Greetings, Olive Fanciers!

It’s time for another update on our spunky girl. Olive has had a rather challenging month, medically speaking. She was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. If you’ve followed along with her updates for any length of time, you know she gets UTIs periodically. Those can be beaten back with medication.

For most other felines, medication isn’t that much of a challenge for us. But our black-and-white feisty girl has to be different. Years ago, Olive figured out how to manipulate a pill pocket treat in her mouth so that she swallowed the treat but spit out the medication. We tried the pill pocket treats at first here, but it became obvious very quickly that Ms. Sneaky wasn’t getting the medication down. As a result, our long-suffering staff members had to give Olive the medication directly and by mouth.

As one of the staff noted sarcastically, this was “fun for all.” But at least the medication was getting into her, so everything was fine—until the med caused her some gastrointestinal upset in the form of loose stool. This meant we had to temporarily reduce her lactulose dose and give her a probiotic in her wet food. Fortunately for the sanity of all parties concerned, her UTI resolved quickly.

Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone, but they’re at it again. Over the last month, one of our volunteers snapped a great photo of Olive and fellow lobby resident Hips, sleeping side by side on a large pet bed. Olive just isn’t the type to allow another cat to lie down in her space, so what is happening here? Does Hips wait until she’s asleep before settling down adjacent to her, or is Olive biding her time until Hips is sleepy and relaxed before moving next to him?

Nobody seems to be able to give me an answer, but given that it’s Olive tolerating another cat right next to her, maybe I shouldn’t be inquiring too closely. It’s better just to be grateful that this continues to happen!

As always, thank you for helping us take care of this special girl.

Your correspondent,
Stephanie