Cat-A-Clysms

I don't know what's up with my cats lately. Just as Henry's latest mysterious leg wound was finally healed up, he came inside yesterday with a huge bite mark on his face and one side of his head all swollen up. I put some antibiotic ointment on it, and within minutes the wound started draining. Of course, he felt that he needed to be sitting on my lap for this process, so... yuck!

Today the swelling is gone, but there's still a big hole through the skin in the side of his face. I keep putting ointment on it twice a day, and he has cheered up and no longer seems to be in a lot of pain, so I guess now it's just a matter of waiting for it to heal and hoping he doesn't get some new wound before that.

Aspen has been getting into deathly fights with Maddy, hunting her down in the yard or in the barn, chasing her across the yard and viciously attacking her whenever she tries to come in the house to eat.

Twice today the two of them had big screechy cat fights with Aspen attacking and poor Maddy running for her life. Of course, now Maddy is so used to being attacked that now whenever another cat even looks at her she puffs up and starts growling, which of course only offends the other cats and starts more fights.

To top it all off, Aspen is still peeing on stuff in the house every now and then. Tonight she came in from outside, came into the living room where we were sitting, and deliberately peed on Ken's canvas bag. Either she's really mad at us for scolding her when she tries to kill Maddy, or she's got a urinary tract infection, we're not sure which. I have to order her some medicine in case her bad behavior is actually a medical symptom. I've just been so busy I haven't gotten around to it yet. Guess it needs to become a priority now!

Sterling was out walking around under the horses' feet tonight while I was filling water troughs. I was worried that he was going to get stepped on, so I picked him up. Then I thought it would be fun to put him on one of the horses' backs.

He absolutely refused to be put on Callisto's back, but when I put him on Boo's very wide back, Sterling got really happy, turned upside down and started rubbing on her back and knitting her side with his claws. Lucky for him, Boo is very gentle and just turned her head to investigate what was going on back there.

He was quite at home on her back until Callisto, all curiosity, came up and started sniffing him with nostrils almost as big as his head. He grabbed at her nose with his claws and she ducked away. I finally had to take him off Boo so that he wouldn't end up jumping in the wrong direction and getting squooshed.

It was cute in the meantime, though.