Haven’t posted in a bit…most of you are probably getting used to the lack of updates, though. Regardless, I wanted to update everyone as to how Kitty’s doing. First off, we got her a flea/tick collar, figuring maybe that would help. We also got some organic flea control oil that is put on the back of the cat’s head so the cat can’t lick it off. The oil is made of a lot of different types of herbal oils: peppermint, cinnamon, lemon grass, clove, and thyme along with some vanillin. As you can guess, she smelled. I mean SMELLED. She had behaved pretty well when we switched collars, but this oil was a bit much. Ian didn’t part her fur when he applied it, so it ended up just wetting her fur and causing it to stick straight up as if we’d spiked it with mousse. The spike and the scent lasted for several days, but it didn’t seem to be helping. She continued to pull fur out. Well, we’d have to resort to a bath.

We picked up some shampoo for her and decided the best thing to do was bathe her in the bathroom. Since we don’t have a tub and the sink definitely wasn’t going to work, we used two of our plastic totes for the purpose of washing the cat. One of them we put hot water in (well, warmer than warm because we knew it might sit for a bit until we finished off), and the other we left empty to put the cat in. Poor Kitty. First she fought being put in a plastic tub, then she really fought when I poured water over her with a Tupperware dish. Ian and I managed to keep her wrestled in place in the tub while I lathered her up as best I could. She screamed a lot and fought a lot, but after a while, she just gave up and cried. It was so sad seeing her sitting there, her front paws on the edge of the tub, her butt in a couple inches of water, crying and miserable. Ian didn’t even have to hold her while I rinsed her off because she was just so despondant. We picked her up in a towel and wrapped her up, rubbing her fur to start getting her dry, and I held onto her for a while to try and calm her down. We were really concerned with her catching a cold (cats aren’t really meant to get wet because they don’t dry well generally) so I laid a towel down on the couch where her tent is and put her on it after rubbing her dry for a while. Of course, she jumped right off of it and sat on the carpet to clean herself. A couple hours of this and she was pretty dry. I used a flea comb on her to get the bugs out…which is freaky gross. *Shudder* She did get some treats for being such a good sport, of course.

So we figured that was the end of it…until I noticed that she was losing quite a bit of fur around her collar. I mean tufts of fur in big clumps. I’d pet her and an incredible amount of fur would come away with my hand, far more than she’d ever shed even in the spring. The best we can figure is that she was having an allergic reaction to the collar. We’ve since removed it, and though she’s still losing some fur, it’s less than before. The missing stripe of fur along her back is starting to grow back (though for now she looks kind of like Pépé le Pew), and we’re not going to mess with putting her old green collar on until we’re sure her neck is better. She’s been scratching at it enough to actually break skin, so we’re hoping the reaction to the flea collar doesn’t last long.

So there’s our update on our sweetie Kitty. She no longer smells from the oils or the shampoo (scented as coconut berry, btw), and she’s naked. What a horrible holiday season Kitty had!