Category Archives: Our Cats
Blocking cats from hiding under the bed and couch
Mythos and Rini are generally very good cats, but sometimes when they have a bad day, they would hide under the bed or couch and don’t wanna come out (Note: it is not excessive hiding, we observed for 2 years). We totally understand cats like to hide and play, that’s why I built them cat tree and cat condo. However, this behavior disturbs our daily routine especially if that happens at LATE night, sometimes we have to wake up at 5:30 AM for work next morning and that’s pretty frustrated trying to kick them back to their own room so that we can sleep.
Blocking them from going in
If you know me or have worked with me, I am the person who have no plans but have strong determination to complete a project with quality. I am an freestyle Artist, I usually walk around Home Depot and see what they have and come up with a solution with some drawing on the spot, just like the Pet Gate Project last time. My style is similar to basic survival skills – you act based on existing resources you can find and come up with a solution. That is the reason why I am so pissed, when my company asks me about career goal and plan every year. I can totally change my career to something different and I can still survive, who gives a shit? Life is all about survival, no matter what you do eventually you will die.
Anyways, I bought some 1x5x6 and 1x4x6 Pine from Home Depot, cut them and nailed them. It’s very easy, anyone can do that if you know how to cut and nail, unless you are one of dumbasses on the TV show “Canada’s Worst Handyman”. Note that I re-used the scrap wood for middle support, I think that’s green and innovative.
(All project photos were taken using iPhone)
One challenge for the Queen size bed is the metal frame that comes with several LEGS in the middle. To overcome this, I made 2 boxes as you see in the picture. Finally, to put it to the test, we have Mythos and Rini for QA. Mythos was really mad and tried so hard to push the wood. But Cats do not have a lot of persistence, so they gave up after 10 minutes. Project is so successful.
Notes and Side Benefits
I have intentionally made the boxes smaller so that people don’t see the wood from the standing angle, the other alternatives are: (1) add mirrors to create optical Illusion (2) stain/paint the wood with color. With this project, there is another benefit - I no longer need to vacuum the carpet under the bed or swiffer the floor under the couch! It saves a lot of time and effort.
Mythos vs Mythos
Mythos finally has a chance to meet Mythos the Greek beer! Let’s take a sip… Arrr.. can’t see straight line, can’t catch mouse anymore. Sober… declare DUI…. meeeooowwww…. Zzzzz.. The next day, it was such a nice day and Mythos went outside to hunt for bees.
All Photos were taken using Panasonic Lumix GF1 – P mode. Please note that Mythos didn’t really drink, it was an empty bottle.
Our cat, Rini was peeing blood – 2 bladder stones on X-Ray
Day 1: While I was cleaning the litter box earlier today, all of a sudden Rini jumped in and started to pee in front of me. I thought she just always loves the clean litter - in fact I was wrong, she was trying to tell me something, she was peeing blood. As you can see in the photos, there was blood on the pine litter. Since pine is such a very good absorbent, if Rini didn’t pee in front of me there was no way to find it out easily.
At the Vet’s place
Since that was very scary, we took her to the our vet immediately. At the vet’s place, Rini peed on the stainless steel tray. See the syringe that sucked it back from the tray? That was pretty horrible bloody urine from Rini.
Rini got the X-ray taken and confirmed that there were 2 bladder stones (they aren’t showing very well here because I took those pictures with my iPhone). According to vet, there are 2 types of stones, namely Calcium Oxalate and Struvite. If Rini got Calcium Oxalate, it has to be taken out by surgery, however for struvite, it can be dissolved by diet and medication.
Day 2: Blood test result comes back normal, calcium level is normal too. Urine test shows bacteria infection, with PH=6.5 (border line), without crystals. Vet said that this lean more towards Struvite, so probably good news is that Rini can avoid surgery. There is one more test is to do, called “Urine Culture” basically you are growing the bacteria in the lab, that takes another 48 hours. Then, the Pathologist will tell the vet which anti-antibiotic to use. Btw, I added several new vocabularies to my dictionary today.
Day 3: Still waiting for the results from the pathologist. In the mean time we bought a bottle of cranberry capsules from the vet., giving Rini half capsule a day (mixed with water, injected into Rini’s mouth using syringe). According to the information, struvite crystals and stones are more likely to develop in alkaline urine, so cranberry can lower the PH value and produce more acidic urine. But too much acid will lead to other health problem. We also changed both cats’ diet by giving them Hill’s Prescription Diet C/D dry food and Halo wet food.
