We have 2 labs and the thought of another puppy or a homeless kitty has surfaced. Would that work out with the dementia setting here?

LuvRLabs2: You've got to be kidding, right? Another pet added to the household? Two "con" words in regard to another cat/dog=tripping hazard!

Yea, churchmouse, I'll have to look into it. Currently reading Taya Kyle's book-a really good read!

Which, Wuthering Heights? Try it again! Or get a really good audio version to start you off. It is seriously worth it - huge, blazing, true-to-life drama; and even more amazing that it was written by the teenaged (well, a bit older but not much) daughter of a clergyman. 19th century young ladies were not as sheltered as we tend to suppose.

Churchmouse: Can't say I've ever got my head into that book... LOL!

Not the right sort of literary, I'm afraid - my response to Wuthering Heights was to wonder what on earth Father Earnshaw thought he was doing dragging that poor gypsy child off to a remote moorland farm without the slightest plan for his assimilation in the household. Stupid man. If it had been up to me he'd have let the lad be, sent Catherine to a sensible school, and written a proper will. Then we'd have had a nice short book with a happy ending.

I'm also guilty of wanting to give Emma Bovary a good slap. That girl had too much time on her hands if you ask me.

Churchmouse: Heathcliff! Love it!

Jinglebts; Thank you!

CM: Heathcliffe -- so literary, you are!
LL: I'm sorry for your nightmare!

Churchmouse: No, we named him Joker because he looked like Joker in the Batman movie. Turned out the joke was on us! I am sorry you, too were injured by your pud!. My husband had a heck of a time...nurses had to come to the house to do the specialized dressing change. What a darn nightmare! No, this is the really bad part...so I was still in Massachusetts caring for my elderly mother, which was a nightmare in and of itself...and my poor injured husband took Joker to the ASPCA...nope, FULL... then the the county animal shelter... "what will become of him?" he asked. Response=he will be dead 2 minutes after you leave. Then my mother takes a stroke from a blood clot that her cardiologist missed and dies...then I get locked in the bathroom of the funeral home! D@mn nightmare all the way around!

Did you call the outside cat Heathcliff, Llama???

My mother's cat put me in hospital, too, so your husband has my sympathy. I can't tell you how hilarious people seem to find it, for some reason, that you've been hospitalised by a little puddy-cat. Yeah, well, it's because a cat is a ten pound killing machine with craft knives at each corner and fangs in the middle, that's why. And yet we love them, sigh... (I hope your husband still does, too!).

Jinglebts: A few years before I had to leave my Maryland home and move to Massachusetts in with my mother where she was living by herself (her stubborn choice) we took in this homeless kitty. We already had a purebred Ocicat and we had to keep the 2 cats separate because the outside boy wanted to kill our Oci. My husband stayed in Maryland while I had to move to Massachusetts. Then the bad cat escaped and bit my husband up badly. Christmas, 2013 my husband was in the hospital in Maryland with infected arm (Cellulitis) while my mother was in hospital (time #3 out of 4) in Massachusetts. A TERRIBLE TIME! PHEW!

One way to help cats get use to each other is to brush them with the same brush... then that way their scent is on each other. Not guaranteed, but I have had luck any time a new feline or two are new to the house.

LL: We babysat a cat once that our minute black cat DID not tolerate. We thought our black cat would kill the babysat one, so we had to separate them -- one in the bedroom with her own litter box, and the other had the run of the downstairs. The babysat one got out a window and ran away, was found after three months, and cost abt $4000 to rehabilitate. Was I ever glad when she went back to her owner!!

jingle: We took in a cat that turned out to be a bad situation...no time right now to get into it...off to write some poetry for a BIL's b'day.

I was just thinking, one of my elder cats has his own cardiologist and his own ophthalmologist. Our area has a 24-hour emergency ER for animals, and within that complex are specialty doctors that are seen by appointment unless it is an ER emergency. My cats are notorious for having health issues after hours... [sigh]

Interesting, I am two years behind on seeing my cardiologist but the cat is up-to-date :P

We had a rescue dog, setter type, older, lived in a shelter a long long time. Adopted him, got a Cho Lab pup who he loved raised 'til about 1 year old, then started attacking her. He went "out of his head", growling at absolutely nothing, challenging husband, even snapped at him a few times. Had Vet run all sorts of tests, he went after a big dog at the Vets, Vet said to put him down. I couldn't, let the shelter have him back to decide. (Their Vet put him down, said he was flat nuts, sometimes that happens with abuse cases, they flip out years later.)

