Forty-Seventh

Things proceed slowly with the cats. We had Otis at the vet last night to get the second part of his vaccination shots. Because we hadn't had the first part done at our vet, we had to pay for both shots because of the way the shots are packaged and sold. Either that or the vet just felt like shafting us. Still, it was necessary, so no real harm done I suppose. He was very well behaved with the vet, all told, only complaining a bit when the vet gave him a thorough going over to check him out. His ear are in a bit of a state, with some pretty dirty-looking wax build up deep down, probably the work of ear mites recently, so he's got some drops for that, which we had fun administering this morning.

I mentioned before how his tail has a strange bald patch on it, didn't I? The vet looked at it closely, and said it was likely to be something called 'stud tail', which is frequently a hormonal reaction in male cats to being neutered. He's got some antibiotics for that, and we'll have to keep an eye on it ourselves for the next week or two. It's not really dangerous, and isn't infectious, just a little uncomfortable for him.

We had a bit of a tear-jerker scenario last night when we thought that Otis might actually be deaf. We spent some time with him though, trying a few things including the hoover test, and it turns out that he's not deaf, he's just bloody well ignoring us half the time.

Annie's behaviour has definitely changed - it's been a few days now since she slept on the bed with us, something she normally does every night. She's not ignoring us or hiding, which is good, but she's definitely in a bit of a huff just now. There's nothing we can really do for now except try to pay her as much attention as we can while she's around. I have a feeling that we'll have to try and force an 'introduction' ourselves in a week or two, because otherwise she'd probably just go on as she is just now, trying to ignore the fact that there's another cat in the house. .

I'll keep you posted.