Friday, October 23, 2009

Happiness is a Well-Formed Poo

I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

When raising kittens, one of the best ways to monitor how well they're doing is by watching what goes in, and what comes out.

These guys have been great little eaters, but they've had a long stretch of diarrhea. It's not uncommon. There's always an adjustment period for their little systems when they go from whatever it was they were eating before, to a steady diet of good, healthy food.

Diarrhea is no fun for anyone. Their poor little bums get sore, and if it goes on too long, they get dehydrated, which means having to stick them with needles and give them fluids.

It slows their growth down. Every day they have diarrhea, they're not gaining (and often losing) weight, which is not good.

Their medicine, even though it's tuna flavored, tastes so horrible it makes them foam at the mouth. They hate, hate, hate it.

It's sooooo messy too. They always end up stepping in their poo puddles, poo-ing on their tails, toes or each other, and of course they track it everywhere.

FINALLY, yesterday, when I went to greet the kittens and give them their breakfast, I discovered the most perfect poo in their litter box. In fact, it was so well-formed, it had the strength to stand completely vertical. This little poo monolith was the most glorious sight.

Good bye diarrhea. Hello healthy kittens.

Everyone is doing so great now. They are packing on the ounces already, and their bellies are getting big and round. They are reaching the end of their quarantine period and soon will be able to bounce freely about the house.

I'll spare you pictures of the poo monolith, but share with you instead, a picture of a happy kitten.

DSC_0714

50 comments:

  1. Thank you for not posting a graphic photo, and thank you for the inside look at kitten wrangling.

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  2. Thanks for sparing us the poo picture and also for sharing what day-to-day life is like with the babies (besides all the purring and cuddling and playing and climbing they do!).

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  3. I think this is one of the all time great posts! Having done my share of poo monitoring over all the years and dears we've had, I know very well the joy that comes with well formed poo. Hell, if Oprah and Dr. Oz can talk about our own perfect poo shapes, we surely need to know about that of the tinies who need our help.
    I say "blessings on the holy crap"! And I actually think a photo would be amusing, but not quite right for a kitty card!

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  4. It's amazing the joy we get from the little things... even the icky little things.

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  5. OMG, Anne! Too funny. Love (and agree with) the sentiment about cards.

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  6. actually, i'm such a devoted follower of each batch of kittens, i would look at the space-poo-needle with contentment and happiness for healthy kittens.

    :)
    christine

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  7. Yay! Happy litterbox results = happy kitties. When we first got our foster, we had the opposite problem (she wasn't using the litterbox enough). The medicine for that is also tuna flavored -- and also hated.

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  8. As a fellow kitten wrangler, I can very much relate to this post. I have often marveled at your wonderfully clean kittens, and stories of the "kitten bedroom". I can't imagine the amount of laundry you must do in the early weeks! My early ones live in a bathroom, with lots of easy wash towels around -- both for them, and for visitors to sit on.

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  9. Yes, nicely formed poo is a happy thing. When we adopted Sadie last year (a stray kitten) we had six weeks of loose stools, enough to test the limits of even the most patient people. It was a joy to see the first firmer poos in her litter box!

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  10. Lesson learned today: Do NOT read Laurie's blog while on a conference call and you're not muted. When I read the line about the poo monolith, I burst out laughing.. and of course all conversation stopped, everyone wondering what, or who, the problem was. Lucky me that it wasn't a video call. :)

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  11. OMG, she is so cute...thanks for not posting a picture of her poop. ;)

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  12. I LOVE this post. My mother (may she rest in peace) would have heartily endorsed the statement about the importance of a well-formed poo. I come from a family that likes to talk about bowe movements (for some reason, I didn't inherit that gene). However, I have been accustomed to hearing about poo even if I choose to keep the structure and engineering characteristics of my own a carefully-guarded secret!

    Made me laugh out loud and I'm still smiling.

    :)

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  13. that is not a happy kitten. that is a blissed out kitten!

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  14. Yay poo! I remember when Bob first moved in. It was not a pretty sight. Not only was nothing solid, but he was also having trouble making it to the box. And the poor thing didn't handle getting scared very well. I had to change many outfits during those first few weeks. "Ack! Air touched me! *squirt*"

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  15. Happy kitten = happy Laurie = happy US!

