January 4, 2000.   Yesterday, I couldn't get my graph to work properly so I thought that my graphing program was not Y2K complient, but today, as soon as I entered the year as "2000" instead of "00" it worked correctly.  Yeah! 

October 30, 1999.   We are experimenting with new diets for our cats.  Tooley is on the same diet and his weight has remained about the same.  All of the other cats have suddenly gained a little.  We ran out of their diet food and fed them the regular (non diet) food for a couple of days.  Rocky is now on a mixture of about half diet and half regular and he has gained weight; the others are still on all regular food.  It is amazing how a slight change in their diets can change their weights so fast. 

May 29, 1999.   mokey is a very lovable cat.  He has not been sick for quite a while now.  Last weekend while I was fixing my computer Smokey was sitting in the window behind the desk where my computer is.  I saw him turn around and vomit down behind the desk.  I heard the vomit splat on the floor right on the tangled mess of wires and plug-in strips.  I was sort of panicking thinking that I had to turn everything off before something got shorted out.  But before I could do that he jumped from the window to the top of my mini-tower computer (which is what he normally does when leaving the window) but the outer case was off because I was working on it, and he jumped right in.  He landed on the power supply box just inside the computer.  This sort of startled him and he paused just long enough to vomit again right inside the computer!  What a mess!  I just sat there and laughed.

April 17, 1999.   Smokey is doing better now.  He is not vomitting any more and is gaining weight.  This is quite a coincidence:  Just as I started to write this about him, he came to sit in my lap and purr, again!

April 10, 1999.   Smokey may be doing better now.  He still vomits once in awhile but he is beginning to regain some weight.  Many different things can cause vomiting in cats, so we don't really know the reason for his yet.  We have changed his food to what the vet recommended.  Only time, trial and error, and watching how he is responding will tell. (He must have known that I was writing about him --- he just came to sit in my lap and purr.

April 3, 1999.   You may be wondering why Smokey suddenly lost a half pound.  He got sick on April 1.  The vet says that he may have a bile duct infection which caused him to vomit excessively (all night long).  He seems to be responding to medication and may be on the road to recovery.  Unfortunately, he had to stay overnight at the vets which has caused him to pick up an odd odor.  Rocky and Shadow won't go near Smokey without hissing and swatting at him as if they don't recognize him anymore.  We may have to give him a bath!

February 20, 1999.   We are so proud of Rocky.  He has finally reached his weight-loss goal to get under 15 pounds!  Now should we shoot for 14 pounds?  Rocky has become more active and able to jump up to heights that he was having trouble getting to before.  And he is much less irritable too.

ocky was a bit overweight and had been very irritable whenever we touched him on his back so we took him in to the vet for a checkup.  The vet said that he was overweight and that the excess weight was probably adding extra strain to his back which was causing the irritable behavior.  So, as per our vets' instructions, we put Rocky on a diet and he has lost most of the excess weight.  He was up over 18 pounds at his heaviest and the vet recommended that we try to get him down to about 15 pounds.  You might think that 15 pounds for a cat is still heavy, but he is a big cat, much bigger than his siblings, so 15 pounds isn't too bad.  How heavy is your cat?  Does your cat need to go on a diet too?  If you suspect that your cat is overweight, before bringing your cat to the vet, consult the "Body Condition Scoring System for Cats" which I have re-created on its own page.  The diet that our vet recommended was to replace the high calorie cat food that we were feeding Rocky with the same amount of a low calorie, prescription, feline r/d, diet cat food.  Before the diet we were feeding five cats one cup of high calorie cat food twice daily which was slighly less than recommended by the cat food manufacturer.  And we were not controlling how much each one ate so some may have gotten more than the others.  Maybe Rocky was eating more than his fair share.  Now, at feeding time, we separate Rocky from the others to give him 1/4 cup of dry, diet cat food twice daily.  Our vet said that Rocky should lose about 1/4 of a pound per week and that is about the rate that Rocky has lost the weight.  (Feb. 13, 1999)

adie is also on a diet.  (Note the purple vertical line indicating where we started her on a diet.)  Her diet is not as strict as Rockys.  Rocky only gets to eat a measured amount of diet cat food.  Sadie gets a measured amount of about half diet and half regular cat food.  (Feb. 13, 1999)