Would you believe that today I want to talk about pumpkin power? And it's not even Halloween or Thanksgiving. :)

However, in my Internet ramblings, I have discovered that pure pureed pumpkin is an almost miraculous digestive aid for kitties ~ and puppies, too.

This tip is from www.pets.ca:

Tip 75 - Pumpkin for cats - pumpkin for dogs - Pumpkin for diarrhea or constipation

If your dog or cat is having the occasional case of constipation or diarrhea, one of the things that might help is canned pumpkin. Yes canned pumpkin in its pureed form (NOT pumpkin pie filling) is a fantastic stool softener which makes it a good natural remedy for constipation. It often helps with upset stomach or indigestion for both cats and dogs. It is very rich in fibre and adding just one or two teaspoonfuls to your pet's food often gets the system moving in no time. Dogs will occasionally want to eat it directly and that's fine too. Sometimes though, finicky cats and dogs won't touch it no matter what you do.

On the opposite end of things is diarrhea. Since the dietary fibre in canned pumpkin absorbs water, it can be a great help to a cat or dog that has diarrhea. Some pet owners report that it firms up their pet's loose stools or diarrhea within a few hours. Again one to two teaspoonfuls is all that is needed.

N.B. It should be noted that both diarrhea and constipation can both be very serious and require immediate veterinary care depending on the cause. Whatever the cause, diarrhea or constipation lasting more than 24-36 hours requires vet care.

Since Trey has had some serious pooie problems, I have used the pumpkin successfully. Another site said that the pumpkin, administered weekly, also deters furballs, so I plan to add it to all my kitties' food.

Yet another tip recommended freezing the pumpkin in usable amounts by making pumpkin twisties out of plastic wrap or using baby food jars for larger amounts.

Who would have thought that something that looks amazingly like orange poo itself could be so useful? :)

Lately I have been living a bit of a lie.

The sign on my shed says *Strays Welcome Here.* However, somewhere along the path of good intentions, the neighborhood has been inundated with strays and strays having kittens. Three stray mamas gifted us with a total of 14 kittens in my shed, in a kitty house on Elly's carport, and under her house. Deuce was one of those strays; Trey was a fifteenth kitten that just showed up from who-knows-where like so many of the other strays that mysteriously appeared here. Elly and I have pondered and pondered how this happened because several years ago, we were feeding only *two* strays, and they were males.

We have managed until this year when so many kitties have created both budgetary and emotional problems for us. Elly couldn't even get out her back door because kitties swarmed there at feeding times. You can imagine how devastated I was when I failed to see a kitten, Deuce's sibling, underneath my car and ran over him. Though I rushed him to Dr. Britt, he was gone before she could do anything. Everyone consoled me with the usual *These things happen when you have so many kittens,* but I still feel terrible about it. Where Elly and I previously drove oh-so-slowly in the alley, we now inch along until we're sure there are no kitties anywhere close to our cars.

We had to do something. Then we heard about a lady named Cheryl and her Southern Illinois Pet Rescue that has a no-kill policy. Cheryl managed to round up one mama and four of the kittens, and she left with promises to come back for another round-up. But then Cheryl suddenly passed away from a heart attack the very next day.

We were both saddened and stunned. Cheryl's friend called soon after, however, to assure us that the mama and her kittens had already been placed with a lady on a big farm in Nashville, IL, and this same lady will take as many other kittens and stray adults as we can round up.

That particular project is on temporary hold, though, until Elly recuperates from a tummy virus. Since neither she nor I can get around so agilely these days, we are hoping for some help from the local animal control in the gathering process since we do have a new home for the kitties.

In the meantime, Elly and I continue to feel bad because we can't welcome so many strays anymore. Being so poor you can't care for what you want to care for is a frustrating feeling. But we know our first responsibilities are to the kitties we have inside.

Please keep us in your good thoughts!

Today belongs to my other special-needs kitten, Trey Baby Wader Cleveland. The *Wader* is in tribute to the sweet, little gray kitten that was born in my shed a couple of springs ago. Male hormones guided him away from here, but he eventually returned only to pass away here because in his journeys someone had been mean to him. That's another story, though, and one that breaks my heart ~ so I will focus on Trey.

Neighbor Elly and I were flooded with kittens from strays this spring ~ a subject for another post. However, Trey was not among those kittens. He showed up suddenly one morning, huddled into a teeny, frightened ball. I watched him for a day and a half, but no mother showed up to care for him. I knew he had plenty to eat if he wanted it because I set out breakfast and suppie each day for the strays. However, even the kittens of those strays were bigger than this little guy, so I couldn't be certain he was able to get through the gauntlet of bigger kitties.

The next evening Elly called to tell me that this kitten was still huddled outside, and we had some major storms on the doorstep here. Having brought Deuce inside the previous month to bring my household total to a fuzzy five, I definitely didn't need another kitty inside, right? But how could I leave him outside?

He didn't make the bringing-inside process easy for me. He was too weak to run, but he scooted faster than I was able to scoot beneath my bushier lilac. These days arthritis in my back keeps me from maneuvering too smoothly, but eventually I was able to gather him up and bring him inside, where I kept him inside the *ICU Kennel* I had used for Deuce for a while. Since I had one kitten named Deuce, Trey seemed like a good name for this one. :)



Trey continued to huddle in a corner of the kennel. Whenever I reached for him, he hissed at me or flinched, so goodness knows what his life had been like previously. I took him to my wonderful vets at the Douglas Vet Clinic the next day. Besides being emaciated, he had a belly full of worms. Dr. Bailey told me he would need a huge amount of TLC ~ was I sure I wanted to proceed? I had to give the little guy a chance.

