Poor Stripes

In case you didn't know, Stripes is our cat.  She wondered up as a stray last September very malnourished and on deaths door.  But, after about $1000, she's as good as new...almost.

A couple of months ago, we discovered a lot of sores she'd been scratching and basically pulling her hair out trying to bite.  Took her to the vet, yet again, and was told she had to go on a special cat food and have B12 shots once a week for a couple of months.  Are you kidding!?!  The cat food was $25 a bag and we went through at least one, once a week.  And the B12 shots were about another $25 a week.  We started calling her the "Million Dollar Cat"

After a couple of weeks of this, it was decided that she had a skin/contact allergy and that a steroid shot (another $60) would do the trick, at least for a couple of months.

2 months later, back where we started, but even worse.  Under her little arms, the skin was completely raw and she couldn't sit still long enough for me to even pet her.  Back to the vet....This time, they found one flea on her tail, and decided that was the culprit.  So she has a flea allergy.  Ok, what does that require?  A dose of flea stuff on the neck once a month and antibiotics to take care of the skin.  Well considering we also have Stinky (our other cat) she would have to be treated too.  And not to mention our outside cat Bob that only spends two minutes in the morning eating without letting us touch him.  Cost of flea treatment?  $86 for 6 doses.  Hopefully this will do the trick.

My love of animals will quickly render us broke I'm afraid!  But, for a good laugh, when the vet ask me if Stripes had had any diarrhea, I told her no.  Rissie quickly chimed in, "No, but Granny has that!"  It almost made that $200 visit to the vet and 1 and 45 minute wait bearable!