Silent Treatment

This is Spooky not speaking to me. I took him to the vet today.

He is coming up on 19 years old, and should be going in every six months just to check. He is generally very healthy, except for some seasonal skin irritation that compels him to lick his limbs until there are bald spots. He also scratched his forehead until it bled.

I recently noticed that he is sneezing. I particularly notice in the middle of the night when he does it in my face. Since we are coming up on his itchy season anyway, I took him in.

He's fine. He even sneezed while we were there, so the vet saw that it was water as opposed to mucus or blood(?!) and agreed that it was probably seasonal nothingness. But she reminded me that cat allergies generally show up in the skin and not the respiratory system, so I am not to screw around if it gets worse.

Actually, I think what I am paying for is for the vet to listen to me freaking out over all of the weird differences between dogs and cats. Like the arthritis. Clearly, the dog has it. We can tell because he is stiff and slow to get moving after a nap. Spooky isn't as active as he used to be, but that doesn't mean he is in pain. He used get his exercise by terrorizing the dog. He doesn't do that anymore, but maybe that is because the arthritic dog doesn't engage.

"Yeah. You should get a puppy." (Hear that, Mom? The Vet said Spooky needs a puppy!)

Anyway, since Spooky saunters everywhere, how would I even know if he is uncomfortable?

"He'll stop jumping up onto things."

Apparently it is just harder to tell with cats. He's still jumping onto things. I told her that not long ago, in the middle of the night he tried to jump from the floor to my pillow. Where my head was. At 2:24 a.m. He missed, and landed in the garbage. Then she said at his age, a glucosamine supplement was probably a good idea.

So we get home. I gently put Spooky down on the floor. The dog started following him around, sniffing. ("Wherewereyouwherewereyouwhydidn'tIgettogo?") I came thisclose to letting him get his ass kicked by an angry cat.

Maybe that's why Spooky isn't speaking to me.