Irene's Weblog

We did get the kitten.  We named him D’Argo.  If you know us well enough, you’ll understand why.  We got him a week ago and all has gone well, so far.

D’Argo’s pads are healing well.  They were definitely burned.  We just don’t know what burned them.  We also took him to the vet to get a health checkup.  No surprise that he had a parasite, which resulted in lots of diarrhea.  We have had to give him some oral medicine to take care of that, so no big worries there.  His claws were ripped out, by who, we don’t know.  So, for now, he has to be an indoor cat because he has no way to defend himself.  We hope his claws grow back, but we will have to wait and see.  For now, because his feet still hurt, we have to use shredded paper in the litter box.  This is not too bad as we had lots of shredding to do and a teacher at work gave me three garbage bags of shredded paper.  So, physically, he is doing fine and healing.

As for the rest, well, D’Argo is your typical kitten.  He’s feisty.  He always wants to attack your feet, hands, and anything else that moves.  He tries to scratch the couch even without claws and we’ve had to resort to putting him in the “naughty room” (downstairs bathroom) for five minutes.  He has learned quickly that, if he goes in there, he’s been bad.  This is the only bad behavior we’ve had to deal with so far.

I’ve already taken the step of buying some cheap PVC pipe at Home Depot for the computer cords and tucked as many other cords as I can behind the computer desk, out of D’Argo’s reach.  I also tucked my laptop cord behind the couch.  Since the couch is flush against the wall, there’s isn’t really a way for him to get at it.  I still haven’t figured out what to do with the cords behind the TV, but, for now, he is leaving those alone.  He doesn’t seem to be interested in cords unless they are moving.  Then he wants to chew on them.

We also went to Petco, where the folks were extremely nice to us.  With the coupon booklet we got, we saved a ton of cash.  The bill was originally $113, but the coupons brought the total down to $68.  We’re set on food for a while because several of the coupons were for huge discounts on food and the manager also gave us lots of free samples.  Fortunately, D’Argo is not a picky cat.  We have given him five different kinds of food in five days and he’s eaten all of it.  This is good for my wallet because we can pick a quality, all-natural food to stick with permanently that won’t bankrupt us.

Yesterday, we gave him some turkey as a treat.  D’Argo loves turkey and kept coming back and begging for more.  Since we didn’t want more diarrhea, we only gave him a few pieces.  We also gave him a few bites of bacon last week, which he promptly devoured.  Other than that, he’s strictly on kitten food.

D’Argo has also been good staying at home by himself.  He doesn’t destroy things in the house while we’re away.  Then again, kittens sleep 99% of their lives, so there’s not much time for mischief.  As soon as I get my photos sorted, I’ll put up a picture of D’Argo.