Cats

[telophase]

Sora is over the cold he had last week. We took the cats in to the vet yesterday for their annual checkup and vaccinations, which took a toll on Toby as Sora scratched the shit out of his hand when we were wrangling him into the carrier. We'd given him a kitty tranq an hour or so beforehand, but it hadn't made any difference. Sora was much calmer at the vet, and they suggested giving it to him 2 hours beforehand, as it takes longer with some cats.

Sora's got a heart murmur. :/ The vet says it can be caused by stress, and he was obviously very stressed, or by congestive heart failure, heartworms, or other things. If it's heart failure, that can be managed. The vet took blood and it's going for tests, so we should know in a few days if it's CFS or something else.

Anyway, Nefer's going to have to go in for a teeth cleaning at some point in the next few months, but that's about it for her. Her heart is perfectly fine (the vet let me listen to both Sora and Nefer's hearts with her stethoscope, so I could hear the difference).

Sora has been VERY LOVING and POSSESSIVE now after his TRAUMATIC DAY. He spent last night glued to me, and when Nefer jumped up on me in the wee hours of the morning, he chased her off the bed (not before she got some scritching, at least).

Comments

[movingfinger]

I wonder about the heart murmur thing, as it seems like every pet cat I know has at some time or other had a vet announce s/he had a heart murmur.

In our house, the present cat was announced to have a heart murmur at an early age, but subsequent vets have been unable to detect it.

[telophase]

I listened to both cats' heartbeats and there was a decided difference. Whether it's an actual murmur or not, I dunno. I'm working on the assumption that it's stress, as he was terrified at the time.

[movingfinger]

Stress seems far more probable than mass cat coronary disease!

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

Yay for cold being over!

LOL for Terror Cat in the Vet's Office (and I have had adventures with that).

Nefer sounds very mellow, but then Nefer isn't Alpha Cat, either... :-)

[xebra42.livejournal.com]

Tycho has a heart murmur as well. My vet, before he retired, told me that they were fairly common in cats and to just keep an eye on him. Basically it may not bother him at all, or it might :) I decided to just not worry about it and let Sir Tubby carry on :)