Day 4: Finally the lab result of “Urine Culture” comes back, the bacteria is called “Enterococcus Faecalis“. Our vet prescribed 2 weeks of antibiotics “Enrofloxacin“ (Baytril) for Rini to kill the bacteria. To dissolve the stones, Rini has to eat a special dry food “Medi-Cal Dissolution Forumla” for a month. Apparently, this is the treatment for struvite.
Day 5-7: Rini is getting a lot better, more energy and starts to run more. This morning, Rini peed while Deb was cleaning the litter box - this time, no more blood! Yeah! Antibotic works! Dr.DeRose rocks again! Right now, we are feeding them Medi-Cal Dissolution (prescription special food) + Halo wet food. Hopefully the stones will be dissolved soon.
Day 15: Rini did a urine test and found that PH Value shot up to 9.0, Dr. said that it was screwed up. So, we were told to isolate the problem by just feeding the Dissolution (no Halo, no wet food, no cranberry capsules) until it rearches 35 days.
Day x: We have an appointment at March 30, 2010 to do another urine test. The result has come back, and Rini passed the test! The number of crystals went down from “10-50″ to “0-5″, PH is at 8 (ideal is 7), and no blood in urine sample. Dr. said it is good news that Dissolution worked and we have to maintain this, so he recommends us to feed Royal Canin ‘URINARY SO’.
What causes that?
Rini is just 2 years old, it is very hard to believe she got stones in bladder in such young age. As the vet said the same, we have been feeding both cats with very high quality food - Halo and Royal Canin, how come? The reason is, Rini does not like to drink water, and food we have been feeding is mostly dry food. On the other hand, Mythos drinks so much water and he pees like the water tap. In the other article, I mentioned about that and we had to switch to pine litter because silica gel based couldn’t handle Mytho’s pee.
In fact, we did try to feed Halo and Wellness wet food in the past 2 years, but they usually licked it for 1 min and went away, that was the reason we gave up. But now we have to seriously re-introduce wet food again.
What are the action items?
- Water fountain to stimulate Rini to drink more water *
- Cut back on dry food, mixed with Hill’s Prescription Diet C/D
- More wet food **
- Cranberry Capsules (Rx Vitamins) half capsule/day to lower PH value
- Prescription antibiotics for 2 weeks
- Medi-Cal Dissolution Forumla dry food for 30 days
- Raw meat diet (suggested by Breeder and people in forum)
- Medi-cal Urinary SO for the next year at least
* We had water fountain 2 years ago for Rini, but we stopped using it because it forms white residue on the side in under just 1 week and it’s a lot of work to take it apart to clean it every week (we already had soft water, may need Reserve Osmosis or distilled water?). Also, we have been told that water fountain can cause teeth/gum problem if it is not properly maintained. That was the 2 main reasons why we switched it back to regular water bowl at that time. Now, it’s time to bring back the water fountain! According to the forums on Internet, people are saying you have to clean it 1-2 times a week! Luckily I haven’t sold it on Craigslist yet.
** Vet recommended Medi-Cal and Hill’s prescription diet can/wet food. However, both cats seem to like Halo more for some reasons. Also, Halo contains no chicken/by-product meal, gluten free and it contains 80% water. As you can see in the photos, we bought some Halos from Petsmart. Their favourite are lamb and salmon. However, we did a 2 week test we found that Halo wet food can cause high urine alkaline level, not sure if it is because of veggies. It is a debatable topic – Do cats need veggies?
*** Raw meat diet is supposedly to be good, because that’s what wild cats eat (although most vet won’t recommend that). Not only raw meat has more water content, but it can also help work out their gum and teeth to prevent gingivitis. Last time, we visited our breeder, we could tell their cats have much stronger muscle because of raw meat diet. Indeed, we tried feeding raw meat a while ago, but Rini didn’t like it. Yet, Mythos loved it but he got diarrhea after having just serveral pieces. Well, we will skip raw meat for now but will keep monitoring, this maybe an another option.
Pet Insurance
We learned the lesson from the incident that Mythos got his legs broken and Mythos started to walk properly again after laser therapy, we started to buy pet insurance with PetSecure half a year go, it’s around $25 per cat/month. I think that makes us sleep better.
