A couple of weeks ago they started again. Suddenly Lulu was bored and starting irritating everyone in sight, including our favorite little diva, Prinny. She of course replied in her favorite way, by peeing on the couch at first and afterwards on the bed. An entire year this had been no issue, and suddenly it was back *sigh*

So, I broke out the toys, and I washed, and washed and washed. I got Lulu some more feathers and watched her go bonkers over them the entire day and most of the rest of the week. Arwen and Trini were happy to join in.

Lulu calmed down, but the stress was still a bit too high. I'd gotten lazy on cleaning the littertrays, and Prinny was starting to pee elsewhere whenever I didn't clean them in time to her liking, something she'd been pretty tolerant about before. Though Lulu was leaving her alone again, you could tell the tension was still there. Add to that that we had a party and moved all the furniture around, bought a bunch of new furniture..well, you get the idea.

I brought home some boxes for them to play with and trew some catnip parties, and for now, it is going all well again, but I still am not allowed to be as lazy on the littertrays as I used to be. But for now..the peace has been restored to the house. Fingers crossed now that it will last :)

Something fishy is going on. Lulu is cuddling me to death, which, when I tried to do that with her, was not appreciated! She is crawling into my arms, purrring all over the place and even fighting with Prinny over a spot!

A couple of days ago, I was 'kittened' as it is known in this house (aka covered in cat)by both Lulu and Prinny. Lulu squished herself between my head and the Prinny (lying both on my chest while I was lying in the couch), pissing of Prinny whoes personal space was being invaded. Not that Lulu cared. As the evening proceeded, she managed to get her ass lying against my neck and her head was resting against the Prinny's body. Talk about a change of heart!

Lulu and Prin have always been rivals for first position in my cat colony and they are usually incapable of entering each others comfort zone without there being some sort of disgruntled vocalization or gesture.

I have no clue what is going on, but I cuddle and reassure my Lulu whenever she needs it..I'm sure it is a phase that will pass.

In other news, since I was gone for the weekend and they got fed canned food only, they now all have diarrhea. Especially our Prinny, who wasnt feeling too good as it was, is taking it hard. So I gave them some 'good bacteria' to help restore the peace and order in their bowls yesterday. Hope she feels better today. She looks a bit...fragile right now. She does tiptoe around and doesn't seem sick , but she is not showing off in her usual confident way. I'm keeping a close eye on her, considering what was going on last week.

Well, that's that. Just now, I saw Lulu hopping through the house in a manner thats even weird for her, after going potty. She was basically sitting on her ass, while dragging herself forwards with her front paws. When I took a look at the kitty litter, I found some unpleasant stuff, with some hair in it, long and short. I cleaned it up, and took a look at Lulu herself.

She did NOT appreciate that. I had to hold her with her four legs in one hand to be able to look at her bum, which of course took place under a lot of loud protest, Lulu-style. You see, with Arwen, you'd just turn her around and take a look. Lulu is a different matter. Those paws can bend all kinds of ways, especially when she's agitated. And if there is one thing that awakens the beast inside and outside, its touching her bum.

She completely tenses up in all kinds of ways and makes from everything a big fuss. And cleaning off her tail with a moist cloth did not help, let me tell ya. When I finally did get a good look, the damage wasn't that bad. She was trying to pass a hairball, and that always itches, hence the hopping. I cleaned up what I saw so it would stop itching and tried to turn her lose while keeping track of those four deadly paws coming my way.

Oh well, life wouldn't be much fun if nothing happened I guess *grin*. I doubt that Lulu looks at it that way though.

Well, Falkie seems to be healing wel from his injuries. The unfortunate thing is that everytime his immune system gets a jab, such as the eye-thing, he creates too much smear in his ears, which eventually leads to an ear-infection. Very fun, especially during the Easter-weekend. I just cleaned out his ears every day, and it seems to work.

As the eye heals, so the ears seem to muster up less smear every day. It does not look red yet, nor does it seem painful(he lets me clean them out easily enough, though clearly reluctantly), or does it smell wrong, so I am really hoping I averted an infection. I have to go to work in the clinic tomorrow, so I will ask the question, but so far so good.

The thing is, since January, we've had a Falkie with an infected eye, a Lulu with an infected eye and a re-infected eye, and now again a Falkie with an infected eye. And this morning we finally saw why: it seems our Prinny is the culprit. This we already suspected but we had no clue why the hell she was always so able to land that claw right in the right eye.
This morning however, we saw Prinny at the food dish with the Falkie. Now, I use large bowls as four of my five cats eat from that food. So they are perfectly able to eat together from that dish. The thing is, that Falkie has the extremely annoying habit to sit right across from Prinny, in the corner, which makes him quite literally steal the food from under her nose.

And Arwen isn't the only one with eye-trouble. Someone misplaced a claw in the Lulu's eye two weeks ago, and I thought about a week ago it was healed, when suddenly it got so swollen I considered seeing the eye specialist the next day. I suspect that another claw found its way into that eye, since the ointment I was using was definitely doing the job.

Meanwhile, I was stuck taking care of two kitties with eye trouble this week. Luckily, Lulu's eye looked much better by the time I had to leave for my weekend trip. She also lost her patch of fur this week. We have a partially bald kitty now. A couple of weeks ago, one of the other cats got their nail stuck in Lulu's skin and almost scalped that part of her coat. The wound finally healed and the patch of skin, which I found on the kitchen floor, was discarded. The wound looked like it was healing nicely though.

Hopefully I have five healthy cats again by the end of next week. You never know though. When you have five animals, and especially the type I have, you always have something going on with them. And it aint always convenient either, let me tell ya.

Ahhh, now this is much better. Yesterday we did not get the sleep we needed. This night, that already went a lot better. Lulu did sing her song again this night, but when she stopped (to not encourage her to do so I would get up), I went over to her, took her with me to the bedroom, and showed her without forcing a basket rather close which I know she likes.

She decided to get in there and not come out anymore. And there it was, no more meowing. Ergo no more being awake and no more cats assuming we are awake, therefore racing over us, trampling us, purring at us for food etc etc.

Why does this work? I have no clue. All I know is, when Prinny has an episode like this, it works to call her close and cuddle her a bit. I can sense they are troubled and 'lost'. It is kind of like a child during the holidays whining at their mom:" Mom, I don't know what to dooooooooo, Mooooooom." If you then give them an acceptable compromise, they are usually distracted for hours.

Why didn't I do this yesterday? Because it was 4 freaking am and I was deep asleep when she disturbed me, so your subconscious wakes up, but the rest of you does not really wanna follow till it has been pestered enough. This time she did it when I was still rather awake, so I decided to put an end to it right then and there.

Now, it does not always work like a charm. But that is usually because they know what they want and aren't getting it or are too wound up to want to snooze in a basket. I was lucky that all Lulu really wanted was a place to snooze in and our presence to do it in. And as long as you approach them calmly and with a high pitched voice, however frustrated you are, they will gladly come and say hi and tell their 'sad' story, so you can comfort them. And then everyone gets to sleep a little easier!