen floor, which wasn't very nice. So now I keep them behind a door while I'm getting it ready (adding water and forking it apart).



I'll try to get a shot of them standing up against the glass and mewing. It's very pitiful. And silly, because of course I'm about to give them the food!

And finally, was that they were being overfed and Natalie in particularly needed to lose some weight. The vet said if there was a scale of cat weight thus:

0 = malnourished feral cat ---------5 = perfect weight ---------9 = morbidly obese

Nathan is a 6 and Natalie an 8. So, she needed to lose some chub! She really didn't like the reduction in food at first, she got really quite intense and odd while she was in the house and in her interactions with us. I was concerned that it would lead to them being competitive over food. Nathan eats very quickly and tends to finish his then start on hers. But she comes in for extra food, and I try to make sure it's done fairly when I have time to stand over them and remove Nathan when she's only half way through and he's finished his. I think she's beginning to look a bit trimmer and I hope gradually she'll be as sleek as Nathan. I will miss her fatness though, Nathan is so boney, stroking him doesn't feel quite so nice.

Busy times

It's been a really busy week! I've not really had time to take any pictures or write up the next post I'm planning.

The cats are great though and I'm really happy because Natalie was friendly tonight. To explain, they're usually extremely affectionate and friendly in the morning and during the day. But once we get them in at night, any time between ten and 11, all they want to do is fight each other and act like complete drama queens. It's like they've never met us before, but every night! They run away when we walk towards them, run away when we try to stroke them and run away if we try to play with them sometimes. Silly cats.

We're used to their moods now and it's just how they are, they're always lovely at any other time. But tonight, Natalie had a little bit of a leg-wind for me so I was very pleased about that. Good kitty.



She likes to come in during the day, and if I'm in the living room, she curls up on the foot-rest/stool thingy. It's very sweet (Yes, I have a bit of a penchant for lurid socks. They're great)

Brother and sister II

What was I saying yesterday about how they get on? This makes it look like they are totally in love!



I'm not keen on the amount of licking she's giving to the site of the rodent ulcer, but if this happens a lot it explains why he's lost so much fur from it. Bless her. I wonder if he's allergic to her spit and this is the explanation for why he keeps getting the ulcers?!

Oh, and, isn't just SO CUTE?! ;)

Brother and sister

I've posted a lot about the cats separately, but not much about how they interact.

The overall advice seems to be that having more than one cat is a Very Bad Idea (although I've noted that a lot of people who say this have several!). Cats are territorial (but social...) and don't like to share their space or their humans with other cats.

If you MUST get two cats, littermates are best, and the best combination is a brother and a sister cat. We win one point. Finally.

When we adopted them, the sanctuary said that Natalie was extremely shy and needed Nathan around to help her out a bit. Since they've settled in, she's come out of her shell twice the size. I'll illustrate this by saying that although we get them in at night, it's Nathan I worry about when he's a bit slow to come back. I know Natalie could beat up a badger no problems; Nathan, not so much.

Their interactions with each other are interesting. They do quite a lot of tearing around after each other, probably because they are both still young cats. At first, I worried that he bullied her, as he was always the one jumping on her. It felt like she couldn't go anywhere without being mounted. I really don't approve of siblings mounting each other, for the record.

Since then, I've seen her drop-kick him in the face, punch him on the nose with her back legs from lying down and kick him in the guts. She can handle herself.

They've recently starting fighting with hissing, where before it was purely playfighting with no verbalising. I don't know if the hissing is just play too, but it certainly sounds a bit nastier.

When we let them out in the morning they go off together, which is sweet, and they do some investigating together, as per the photo at the top. They are quite independent of each other generally though. Domestic cats are definitely more tiger than lion, and pack hunting doesn't come into the equation. When they're hunting bees, it's every cat for him/herself.

I hope they carry on getting on, and a little less fighting would be very pleasant, in the long term. It's noisy, above everything!

Here's a short photo story from today:



This looks cute, like they're bookends, right? In reality, it's like the game of chicken they play in Grease, and they're going to run at each other for a wrestle. You can see Nathan's baldy face patch clearly in this picture.



POW! Smackdown! Nathan on top of Natalie, looks like he's biting her shoulder. She's kicking him where he hasn't got any balls. It's quite dramatic in real life.



Then they walk away, like nothing happened. Nothing to see here.

As I type, they are chasing each other around the hall and living room. So peaceful.