Reading
- Urine Crystals and Bladder Stones in Cats (Good and detail description)
- Good Food For Cat With Struvite Crystals? (Wellness, Hills and Medi-Cal)
Mythos and Rini support Team Canada
As Mythos and Rini were surfing on the Internet tonight, Canada has won 3 Gold medals at the winter Olympics. Congratulations! Mythos and Rini support Team Canada all the way. Go Canada Go!
The Vancouver 2010 red mitten was purchased from The Bay, before Alex Bilodeau got the first Gold. Unfortunately, they run out of stock by now.
Handmade gift from aunt Lana
Spoiled Mythos and Rini got a gift from aunt Lana, it’s handmade blankets! Aunt Lana has 2 new kittens (Siamese) at home, she handmade some blankets for them. At the same time, she made 2 for Mythos and Rini too! Thank you so much! Mythos and Rini love them!
Choosing Cat Litter – Switching from Crystals to Wood Pellets
About 2 years ago, we bought the Automated cat litter box (ScoopFree) for Rini, because of very good reviews. We were quite happy until 1 year later we have another Cat, Mythos.
High Cost + Crystals soaked with urine and poop outside the box: Mythos is a big boy and he pees a lot (no joking, it’s flooding). One box of replacement crystals couldn’t even last for 1 week with 2 cats and those cardboard cartridges were getting expensive. If we didn’t replace with refresh crystals quick enough, it smelled so stinky and Mythos would not use the litter box and he would poop outside the box. So we turned to a solution, a plastic tray called “Forever Tray” to lower the cost.
Forever Tray: This product replaces the ScoopFree cardboard cartridges, supposedly you can buy cheaper crystals. Well, it is a good concept with solid built and it is in one piece construction. The inventor who made this product did not replicate the original cardboard box design, probably he is afraid of getting sued by ScoopFree. The innovative design of the lid using transparent acrylic without hinges is extremely clever.
However, the biggest concern is something called “anti-sliding ridge” at the bottom which causes lots of problems (at least to me, it may not happen to you). Regardless of the size of crystals I used, even with original 4.4 lb FreshStep or Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat Long Haired Cat Litter (Note: the size of this crystals are HALF size of FreshStep) the rake got too close to the bottom and I could hear grinding noise on the return trip. The rake got stuck 1 out of 15 times with the motor being shut down, of course bigger crystals was even worse and rake got stuck more often. However, when I was using cardboard tray, this never happened even with bigger crystals. Forget it, that’s move on.
I am not alone obviously, see comments on Home Appliances 101 forum.
1. Quote from MM, “… upkeep and cleaning is not worth the ‘forever’ concept. If you are going to by this for your automatic litter box, why did you get any automatic litter box in the first place. I ended up throwing mine away, and wish I never purchased it in the first place.”
2. Quote from Joyce Jamison, “… most of the crystal litter that we can find is too large to easily rake. It ends up mostly in the poop bin or behind the rake which causes an error blink on the box…. The litter we found that works is very expensive that this is not a savings for us. We have two cats so we are changing every 2 weeks.”
The owner/creator of this Forever Tray product on Automaic Litterbox Central forum had admitted by saying Quote “…… the past several months on ways to improve the design… new design will incorporate the ridge — but at a lower height, to reduce the possibility of jamming with larger crystals if someone uses them. Plus I’ve added an additional barrier further back, similar to the cardboard trays….” In short, he implied there was a design flaw.
DIY Acrylic Tray: Since Forever Tray didn’t work for me (well, it may work for you), I started to make my own tray using acrylic panels and I copied almost exactly from the cardboard design. Finally, it solved the rake problem – even I used bigger crystals and rake never got stuck again! However, after using it for 2 months, I had a second thought – all these plastic trays solutions seemed to be more eco-friendly, but indeed they defeat the original principle of ScoopFree “Throw away without cleaning the tray“. In my case, I had to clean it every 5 days, that’s a lot more work. Let’s take a step back and re-think.
(Side notes: If you work with Acrylic, remember to use Weld-on #16/#4, it provides water tight joint by melting the acrylic like welding, do not use silicone caulking or other glue products).
