Originally Posted by
allegro
Yeah, cat wrangler, here, too, although not fractious; they call me the "Cat Lady" because cats seem to just like me for some reason, maybe because they know I like them?
Currently we have four cats; one cat is a diabetic requiring 2 insulin shots per day; one cat has IBD (irritable bowel disease) and is on prednisolone; one cat has anxiety and is on amitriptyline. Plus, I've been feeding a neighborhood cat who has been showing up on my back porch for the last week, gah. The kitten we rescued from a group of feral kittens and we rehabilitated is now 10 and she's a character and, knock wood, has nothing wrong with her at all.
And we have a nearly 13-yr-old dog who has been totally blind for 3 years (SARDS) plus has glaucoma in both eyes (one eye had the shot into her eyeball to basically "kill" the eye when her pressure in that eye wouldn't come down from over 40 despite all the glaucoma drops and we are now facing the same procedure in her other eye), plus she has Addison's so she's on cortisone. For now, she gets 3 different eye drops, 3x per day.
Two of the cats are on special food, the IBD cat gets a human probiotic via a syringe + lactose free milk into her mouth 1x per day, and the only way I can give the anxiety cat the amitriptyline is via ham baby food.
So you could say these animals hit the pet lover Lotto. But we haven't been able to leave the house for more than several hours for over 4 years unless we take the dog and hire our vet tech petsitter.
The dog's daily eye drops, alone, are over $100 per month. The cat's insulin (Lantus Solostar pen) is $80 and it lasts about 2 months, plus the needles for the pen are $45. The other cats' meds are about $15 per month.
Since we have no kids, a big chunk or our "estate" is going toward various animal charities designated in our Trust, including the cage-free no-kill feline shelter where we got two of our kitties. (The other two were strays off the street.)
We would not say this makes us "Great" per se, but it maybe makes us qualify for a tax deduction as a shelter? LOL.