It has been such a full day. I took the boys to work with me this morning, along with a a local high school student who sometimes babysits for us. She is going to do some work for me at my office so I took her along to get her paperwork done and get started. She's just working 20 hours a week for me but I'm so glad to have her help. At lunchtime we left and I took the boys swimming then when Craig came to the pool I took Jack to soccer practice. I'm not complaining about it being a busy day - it was fun but just oh so full.
When I got home at 7pm I went and sat in the office and thought I'd snuggle with Hook for an hour - to give me a chance to wind down and hopefully make him feel more at home. After about 10 minutes I noticed my t-shirt covered in small back spots. Uh-ho. Then I started rooting around in his fur like a chimp and found fleas. Lots and lots of lots of fleas - adults, eggs and larvae. Ewww!
So off to the shops we went, Jack and I, to buy flea shampoo, flea medicine, and Borax to clean the rugs and futon and everything else that didn't fit in the washing machine. In the meantime I sent a long text to Katy and also left her a voice mail explaining that her cat was riddled with fleas and I didn't appreciate it very much and please get back to me asap. I was livid and didn't hold any punches on my message. That was at 7.30pm and I am yet to get a response at 11.30pm.
This poor cat was absolutely covered in fleas and I've noticed his claws are so long they are curling back on themselves and I am surmising from the conversations we had with Katy and her roommate last Sunday that he was pretty much ignored the last 12 months. They made him sleep in the basement each night because he meowed. I think he meowed because he wanted some attention and they locked him in the basement each night.
So tonight at 9pm we gave him a flea bath (you can imagine how much he loved that), then we kept him in a dog crate for an hour and watched the adult fleas jump off him. I spent an hour dusting the room with Borax, brushing it in, then hoovering it up. We have washed all other textiles and scrubbed the room. We can't put his medicine on his neck for two days, until his fur is back to normal after the bath, but I think most of the fleas are now gone.
He is back in the office now, all clean and hopefully in a clean environment. I just went in to see him, expecting him to run away and never come back after all he's been through but guess what? He came to me, rubbing against my legs and purring. He's a different cat altogether. He must be feeling so much better now that he's not being bitten and irritated to death.
I wonder if I'll hear from Katy? I wonder how I'll respond to her if I do? I tell you what - she's not having any kind of say in how this cat gets cared for anymore. I think she considers herself a kind person and I think she "loves" him but I think she's a young person who has no time for a pet and no desire to learn what it takes to do it properly. She brought me two plug-in scent things that mimic a female cat pheromone that I saw tonight at the pet shop for $50 each. She also brought us expensive urinary tract food, an expensive cat carrier and she gave me elaborate instructions on the placement of his litter tray and food. Too bad she didn't consider investing in some flea medicine as she might have saved him a lot of pain and irritation.
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