Crystals Problem: Assuming the plastic tray solution worked, that only solved part of the problems. The other problem is crystals itself. With Mythos pees so much, the tray started to smell so badly after only 4-5 days, the crystals basically were soaked with liquid especially the bottom layer. I needed to replace the crystals every week and 4.4 lb crystals did not even last for 5 days for 2 cats. That was horrible, I had to clean the tray so often because crystals sticked to the tray so firmly. Without the clean box sometimes even on only 4th day of new crystals, Mythos was not happy and he shitted outside the box! Deb and I were getting really frustrated.
Chemical Concerns: Okay, what are crystals? It is a chemical called “Silica Gel”. Even worse, vendor like FreshStep added fragrance for better smell. Why would you want your pets to have direct contact with all these man-made chemical? Because many of these products are designed for human, not for your pets. Also, some of the vendors even claim that their products are “dust free”. Well, this is my challenge to you: Put your nose close to the crystals when you pour the them into the tray and take a deep breath, and you tell me the result. Even the most expensive Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat litter is not dust free. This is a known fact that fine dust can cause respiratory illness in long term. Furthermore, the dirty crystals are mixed with clean crystals (although this is by design), you can’t really separate them easily. We began to think crystals is not a good solution.
What does our Breeder use?
Our cat breeder has so many cats, so what do they use? The answer is wood pellets. They are cheap and more natural. Wood pellets are compressed from saw dust, it is worth reading the wiki on the Internet yourself. So, we switched to wood pellets and gave it a try. AMAZINGLY, no more stinky pee smell, no more poop outside the box, no more dust, no more soaking problem. Wood pellet absorbs water and smell way better than crystals, they simply turn into saw dust after getting contacted with liquid.
It is more work, 2-3 times a day for scooping since it won’t work with any automatic cat litter box. Our ScoopFree machine and the Forever Tray now becomes another cat litter box, I will sell them on Craigslist soon.
Wood Pellets – Softwood vs Hardwood
There are 2 types of wood pellets, namely softwood (pine, cedar) and hardwood (oaks, maple). In most pet supply stores, they carry brands like “Feline Pine” or “Feline Fresh” and all of them are pine litter. Now, if you visit Lowes in winter time (Home Depot does not carry them), you can find “wood stove pellets” in fireplace section and they are virtually the same thing with 1/3 the price. Because wood pellets are used as fuel for wood stoves and fireplaces.
On the other hand, there is hardwood pellets. In the photos, Lignetics (bought from Canadian Tire) is made from hardwood saw dust. It doesn’t smell as good as pine and it feels like the poor quality wood panel of the back of your IKEA bookshelf. However, some articles said that hardwood pellets are safer than softwood. Also, read the bag carefully, some brands are mixed with recycled martial and/or composite wood. You can simply tell from the color and smell.
Softwood (Pine) contains toxins
There has been studies claim that softwood litter can cause cancer to rabbits, because pine releases a natural chemical called “phenols” which is toxic that can change liver’s enzyme in the animal. Some pine pet litter manufacturers claim that they remove aromatic oils during the pressurization process and their products are safe for pets. After doing some research on the Internet, people on the forums actually contacted the company “Feline Pine” and confirmed their products are exactly the same as wood stove pellets.
- The Dangers of Softwood Shavings
- Litterboxes and Liver Disease
Cats Vs Rabbits and Shavings vs Pellets
There is a huge difference in regards to cats vs rabbits. First of all, many rabbits live in the cage for most of their lives (poor rabbits) and softwood shavings are used for the bedding. Rabbits have directly contract or having a very close distance to the wood all the time, even sleeping. On the other hand, most household cats run around the house all the time, they only get contact with the wood pellets several time a day, with each time less than 1-2 minutes. Cats in foster home is another story.
Consult with your vet, maybe there is more scientific studies on this topic. In fact, we talked to our vet who has 6 cats at home and he is using pine litter too!
Wood Pellets Pros
- Eco-friendly: Saw dust and pet wastes are green and it is accepted by many cities’ organic waste program, because they can be composted in the pasteurization stage. However, NOT for crystals/clay
- No stinky smell of pee because pine absorbs so well and they turn into saw dust
- Pine’s natural scent smells way better than man-made chemical fragrance
- No need to clean the tray/box for at least 3-4 months, no sticking to the bottom. Just scoop the saw dust and poop. Add new pellets, done!
