There are several signs one looks for, when one lives with cats, that indicate that a cat might have a problem. One of them is inappropriate peeing outside the litter box. Of course, when we’re dealing with a herd of cats with Issues, that’s not always a sign of physical illness as a sign of some cat’s mental issues needed to be carefully handled again. But when you find little puddles of pee that look like they may have blood in them, that can’t be chalked up to ‘some cat is having a snippy day’.

The next step is to figure out which cat might be the culprit. I narrowed the area – downstairs bathroom tile (thankfully easy to clean) and one small spot in a corner (also, thanks to the newly laid wood laminate, easy to clean up), all in an area frequented mostly by only two cats – Zucchini and Checkers. Of course, it doesn’t help that every single cat seems to be full of energy, eating and drinking like normal, and keeping themselves clean and neat. But eventually we decided it was probably Checkers (and if it wasn’t, well, we’ll find out soon enough anyway), and thus came the next big decision to make in a brand new place – locating a new vet for the cats. We’ve been so very spoiled having a housecall vet for the cats all along, that it’s a big adjustment facing having to cart them off to an office for a change.

I checked Yelp.com to find vets in our area with good reviews (since the two vets we’ve been using didn’t have any recommendations for us in Sacramento) and settled on one that’s just about a mile away (figuring that shorter driving distance with pissed cat in carrier can only be a good thing) and called to make her an appointment. I felt it only polite to warn them that Checkers can be a bit…um…well, let’s just say that when she’s mad or scared, she tends to make liberal use of all five of her pointy ends (clipping her claws involves locking myself in the bathroom with her, and then being prepared to nurse a few new bleeding scratches when I am done).

Checkers, however, was an absolute angel at the vet (of course, she was so scared she kept trying to burrow into my elbow to hide). No hissing, no yelling, no flailing of paws, no gnashing of teeth – she just hunched into a tiny ball and did her best to try to pretend she was invisible (alas, it didn’t work). We (the vet and I) agreed that part of the problem may simply be that Checkers is, by her nature, and extremely high strung little cat, and something may have upset her (Richard and I have often noted that ‘appalled’ is a natural state for Checkers), and it could be as simple as that, but we’re running tests anyway, just to be sure. Plus, she’s about 5 now, so it’s not such a bad idea to establish some baseline levels for blood.

Anyway. They’ll call with the results and I’ll continue to keep an eye on her, and try to re-establish proper litter box behavior (this isn’t the first time she’s needed a refresher course – did I mention our cats have Issues?) , and we’ll just see how it goes. And in the meantime, the benefit of all this is that I think we’ve found ourselves a new vet.

Posted for NaBloPoMo.