So anyway, then we had a very lonely one year old Cho Lab. We got a yellow Lab pup from the same breeder a year later. The two Labs were great, but very different personalities. As many years went by, the Cho Lab didn't want to play with the yellow anymore, I had extra time, we got a black Lab pup from a better breeder we found. Super sweet, healthy line. Her mother was a cho, and she decided she liked our old cho Lab with every ounce of her heart, and not so much the yellow she was supposed to be playmates with. :-) I figured my grumpy old cho would put puppy in place, and out of boredom puppy would play with yellow. Ha-wrong. Old grumpy cho loved dingy pup as much as pup loved her. They were inseparable little buddies, always asleep in a pile, poor yellow left bored to tears. :-) Go figure. They did become a pack in a sense, but all 3 were super kind hearted and obedient, so it was really kind of neat to watch their little energy, the things they would come up with on their own. They were quite the entertaining little force. :-) Two years ago the Cho died of kidney failure at 14-1/2. "Her" little black Lab was just heart broken. Waited 9 months for her to perk back up, team with yellow, but it never did happen. Got a mixed pup out of a shelter, she plays with her a lot, likes her OK, yellow about 11 at the time tolerates her, but mostly watches the 2 of them play. It is working out OK, but it just isn't the same chemistry of the old kind hearted, highly intelligent fun little Lab Pack. A lot of days it is a lot of work, mixed pup is pretty strong headed, barks a lot, misbehaves, even though she just turned 2. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have got the mixed pup. So I have one example of it was really great to have 3, and one example of it's OK, but a lot of work, and as others have said, Vet bills can get up there, depending on. Only "advise" I'd have would be another Labrador from a reputable breeder that produces pups with very sound temperament and health. Hope that helps!

LL: All our cats were adopted. We got the best one from our backyard -- he'd been coming around for abt six months and looked dreadfully scruffy. We got two others from the Humane Society and another that kept appearing in our front yard, badly injured. A cat must be "homeless", as you say, for abt two years before it even begins to become feral.

Mulata88: I finally changed out my Avatar to a photo that coordinates with my name. Yes, those are llamas. I don't own any... I wish! But it wouldn't work in a residential area like mine.

Llama♥♥♥

Is your avatar a picture of your llamas? Do you own llamas?

M 8 8

*"homeless"*

Jinglebts: As the OP said "homeless kitty, that conjures up a cat who has been roaming the streets.

Even though my mother adored her cat, spoiled it rotten- if kitty accidentally scratched, my mom would get mad as hell and chase the poor cat around the apartment saying she was going to spank him. Good thing mom was so slow and kitty was so fast. But yea, with dementia you never know.

My suggestion would be, not getting any more. My FIL has it. He's already hit my dog, when he thought I wasn't looking. He's a small dog. He also, since (used to) have my daughter's dog here, he hit him when my daughter was right in front of him.

Any pet(s) can be theraputic, in my opinion, people that have this kind of disease, they can become unpredicatable with animals. I (personally) never thought he'd strike an animal, as he used to have a dog & a cat of his own. I was proven incorrect. Now my dog, is leary of him & doesn't want to go by him. Best to be safe, for not only the sake of the person, but for the animal(s) themselves.

Your insight about scans was just as funny as it was, Mu88.

Sorry............thinking in my language................it should have read: I wonder why they use these on humans..........???

And about canaries...............OH MY PETS!!! I have 2 male canaries, they sing beautifully, / Mom takes care of them, she claims they are "hers".

M 8 8

there is a PET scan

there is a CAT scan

Hmmm, wonder why they use humans on these???

M 8 8 ;^)

"CAT scanner for cats" -- a cat CAT scanner. lol.

Yes, we wondered if that was the problem with our cat ... she would just howl and howl, for abt 6 months. We took her to the vet of course, and she said that it was either senility or a brain tumour. Since the only CAT scanner for cats was two hours away and she would have had to have been sedated, we decided not to put her thru that. She died at age 17 in her sleep, in her favourite part of the bedroom b/c it got the sun ... so she died quietly in her sleep in a sunbeam. I scattered her ashes under the hedge, which was her favourite place to be outside.

Aw shoot I'm getting all weepy now. mmmmm-Baaaawww :(

OMG, freqflyer! I was so joking when I said my 15 yr old cat had dementia! Who knew?!! Shortly after we moved to our new house she stopped wanting anything to do with me and now just stays in the man cave. She's developed all kinds of quirky habits, including flipping over her entire litter box if hubby waits to long to clean it - no joke - flips over the entire box and it's a big box!

Please take note, cats can get "feline dementia", which is common in half the cats over the age of 15. I had two cats that was diagnosed with feline dementia.

The vet said when that happens sometimes the cat will "get lost" in the house and cry out if the cat doesn't see its owners or the other cats. It was interesting, both these cats [one decades ago, the other now] would "get lost" in the same main floor hallway.