- Cheap, wood pellets for Fireplace is cheap in most hardware stores
- Natural wood, no man-made chemical
- Absolutely dust free, unlikely to get respiratory illness in long term due to breathing
- In natural disasters, such massive power outage during snow/ice storm, wood pellets can use as fuel and can save your life. I can’t think of what crystals can do for you, maybe you can use it to store your pee while you are on a car/van/boat where you have no access to toilet
Wood Pellets Cons
- More work, scoop 2-3 times a day
- Wood pellets for fireplace is seasonal, may not able to buy them in summer time
- Does not work with ScoopFree machine or any other automated machines
- Pine (softwood) contains phenols that may cause liver problems in long term, however hardwood pellets are claimed to be safer. More scientific studies are needed to support this
How much can we save for our 2 cats?
- One original cartridges 4.4 lb crystals cost $20 that lasts for 1 week
($1040/year) - One bag of 8 lb FreshStep crystals costs $13.99 that lasts for 10 days
($510.63 /year) - One bag of 40 lb Wood Pellets costs $4.99 that lasts for 1.5 months
($39.92/year)
The choice is very obvious, more green, and save much more.
Any other Alternatives?
There are alternatives such as “Yesterday’s News” (recycled news paper) and “World’s best cat litter” (made from corn) yet, I read about a lot of mixed reviews about them. While I was looking on the Internet the other day, I come across “Cat Genie 120“. My first reaction was: COOL! It hooks up with the water supply and toilet, with self cleaning and drying feature. This is the ONLY product I can call it a fully automated cat litter box. This makes ScoopFree become so low tech.
Conclusion
We have been using wood pellets for more than 1 year since the arrival of Mythos, all of us (including Mythos and Rini) are very happy with the choice we made, and we have no intention to switch. As said above, we don’t know the long term effects of phenols on wood pellets. If you have any information, drop us a message. This is just another article we wrote to share the experience. Hope this can help other cat owners.
Other Projects for Mythos and Rini
Mythos and Rini on vacation
Mythos and Rini are at our breeder’s place today, because Mom and Dad are going away for a few days. This is the 3rd time for Rini to stay at Boreal and 2nd time for Mythos. They seemed to be very comfortable and was trying to sniff the cats on the other side of the door. Also, Mythos was trying to play with the super cute kittens inside the cage. (Photos were taken using iPhone at Boreal Cattery)
Happy Birthday to Rini, 2 years old!
Happy Birthday to Rini, she is 2 years old today! Tonight, we celebrated together with Mythos (it was Mythos’ 1 year old birthday in December). Agenda for both cats today: Mom and Dad didn’t go outside, and they slept with both spoiled cats on the bed under the sun (see pictures below). Despite it was -10c outside, it was so warm and confortable inside, and well… almost slept for the whole day, What a life!
All pictures in day time was taken using 50mm f/1.4. This lens is good for low light condition and it is a good portrait lens, however it is not as handy in many situtations, especially taking Cats photos because it has no Macro.
Mythos & Rini Christmas Video
Thanks to Vince and Tyatt for the Christmas Cat Toys! Mythos and Rini LOVED them so much, there are so many toys in the bag!! Merry Christmas to everyone!
Also, here are several still photos:
The background song in the video is called “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas – Hippo the Hero, by Gayla Peevey in 1953″. Find it from the usual place if you want this song. Personally, I think the lyrics is a bit odd, why would you want a stinky hippo for Christmas? LOL… Well, there was a real story behind this song in 1953, check out Wiki.
Meowy Christmas – Behind the Scene on making the card
Meowy Christmas everyone! Many friends and family members have received our e-card, here is the behind the scene on making the card.
Taking the photos of Mythos and Rini was NOT an easy job, they hated the cat apparel so badly. HAHA… But putting everything together in Photoshop took me around 2 hours, it was not too bad. To make fur texture background that matches our Cat Theme, I used Alien Skin Eye Candy texture. Then adjusted the Hue/Saturation for green color – just for Christmas. To make the photos stand out, Eraser Tool with different brushes were used to create the edges effect. No 3rd party plug-in was used to create the text, all are standard features of Photoshop. I just applied drop shadow and inner bevel on the text to make it more 3D, that’s it! Finally I stole an ornament photo from Internet, of course I removed the watermark by using clone stamp, changed the color and made several variation of it. Anyone can do it, make your own card!
