Fat Camp Update

Good news - my fingers have recovered from Friday's excessive blogging and I've managed to stave off carpel tunnel for the time being. In the fourth and final post on Friday, I made reference to my morbidly obese cat, but then I realized that said cat is glaringly absent from this little blog o'mine. I have a good reason. Sort of.

I got Slate (the morbidly obese cat) the year after I graduated from college. I can be honest here because well, he can't read so he'll never know, but I really wanted a dog. It's just that I traveled all of the time with my job so it wouldn't be fair to get a dog with me having that kind of schedule. The beauty of cats though is that they can take you or leave you and more often than not, they leave you. Cats are snobby. Cats are finicky. Cats are loving and cuddly but only on their terms. Needy, they are not. But looking back now, I fear that Slate coped with his loneliness by turning to the food bowl...(Sidenote: His eyes are not normally that bright and creepy looking). To answer your and the vet's questions...yes, I limited the amount of food he ate daily and yes, I am aware that cats can develop diabetes. He's just big boned with a big fluffy coat. Ok, he weighed 27 pounds at one time, but I thought it was kind of cute that he could wear a cat bed as an accessory...Besides, holding him was a great arm workout without having the travel time to the gym...

But when I moved to Athens, Slate could not come with me. I know what you're wondering... "you have a soon-to-be-80-pound dog in your apartment yet you were not able to have a cat?" Yes, that is correct. One of the rules in the throngs of pet rules at this luxurious complex where I reside is that cats must be de-clawed. No way, Jose. That is mean in my opinion, and I refused to even consider such. And being the first-born child that I am, a rule is a rule is a rule, and I was not about to break it. What if they go around and do claw inspections on the felines when residents are at work? They need more work to do, is the answer to that, but you just never know. So last summer Slate went to live with my parents and brothers. Throughout the years when I would go out of town for several days, I would take him there and each time he would always lose a little bit of weight (you would too if you had two wild and rambunctious boys chasing after you all day long) so I began referring to his trips there as fat camp. While he is still rather fat, I don't think he is as big as he once was. Well, I know he isn't because the same day I rushed Cash to the emergency pet vet (don't laugh...you would have too if you had a precious 6 week old puppy that fell face first into his water bowl and stayed there dead to the world until I fished him out of it) Slate was diagnosed as anemic. I thought I was going to have to moonlight at the Waffle House as a waitress to afford pet care that week. I am so grateful to mom and the boys who nursed him back to health and here he is today - a slim and trim Slate...
Well, here he is at least. Slim and trim...that's questionable. But that's part of what makes me love him so much. As for me, I'm yesterday's news to him. Especially now that I've betrayed him by getting a dog of all things.