A Day in the Life of a Zookeeper

A Day in the Life of a Zookeeper
Ever wonder what its like to share your world with a bunch of crazy critters? Tune in to find out!

Monday, September 30, 2013

Sick Aggie Kitty

My poor Aggie girl had a rough weekend.  On Saturday afternoon she started throwing up - not much coming out but she went through the motions probably eight or ten times over the course of the evening.  She doesn't like any kinds of "medicine" like hairball treatment but she does love wet cat food.

First thing we tried was some of the wet cat food - a little food, mostly the gravy, with the hairball stuff stirred in.  She kept that down for about 45 mins or an hour.  A bit later I used some feline probiotics mixed in warm water and used a syringe to get some in her system.  That seemed to settle things a little - a few more heaving episodes but nothing came up.  I finally gave up around 2 am and went to bed.

When I woke up Sunday around 6 am she was at the water bowl drinking.  This is a good thing.  She had one more heaving episode around 8 am and then all was kind of quiet.  Around 11 am I gave her a very small amount of canned food, lots of gravy and 4 ml of the probiotics.  She was able to keep that down with no issues.  I repeated the same process around 2 pm - she scarfed it up and kept it down.  At about 4:30 she visited the food bowl on her own and had some dry food.

Somewhere in the midst of the morning the ferrets broke into a bag of chips.  I think at least 2 ferrets, the dog and possibly Aggie helped themselves to the bounty.  It didn't seem to upset her - maybe the salt was good in that it replaced some of her electrolytes.  Since Sunday morning she has been resting comfortably and does not seem to have any distress of any kind.

I think this episode was one of two things - either a) she had a stubborn hairball that would not come up and with the hairball medicine and the probiotics it managed to go out the other end or b) Emma got into the garbage on Saturday night and pulled out a paper towel with queso cheese on it.  Perhaps Aggie ate some cheese and potentially the paper towel.

Either way - whatever was ailing her seems to have subsided.  I will continue the probiotics for another day or two and watch her very closely to determine if we need to get in to see the vet.  Poor old girl - so glad she is feeling better.

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