He required a lot of medicine and milk replacement as well as food, and his pooie problems persisted for several weeks to the point that he couldn't always get to his litter box. He had to spend a day at the vet clinic, too, before he finally started to come around.

During the night, he sometimes emits this mournful meow until I call to him to let him know that I am close by. He is the aforementioned kitten that peed on my bed during the night, but I *think* he was marking his mommy because of his abandonment issues rather than the problem being behavioral as Chelsie's was. Time will test the validity of that brilliant insight.



I do know that he has stopped hissing at me and flinching away from me. In fact, he seeks out my attention and loves to cuddle. He and Deuce have become energetic playmates and loving buddies ~ much to Joey's relief since Deuce doesn't bug him quite so much now. Joey takes his big brother duties seriously and will protect the Terrible Two from their sisters or help me break up wrestling matches that become a little too rambunctious. :)







Trey had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Britt yesterday. He had gained over a pound in just two weeks and received a clean bill of health along with his shots. He has quite charmed his favorite vet tech, Karen. :)

You already know that he had me from the dance at the lilac bush, right? :)

My heartfelt thanks and thank-you huggies to my close personal friend, Emmie Jean Henderson in Minne*snow*ta, for creating my logo for me! She is an ultra-talented and generous friend! :)

Today's focus will be one of my aforementioned special-needs kittens, the first one to join the Cleveland Kitty Cottage: Deuce LoveNugget Cleveland, who happens to think he's Rambo.

Deuce was one of a litter of four to be born to a stray who commandeered my shed. I was feeding first the mother, later the kittens, too, and regularly changing a litter box placed in the shed for their use. The kittens were mostly afraid of me and ran to hide in various locations in the shed whenever I opened the door. Therefore, I hadn't worked up any huge attachment to any of them other than just to enjoy watching them through my office window as they played outside.

One fateful Saturday afternoon when I opened the shed to clean the litter box, I noticed one of the kittens wedged TIGHTLY beneath the opened door of a cabinet in there. I keep the door propped open so that kitties have access to beds I have made for them with towels and blankies on the cabinet shelves. The trapped kitten was barely moving and emitted only a feeble meow as I freed him. I laid him on a blanket, and he didn't move at all other than to meow faintly occasionally.

I called my wonderful neighbor, Elly, for help and then the Doctors Douglas, Mike and Britt, who operate Douglas Vet Clinic in Salem. They are closed Saturday afternoons, but Dr. Britt met me at the clinic. Both Elly and I were very much afraid the little guy wouldn't survive. Lying as he had been, pressed so tightly against the concrete floor, he had scraped off his whiskers and facial fur, and he was also hypothermic. Dr. Britt gave him a warming bath and a steroid shot, then kept him at the clinic over the weekend ~ for free I should add.

Monday I was able to bring him home for TLC here. I named him Deuce because he was getting a second chance. At the time, he weighed less than a pound, and I had to get up every three hours to feed him milk replacement and whatever canned food I could get him to eat. When I was at school, Elly took care of him.


As he picked up weight and strength, his Rambo tendencies began to emerge.:) He is a persistently playful bundle of energy now, but also a loving, purring cuddler who loves to snuggle with his new mommy and pester his big brother Joey for attention.


On his first follow-up visit to Dr. Britt, she couldn't believe he was the same kitten she had seen just a couple of weeks before. The initial fear was that he had sustained enough brain trauma that he might be blind, but thanks be to God, he is now healthy and happy. Well, mostly healthy: He is, at this moment, recovering from an upper respiratory infection. Again, Dr. Britt ~ and amoxicillin ~ saved the day. :)

My wish is happy endings for all little animals. I know I can't save them all, but I'll do what I can!

Wow! Would you look at the time since my last post! The world has *REALLY* been too much with me since that last post ~ which happened to be on my late and beloved mother's birthday. I can't say that I actually have that much more time now, but I do have have some ideas and a greater urge to share them for some reason.

First, however, I have some housekeeping to handle. You will notice that the name of my blog has been changed to something with more specific focus, and soon I will be changing the look of the page, too, as I can grab the moments to work on it.

Having just acquired kitties five and six through cosmic forces greater than my own preferences and common sense, I have decided to devote my blog to all things kitty. Yes, I know that I have already written plenty about kitties thus far, but now I am crossing over to the furry side completely. :) Yesterday, in spending time with two of my best friends, Melinda and Jo Lynne, I discovered that as they talked about their kids and grandkids, I wanted to talk about my kitties. They listened as good friends do, but deep inside my grateful little heart, I knew they were thinking that I should get a life. :) The fact of my life is, however, that kitties *are* my life these days ~ hence, the change in focus for my blog.

I mentioned to them that if I had it all to do over again, I would like to be a pet psychologist. No vetting for me ~ I can't handle blood, and no way would I ever be able to inject that *final dose* when final doses are needed. But I do love to watch animals interact and to *try* to figure out what is going on in their minds. Consequently, I will use this blog to talk about my critters and any insights I have acquired along the way.

A galvanizing moment occurred about midnight last night as I was changing my bed after one of the new kittens peed on it ~ insights on *that* to come later. As I wound down afterward, I did a lot of Web browsing to find others' insights and decided to add my blog to the mix. An earlier post here highlighted the troubles I had when my second oldest, Chelsie, put me through this same ordeal, so I am not without experience this time around.

So I'll be back as I can to get this new home in shape and to start adding those profound insights. Try to contain your excitement. To all my wonderful friends, I can't promise that I will talk less about my kitties, but maybe by writing about them here, I can branch out into other conversation areas when I'm socializing with friends. :)

FYI: the kittens pictured here are Deuce and Trey, the two stray special-needs kittens that found their ways separately into my heart and home.

Until next time... :)