When we first brought Porter home back in August, the plan had been to get her spayed when she was 3-4 months old. Well, time has a way of getting away from us and here it is that she is 6 months old already! Unfortunately for us, we didn't connect the unspayed and 1/2 yearly birthday problem until a few days ago when Porter started being a lot more vocal than she normally is. We couldn't figure out what her problem was until, light bulb moment, those dots got connected and Matthew said "I think she is in heat". Eh, no big deal, I thought. She is an inside cat, and the worst that can happen is we will have to get her some cute kitty underwear and now wont that just be the cutest thing ever. Yeah. Well in case you didn't know, having a cat in heat is nothing, I repeat nothing at all, like having a dog who is in heat. Dogs are pretty easy going about things, but cats? Oh my gosh. They have to announce the state of their hormones loud and clear, repeatedly, all day and night long just in case "a handsome boyfriend" comes along, as Rowan so eloquently put it.
She also took to assuming a rather come hither position anytime someone made the mistake of petting her. It was actually pretty cute:
Finding that no special boyfriend was responding to her loud and vocal pleas, she developed a quite one sided relationship with a kitchen towel:
Despite her amusing posture and funny romps around the kitchen, having a cat in heat is really no picnic. For 3 days her incessant meowing kept everyone awake, and she was relegated to the laundry room at 3am more than once. It was also pretty obvious that being in heat was physically very uncomfortable for her, so once we figured out what was going on we made her an appointment to get fixed and put her (and us!) out of our misery.
On the way to the vets, I realized that Porter is not what you would call a calm car rider. She worked herself up pretty good during the 25 minute drive to the clinic, and made escaping from that box the number one priority. By the time we got her though a return trip home after her surgery, she had almost accomplished her task and could nearly get her whole head out of what used to be a small breathing hole:
Awesome. I see a plastic carrier in our future for sure. She was pretty knocked out that night, and spent most of her time laying around looking sad. We all felt pretty bad for her, except when we were giggling over how cute her shaved tummy was with all those adorable little spots!
Harlow wasn't pleased about any of this, of course, because Harlow is rarely pleased about anything. After giving Porter a quick sniff when she arrived home, Harlow spent the rest of that night and the better part of the next day hissing and growling every time Porter came near her. It was probably just the smell of other cats and the suspicious lingering vet office odors, but Harlow was taking no chances that this wasn't in fact something dangerously contagious.
The vet said to keep Porter calm and quiet for 5 days, but it was pretty obvious the day after surgery that that was going to be next to impossible. Maybe its the extra pain meds that we got have her doped up on but she is running around the house acting like nothing ever happened. At least she is doing it quietly...so we cant really complain!
She also took to assuming a rather come hither position anytime someone made the mistake of petting her. It was actually pretty cute:
Finding that no special boyfriend was responding to her loud and vocal pleas, she developed a quite one sided relationship with a kitchen towel:
Despite her amusing posture and funny romps around the kitchen, having a cat in heat is really no picnic. For 3 days her incessant meowing kept everyone awake, and she was relegated to the laundry room at 3am more than once. It was also pretty obvious that being in heat was physically very uncomfortable for her, so once we figured out what was going on we made her an appointment to get fixed and put her (and us!) out of our misery.
On the way to the vets, I realized that Porter is not what you would call a calm car rider. She worked herself up pretty good during the 25 minute drive to the clinic, and made escaping from that box the number one priority. By the time we got her though a return trip home after her surgery, she had almost accomplished her task and could nearly get her whole head out of what used to be a small breathing hole:
Awesome. I see a plastic carrier in our future for sure. She was pretty knocked out that night, and spent most of her time laying around looking sad. We all felt pretty bad for her, except when we were giggling over how cute her shaved tummy was with all those adorable little spots!
Harlow wasn't pleased about any of this, of course, because Harlow is rarely pleased about anything. After giving Porter a quick sniff when she arrived home, Harlow spent the rest of that night and the better part of the next day hissing and growling every time Porter came near her. It was probably just the smell of other cats and the suspicious lingering vet office odors, but Harlow was taking no chances that this wasn't in fact something dangerously contagious.
The vet said to keep Porter calm and quiet for 5 days, but it was pretty obvious the day after surgery that that was going to be next to impossible. Maybe its the extra pain meds that we got have her doped up on but she is running around the house acting like nothing ever happened. At least she is doing it quietly...so we cant really complain!