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  16. Anne ~ There aren't too many of us who appreciate the joy depicted here. You no doubt would have appreciated the heart-shaped poo left by one of the Treadwells a while back. <3 And yes I took a picture, but deleted it shortly thereafter. I had crossed a line. : )

    Having never been a mother of humans, I imagine they go through the same thing. It's all part of loving them.

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  17. Hurray for positive poop, rounding bellies, and a perfectly wonderful picture of happy and content little Gordon. I think he's dreaming of scaling a fence.

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  18. yay, monolithic poo!

    even better, happy healthy kittehs.

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  19. P.S. This makes me think of the late beloved Milton (who began life as "Mitten"but SHE was renamed by the dear housekeeper who always called folks as she heard them [hence my twins, Alexa and Chesley, became "Lester and Chester"]). After many weeks of the aforementioned poo troubles, my father suggested we name Milton, "Loosy".

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  20. YAY for proper poopies. My Rosie gave me the screaming horrors when I was bottle feeding her. Weird poop, sticky eyes, using her poor bro to poop on and so on! Happiness is indeed a well formed poo!

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  21. SO ADORABLE. Fat belly and pink toes!!

    Poo is true. Our 9 year old boy is quite healthy, but occasionally he has an "issue" and these days a bit of plain yogurt seems to fix him right up (vet suggested it, he loves it).

    He is the king of the household, and was a bit of a brat as a kitten (a hilarious brat). He refused to poo for a few days when we brought him home - he was freaked out, and wanted his litter, and he clenched.

    So DH loaded him up with Petromalt for several days, and then we had a little "explosion." The hilarious part was, an hour before the Great Poo, the little guy was angry! Someone had tricked him and was going to steal his poo! He bounced around yowling at us with great complaint - until the inevitable occured.

    I love cats. The laughs never end.

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  22. Hurray for healthy litterbox leavings!

    I am soooo familar with that medicine that makes them foam at the mouth as well as horrible litter boxes and messes when I was nursing my Morgan through the last stages of intestinal cancer.

    Seeing a solid is such a joy, isn't it? LOL! It sounds crazy, but it's true!

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  23. If you would stop feeding those kittens "Crow",
    maybe the poo would be better...:)

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  24. As an overprotective pet human, I've definitely had those moments. If my critters are feeling under the weather for just 12 hours I'm ready to run them to the vet.

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  25. So true, of baby kitties and little old man kitties. Our youngest had horrible problems for several weeks after we found her and we rejoiced when the loose poos stopped (as did she!). Now we're looking after an old man of 18 with kidney disease who gets a ticker tape parade when he manages a poo. May I cautiously suggest looking into slippery elm?

    Congratulations to the kits on the vertical masterpiece. One imagines you excitedly waving the scooper with Also sprach Zarathustra playing in the background ;) Been there!

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  26. Little Drapers, I feel your pain. I'm so glad you're doing better now.

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  27. Yay for pyramide poop! :)

    I hope the following is not too offensive for this blog, my apologies in advance: I was going to recommend the 50 Kittens blog for everyone interested in more technical (but, of course, also endlessly cute) kitten-fostering stories ...
    but, sadly, the shelter for which the blog authors used to foster just "fired" them. Because the blog authors dared to seek medical help and advice for a sick kitten from an experienced fellow fosterer for free, instead of following the shelter's directive to have the kitten euthanized. I really wonder why some people are in the animal care business ...

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  28. I so know the feeling of poo-related happiness. My boy Tris has trouble with constipation and gets clogged up sometimes. I always do a dance of joy when I find an impressive piece of poo in the litter box and know he's worked through it. In fact, I think he's become proud of them and doesn't bury them just to show them off to me.

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  29. You know you're really a kitty foster when you're a kitten poo expert and you even have names for the various poo forms. On many occasions, I've done the Happy Poo Dance to celebrate the return of the "tootsie roll"

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  30. This has got to be the funniest post (and comments) ever! Hooray for firm poo!!!

    LOL @ fluffpackmama and the ticker tape poo parade

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  31. Who knew what joy poo could bring, eh?

    Gordon looks totally blissed out & poo-perfecto!

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  32. anne - I LOVE concept of the blessing of the holy crap!

