We think possibly it was the stress of the trip with Eushu…but just in case are checking for the little internal passengers Eushu arrived with and we cured in him. There are worse possibilities, but she is now eating and drinking, which argues against some of the worse ones.And we will get word on the labs tomorrow.
Beyond that into the metaphysical…The bond Efanor and Ysabel had was such that we could have them in separate cars and they somehow reacted to the oddest things. Efanor knew when Ysabel and I ran off the road in Nebraska, and our cars got separated. He knew when, late that night and by phone, Jane and I finally made contact. He slept through the trip to catch up with us until he got within a mile of the motel where I was, and then (which he never did before or since) got up and leaned on the dashboard of the car until Jane reached the motel. Ysabel, meanwhile, had gotten off the bed and was pacing the floor when Jane’s car pulled in. Can they tell the car motors? Sure. But not a mile apart in traffic. And not with mine turned off and us in a motel room. So if ever there were two strangely intertwined felines, Ysabel and Efanor were it. And it just killed us when, on arrival at Chip’s, she started calling and searching for him—and then went into a real physical tailspin. So yes, emotional upset could be part of it. We hadn’t anticipated she’d think she could find him there. And Shu trying to play just hit her in a very wrong mood. If he also gave her parasites a while back, that would up the ante re upset stomach.
So we are proposing something we don’t ordinarily do: we’re looking to bring in an older neutered male kitty who will be comfy with Ysabel, buffer Eushu’s rowdiness and give Eushu somebody to play with in a rowdy kitteh way. We aren’t sure yet. We’ve got a call in to a cattery in Montana to see if this can work out.
Meanwhile I am a wreck considering Ysabel’s collapse last night, Jane is trying to help me stay on even keel, and we just found one of our koi done in by (we think) a raccoon: no fault of OSG’s. We think this happened last night. We just surrounded the pond with pepper powder: we think the recent rains washed off the coyote scent, and pepper’s what we had left.
Honestly. I’ve had better weekends.
It might help Ysabel just to have another feline to share the kitten-raising stress. At 90 in kitty years, she is properly, like Ilisidi, a venerable (and dangerous) great grandmother, and should not have to deal directly with kitten antics.
I imagine she feels incomplete without the cat friend with whom she was so closely bonded, and the trip was stressful for her, and it ended at a place she associated with Efanor, and she wasn’t feeling good to begin with — it was all too much.
I feel for her and for all of you. Try to rest, take care of yourselves, and encourage Shu to practice his seek-and-destroy techniques somewhere Ysabel is not!
I am so sorry to hear the troubles are continuing. Sending best wishes for Ysabel’s quick recovery. Another cat for Eushu might well take some of the stress from her.
Poor Ysabel, so distressing to hear she’s not well, especially after seeing the almost snuggly Ysabel/Eushu pics Jane posted from the trip. I’m not a cat person, but hope that having another feline around helps – it does with dogs, but there’s no comparison, really. Hoping she perks up soon. And you still need to make that trip to Crater Lake!
Hopes, I hope all will be well soon, or at least much improved.
I’m sure you’ve thought of it, but if it turns out Ysabel did pick up tiny freeloaders from Master Eushu, then Shu will need to be re-treated, to avoid a cycle of unpleasantness for both cats.
I don’t know what to advise re whether to take on another cat to balance the little guy’s rockets, but I hope it all goes as desired by all parties.
There are times Goober is frazzled or put off by Smokey’s exuberance and top cat young impish self, and other times he plays along. I have not seen him smack Smokey, though Smokey has, at times, deserved it from the slightly older and long-suffering Goober. I don’t know what a third cat would do to their mix, except it would have to be a very mellow but resolute kitty, since Goober is *not* an alpha and Smokey *is.*
Best wishes for Ysabel. — in photo 9 of the trip, she looks like Pyanfar to me, a fiercely proud and protective tough customer with a great heart.
Hoping they both do fine.
I don’t doubt unexplainably metaphysical behavior like that. I’ve come to think maybe there’s at least one or more alternate/parallel dimensions of something beyond the here-and-now reality we ordinarily know. Sometimes, things happen. Who’s to say there’s not more than we sense most of the time? Call it “next door” or a “veil” or whatever there might be, but sometimes, we and our animal cousins seem to glimpse more than it seems reasonably possible without some other ingredients, dimensions, whatchamacallits. Just because I can’t always sense it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Doesn’t mean it is, of course, but then what explains some phenomena that we can observe in glimpses of the strange, or have an idea of the effects? Bigger than I can grasp the exact answer to, and difficult by science. But the Empirical Method as a tool cannot answer every question. What tools do we use to answer what science can’t answer? Hah, as if I knew.
Best Wishes, whatever is up with hyper dimensional physics, metaphysics, and unexplained feline and human curiosities.
Speaking from experience……when we got Kiki, Kezar was 18-19 and so arthritic that we lifted her onto the couch. Of course Kiki wanted to play and Kezar wanted to rest. *Not* a good combination. Friendly moved in soon after, but she is a loner cat, loves people aloof from other cats. Kezar died and we basically had two separate kitties. Friendly was perfectly happy with her people, but Kiki was obviously lonely, kept wanting to play. Then Aloysius came to our house! It was two weeks of mayhem and then Kiki and Aloysius found each other with much subservient belly exposure and licking and felaway. They quickly became buddies and a facsimile of peace came. I say ‘facsimile’ because they still go what we refer to as b*gf##k . Which means they race through the house bounce off one wall, reverse, go up the stairs and bounce again. Repeat until house and dog are in complete chaos. (And yes, the Dumpster Duo has just discovered that one of my cd shelves is not screwed to the wall and if they jump juuuuust riiiight they can take the entire shelf over.)
All this is by way of saying that a third kitteh may be the answer to your problems.
Off subject; The last Space Shuttle is on it’s way back to Earth.I’m trying to think of this as a comparison to the period between Columbus coming to the New World and the time when permanent settlement began.
I fully agree regarding communication of emotions and/or trauma over distances. When we moved to our ranch, we had sunk every penny into it and my mother couldn’t afford to call her mother 600 miles away at the old AT&T rates. When she really needed to talk to her mother, she would just steadily think about talking to her and in a little while, the phone would ring and my my grandmother would be on the other end. One has to remember that consciousness is purely immaterial and far more than simply a collection of nerve cells.