Random Tiny Turds

My daughter thinks I need to blog about my life in general and not just use this vehicle to air my frustrations. She thinks I'm amusing...not like Last Comic Standing amusing. More like putting honey on a baby's fingers and giving them a feather amusing. I love her anyway.

So, this week's Slice of Life is about the Random Tiny Turds.

I have cats. Two of them. I figure it takes at least three to qualify as a Crazy Cat Lady, so you have to understand I am not really a cat expert. I'm also pretty lazy. So, I use those gravity-fed food and water things that I only have to fill about once a month. This means my cats eat dry food. Or did, rather. Apparently, the problem is that dry food sometimes causes constipation, if the cat is not in the habit of drinking enough water. Now, mind you...we had noticed individual little turds here and there around the house for several weeks. But neither of us were sharp enough to connect the dots and realize we had a problem.

One morning not too long ago, we discovered Max, my younger neutered male cat, trying to poop in every corner of the house. He'd go from one room to the other, strain a bit, yell a bit, hiss and growl at the rest of us (we weren't touching his anus, I swear) - and then he'd make a very small deposit and move on, hoping to find another place where things worked better. He was so out of sorts and threateningly grumpy that we just let him continue his quest for relief and followed along behind him, removing the evidence.

I did a little research and learned that I needed to start giving him wet food - and encourage him to take in more water. Since that disturbing morning, I've been splitting a can of very wet cat food between the two of them every day. I've been dribbling a capsule of cod liver oil over their servings in the hopes of lubricating things a bit more. I don't know if that's good or bad. I just made it up. I hope I'm not killing them.

I was complaining yesterday that I didn't think the wet food approach was working because there's still not a lot of material in the litter box. My daughter disagreed, noting that we are no longer seeing Random Tiny Turds around the house. It's a rather unique way to measure success, but at this stage of my life, I'll take success any way I can get it.