LINCOLN! (Perhaps not surprisingly, to those who know him)
So, yesterday the cats had to go to the vet to get vaccinated (for DCFS--what else?). Lincoln has a long-standing history of raising absolute hell at the vet's (jungle cat screaming, biting, thrashing about, smacking the bars of his cage so hard it once fell off the table).
Now--this monster cat has been mine since he was a baby. I know what's he's like and it's not nice. I wear my leather gloves when I have to take him in. The old vet, now, had a habit of telling me--as I was standing there with my gloves on and Lincoln was screaming in the box--that he knew how to handle animals and that he could get LPC out of the box.
On three separate visits, the old vet stuck his arm in the cage to pry the cat out and three times he had his arm almost bitten off. Then--now that the meow was (even more) pissed off--I would get to take the top off to drag him out (and then practically lie on him to allow the vet to look at him).
No more! This time I made an appt with a new vet and also got some sedatives from some cat friends of ours. They stated that these pink wonder pills knocked their cats OUT! (Liars. Well, okay, partial liars)
So I give the sedatives to the cats about an hour and a half before the appointment. When it came time to put the biggun and littlun in their cages (which, surprisingly, they like), I didn't see any evidence of sedation. *cue music of doom*
The drive to the vet was 10 minutes of alternating jungle cat yeowling (the big one) and plaintive sad cat yeowling (the little one).
Everyone in the waiting room wondered what was wrong with the cat in the green box! Is he sick? hurt? Nope, just pissed. I told the vet staff, and the vet and tech, the whole story when they came in. I warned them thaty I was not exagerrating, at all, the destructive abilities of my Lincoln!
So--they brought in 2 blankets, a leash, and a muzzle. I put my gloves on, we took the top off the cage, and as Dave would say, it was ON! They managed to get the leash on right before he vaulted the top of the cage off and jumped over the edge of the table, strangling himself and snarling/hissing/biting/screaming the whole time. The muzzle? Please...
Him, being my cat, and me, not being afraid of his theatrics, I wrestled him on to the table and the tech and I held him down while the vet did her thing. Which, by the way, included looking at his teeth with a tongue depressor. Lincoln promptly took a swipe at the vet and sent the stick flying across the exam room! Cat strong like bull.
She said if you could just shake him, then, when he screams, I can see all of his teeth. Oh, that's just great, I'll shake a pissed-off cat.
I am totally not surprised that people get eaten by mountain lions in California, when it takes 2 grown women to hold down an 11 pound cat. (They were going to weigh him, but by the end of everything, they just took my word for it.). Sedatives my *ss.
They gave me new meds for the next time I bring him in. The dosage is 4 times stronger than the ones I gave him. They said to call if it seems like he needs more.
Piper, however, was an entriely different story. I dragged her out of her box and she just looooked at meeee with herr wiiiide ooopen eeeeyesss. Apparently 3 pounds and an attitude problem makes the difference between handling a cat with leather gloves and handing your cat to the vet on a spoon. (The vet said that they've never had an owner that was so good at handling her animals, that they don't usually let the owner hold the animals while they're drawing blood, and that maybe I'd want to work there. Yay me, I'm so awesome....)
Other than the tech wanting to keep Piper because she was so irresistably cute, her visit was uneventful. Oh, except for when she stood up to put her hands on my shoulder and bled down the right side of my shirt on to my shorts, down my leg, into my shoe, and on to the floor.
The vet came back in and it looked like a murder scene!
So, they went back in their cages and the counter person said that everyone in the building had been wondering what in the world had been going on in that room. They meowed all the way to Kmart and then all the way home.
They forgave me as soon as we got home and Piper, by the way, is still nearly unconscious. This morning I had to poke her to make sure she was breathing.
She didn't even blink. Just turrrrrnnnnned her head.
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