Anubis is out of the house for the foreseeable future - at least until he's sterilized.

[cimorene]

We made the road trip to deliver Anubis back to the breeders (it's only half an hour, it's just a road trip because we live in such a small town now). The poor little guy gets motion sick and he vomited after fifteen minutes, and then had a very soft stool inside the carrier when we were ten minutes away. That's new, though he's had carsickness before. He must've been so anxious, poor little baby! The breeders have a big shower room with all tile that's safe for him and they're currently taking turns to go hang out with him and hug him every now and then. He seems to recognize his kitty best friend through the door - she hears him yelling and comes to trill at him. Meanwhile, we learned that there is a mood stabilizer that can work for studs who are having too much testosterone like this (we started looking at breeder websites trying to search for a new kitten to keep Tristana company. She's never been alone in the house before today! In fact, she's only been alone in a room for a few hours at a time when Snookums was outside on a leash, or going to the vet). So they're going to consult their trusted vet about that as soon as possible and the hope is that he can be made comfortable and maybe even feel better enough to be out in the house and meet the other cats while we're waiting. We're all agreed that it doesn't look likely that he will ever be able to live with Tristana, but we are agreed that we will try by consulting the cat behaviorist after he's been fixed. In the meantime they have a potential temporary foster home that could work, provided the mood stabilizer is effective. They are not ruling out just having to fix him if they can't find a way to make him comfortable in the meantime otherwise.

The breeders were understanding and very sympathetic. And like I suspected might be the case, they have been having a pretty bad time as well. Their whippet puppy isn't going badly, as whippet puppies go, it's not ill-adjusted or anything - in fact he's a delight. But he is still young enough to need constant attention, and only one of their cats gets along with him. One of their cats - in fact the personal favorite cat of one of them - is afraid of him and having such a bad time that they are considering trying to rehome her with us, in the hope she might get along with Tristana. We will revisit the idea next month. It's a hard call for her since the cat is her baby, but the dog is her baby too. This is the cat who is both Anubis's best friend and Tristana's foster mother. She might not remember her though - they haven't seen each other since Tristana was a tiny child and she must smell different, plus it's been a few years. But they have similar fraidycat temperaments, gentle and sweet, so it might work.

Tristana seems to be okay so far - in fact she's been playing a lot as she's newly been released into the whole house - enjoying investigating all the old places and running up and down the stairs. She won't be left alone much since Wax works from home. I guess we'll concentrate on my sister's visit for now.

Comments

[wychwood]

Congratulations on no longer being cat-divorced! The whole Anubis thing sounded so stressful, it was exhausting just to read about it - I hope you get to enjoy not being peed on constantly.

[princessofgeeks]

So grateful. Thinking of you all.

[mecurtin]

I'm *so* glad you're no longer cat-divorced! It's been so stressful for the entire household.

I didn't get a chance to comment earlier (I was getting ready for Worldcon & pretty stressed myself) but my sympathy for the breeders evaporated completely when I learned they'd gotten the whippet puppy before bringing Anubis back. That really spoke to their self-centered priorities.

You've had a LOT to deal with. I hope having your sister visit can give you some times of love.

[cimorene]

Anubis wasn't peeing on everything yet then! I suppose in retrospect the cat divorce was already ongoing and it was ridiculous and they probably should have offered explicitly to take him back once it had been a year though. They might have thought we wouldn't want to part with him (which was true, although I think if they'd been like 'Do you want six weeks' vacation from him?' we'd have jumped at it any time).

[niqaeli]

I've missed a lot of stuff, but I've caught the tail end of this saga, and omg I am so sorry you've been dealing with such a difficult balance of issues, and I'm glad Tristana is doing okay and that there is at least a path forward for Anubis.

[torachan]

Poor kitties. I hope they can do something to improve things for Anubis and that Tristana isn't too upset being by herself.

At least now you can concentrate on getting the cat pee smell out without having to constantly tackle new cat pee. D:

[cimorene]

Yeah, it is nearly impossible to hunt down mystery pee smells when you never know when a pee-ninja is sneaking in behind you making new ones.

[spark]

So glad to hear that's been sorted. Hopefully all will be easier and much less smelly and stressful from now on. Looking forward to pics of Tristana and new kitten when you find the right one <3