    This is my [ahem] #2 favorite IBKC posting.

    And the blissed out kitten looks like he is dreaming that a HUGE poo is falling out of the sky at this very moment.....and he is hoping to fend it off!
    )).((

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  33. We hear it all the time how important it is to be "regular" from TV and the interwebs... so why not little kitties, too? I'm just glad they don't have to take acidophilus to get that perfect pooh.

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  34. My cat and I recently moved. He became constipated and I was very worried. Then this morning... a poo the size of a small child's. Yay for poo (not something you get to say often).

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  35. Yeah for healthy kitties...Oh that pic is so cute..Laurie, just wondering if you have a preference for that little fellow Gordon, as most of the pics, he is the main one in them?!?! I wont blame you because he is such a cute little baby....

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  36. Yay! As a former kitty fosterer (until my forever cats found me), I can appreciate this post a lot.

    What's extra hilarious is that one of the other great foster-kitty blogs (http://www.love-and-hisses.com/) also had a happy post about kitten poo today! Healthy kitties all around!

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  37. Have you ever tasted their medicine? I had to give some liquid medication to my cat recently. It smelled like grape...smelled delicious...and was supposed to taste like grape but when I put just a drop on my tongue, I couldn't get that nasty taste out of my mouth until I drank two full glasses of water and sucked on a mint. It was horribly disgusting! I would fight to the death before taking a dropper full of that crap! I felt so sorry for my kitty and am so glad he's all better now!

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  38. I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to the poo monolith photo at the end of the post. :)

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  39. Little Gordon looks so proud! He looks like he's saying, "Yay! I did good!"

    And ROFL at the story of "Lester and Chester!"

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  40. When Hawkeye first came to live with us, my husband said the neighbors closed their windows when he used the litterbox!!

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  41. 2009 has been a poo monitoring year in this household too. My poor 10-yr old has been having major digestive issues... During the worse months, I had to record everything in a spreadsheet - how much food, what kind, what time, how much to drink, his behaviour,all puking... and what his poo looked like each day. Well-formed, properly coloured poo made for an exciting day indeed!

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  42. Ha I can relate! I have a cat with litterbox issues - she uses it but not always successfully on the first try so I often have to clean up after her. I'm always so excited when everything is working as it should be. ;)

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  43. Anne B, is it possible that 'Lester and Chester' are redheads? If they are grown ladies now I may have known them years ago in Va. Hope they are well, if that's so!

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  44. It really takes raising young kittens to understand the true meaning of "poo monitoring".
    Or how half of your daily conversation can revolve about cat poo, its consistency, shape, smell and color.

    Ahhh cats! :)

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  45. After helping out at an animal shelter for years I can understand the joy of well formed poo!

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  46. Ok, this absolutely one of the cutest kitten pictures ever...

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  47. Hooray for well-fuctioning digestive systems!

    As a side note, does Gordon just photograph the most easily out of the Draper clan? It seems like a lot of the pictures are rather Gordon-skewed.

    --Julia

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  48. When I brought Alice home she was good but within a couple weeks she had Digestive problems and the vet suggested trying to get her to eat pumpkin (mix with a little baby food meat to get her to like it. Well - the girl LOVES pumpkin - just plain from the can! The perfect treat for the little orange girl!
    In fact she is having it tomorrow for her birthday treat!!! (Tommorrow is Dude and Alice's adopted birthday. Dude's special treat is asparagas, he loves it!)
    BTW - the vet also suggested a couple of bites of pupmkin for human mom's and dad's experiencing digestive problems!!!!

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  49. Ah, the perfection of a little "poo nugget"...my kitty had diarrhea for months, and the sight of a formed poo in the litterbox was pure joy to behold. I even had a happy poo dance!

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  50. I gotta agree. We've had our new rescue Toy Poddle about 4 months and have come to discover that any, and I mean any change of diet gives her diarrhea, which Mia hates. She also won't be crated (screams) and has to go when she has to go sonights have been ridicolous. I've had to become meticoluos about food anywhere on the ground. If anything falls or she sees something on the ground I have to beat her to it or get up in the night unless I want to have cleanup first thing at 6:00 am. Unfortunately I have a 9yo boy who thinks nothing of leaving snacks on the coffee table. Hello morning squish.

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