Day 295: Flea treatment, check!
Jan. 4th, 2021 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeI finally gave all five cats some flea meds today, the kind you rub on the back of their neck. None of them had ever experienced anything of the sort. I had to do Sorin first, otherwise he'd spend the afternoon hissing at Ajani for being a monster (as he's done both times Ajani's been to the vet without him). As it was, after I'd treated Ajani, he decided Sorin might be the source of the foul odor and smacked at his face once, though not meaningfully.
A few hours later, I treated Ginevra and Jean-Luc. Again, they needed to be done after Sorin, so as not to freak him out; I also figured having them smelling like that for a few hours was my best bet at sneaking an open tube near Geordi, if the smell were already normalized.
Eventually I treated Geordi. He was in a skittish mood today, as he so often is, but usually I can pet him when he's eating the evening serving of wet food, and I thought that would be a good opportunity to pick him up. Nope, not today - I was simply too scary. I ended up sitting there quietly for nearly half an hour (with a few short breaks to replenish the dry food and water, and to clean the litterbox), and eventually he was settled not terribly far from me, and miraculously he let me touch the tip of his tail, and once I'd done that he was okay with being petted and started to purr. After I while I dared to pick him up and set him on my lap, and as usual, he was ambivalent between luxuriating in the affection and dashing away in a panic - but he did stay there long enough for me to get the dose onto him. Then he dashed away... and settled down where he'd been and welcomed being petted again. He's such an odd one. Poor dear.
That leaves me with one dose left, and although I'd like to treat Blitzen, whose skin looks a bit uncomfortable, the odds that she'd actually let me do that to her are quite low. Meanwhile, Oberon is both the most obviously willing for such a thing to be done to him and, since I carry him around some, the most important to treat as he's the most likely vector for why we have fleas around in the first place. So he'll probably get to have a new experience too.
A few hours later, I treated Ginevra and Jean-Luc. Again, they needed to be done after Sorin, so as not to freak him out; I also figured having them smelling like that for a few hours was my best bet at sneaking an open tube near Geordi, if the smell were already normalized.
Eventually I treated Geordi. He was in a skittish mood today, as he so often is, but usually I can pet him when he's eating the evening serving of wet food, and I thought that would be a good opportunity to pick him up. Nope, not today - I was simply too scary. I ended up sitting there quietly for nearly half an hour (with a few short breaks to replenish the dry food and water, and to clean the litterbox), and eventually he was settled not terribly far from me, and miraculously he let me touch the tip of his tail, and once I'd done that he was okay with being petted and started to purr. After I while I dared to pick him up and set him on my lap, and as usual, he was ambivalent between luxuriating in the affection and dashing away in a panic - but he did stay there long enough for me to get the dose onto him. Then he dashed away... and settled down where he'd been and welcomed being petted again. He's such an odd one. Poor dear.
That leaves me with one dose left, and although I'd like to treat Blitzen, whose skin looks a bit uncomfortable, the odds that she'd actually let me do that to her are quite low. Meanwhile, Oberon is both the most obviously willing for such a thing to be done to him and, since I carry him around some, the most important to treat as he's the most likely vector for why we have fleas around in the first place. So he'll probably get to have a new experience too.