Moog's meanderings

Well, Shelley wasn’t all that happy with me when I came to pick her up. She was kind of glaring at me in a kind of ‘how could you leave me here?’ kind of way but at the same time purring and wanting affection.
Apparently quite a lot of her teeth were already missing. The vet had to extract a few more. Now she only has 5!! The four ‘fangs’ and one pre-molar. The vet recommended that (while her mouth is still healing up) I should give her a mixture of wet and dry food so that she can choose what’s comfortable for her. I have never seen anything disappear so quickly as the wet food I got for her and put down that evening!!! I think she thought it was her birthday or something. It’s rather convenient giving her that stuff actually as she’s got to take some antibiotics twice a day for 5 days and we’ve always had trouble getting her to take pills. Easily done when they can be disguised in jelly!

On a completely different note; I read in leaflet on the Coeliac UK website that you should eat a normal (ie containing gluten) diet for 6 weeks prior to being tested!!!!!!!!! Given the reaction after one bit of gluten I don’t really think that going back to it for a 6 week period for the purpose of being tested is an option. Surely there must be other ways that gluten intolerance and/or coeliac disease can be medically identified?

Shelley (our cat) has gone in to the vet for a ‘dental’ today. I took her for her annual booster jabs last week and when the vet was giving her a quick check over beforehand he looked in her mouth. It was not good! One very loose tooth (and a bleeding gum) and a couple of others not looking too good. Not that they’re in generally bad condition in the way of plaque and tartar, just falling out and sore gums apparently. They looked really quite painful from what I could see.
I asked the vet whether there was anything I should be doing – possibly feeding her wet food rather than dried, or a mixture, or whatever. He said that the theories change as to which is better and it’s not really clear whether either make a cats teeth worse or better. She’s generally well and healthy and she eats all her dried food each day (in spite of the loose teeth and sore gums) so he said it would be best to carry on as normal.
In any case – she needed to go back for a ‘dental’ and possibly an extraction or two. So today I took her to the vet at 8.40am and signed a consent form before leaving her behind. It’s funny how an animal can become so much part of your life it’s wrenching leaving them behind for a general anaesthetic and something like this even though it’s routine. She’s not a ‘lap cat’ but is very affectionate in her own way and on her own terms. I felt as though I was abandoning her as I went home again without even leaving a favourite teddy or anything for comfort (she doesn’t have anything like that).
I am sure she’ll be fine and all will be well. Hopefully she’ll be more comfortable afterwards too as those teeth must have been painful (even though there was no evidence of that in her demeanor).
The challenge will be keeping her warm and quiet out of Munchkin’s way when I bring her home later.