C is for the cat is in charge!

Zoe is the queen of the household, and she knows it. She has honed her meows for years. She is now sixteen years old so she has had years of experience in making her wishes known to humans via her meows. She is a great talker. She communicates with a variety of meows. She has a feed-me meow, an open-the-window-I-want-to-sit-on-the-windowsill meow and a general humans-are-stupid meow.

I have read that cats meow to communicate with humans but that they don't meow to get the attention of other cats. The only time in their lives in which cats speak to other cats in that way is when they are kittens. Kittens meow to their mothers when they are hungry, cold, or scared. As they grow up, they use other methods of vocalizing, including growls, hisses, and yowling. I have to say that I would prefer to hear meowing to yowling, but Zoe does her fair share of yowling, too. She can be a very noisy cat.

Zoe had been yowling a great deal, much to the annoyance of my mother, who really didn't like hearing that racket from the cat. My mom also noticed that Zoe was showing less interest in her cat food and that she was losing weight.

One day, my sister Vivian and my nephew James came and collected the cat. Zoe was not thrilled with being picked up and wrapped in a blanket. She yowled loudly and furiously and she tried to wriggle out of the blanket.

"Oh no, you don't," James said firmly. He got into the car with the squirming cat.

Off they went to the vet, who gave Zoe a blood test. I'm sure that she was not thrilled with that, either.

The vet diagnosed Zoe with an overactive thyroid, which is a common condition in older cats. He prescribed methimazole for the cat. The medication was to be mixed with Zoe's food.

And this is where the cat let the human (me) know who is really in charge. I mixed the medicine with the food and served it to the cat. The cat sniffed the food. She then raised her tail high in the air and walked away, with a look of utter disgust plastered all over her face.

Arrgh! Failure!

How do you feed medicine to a cat?

We tried rubbing medicine on the inside of the cat's ear. Once I was done, the cat got up and walked away. She hid for half of the next day.

I tried a second time, with the same result.

Then we went back to mixing the medicine with the food.

This time, it was more successful.

Apparently, Zoe got hungry and decided to eat her food.

She seems to be doing OK now. She is, however, using her general humans-are-stupid meow much more frequently than ever.

I am just relieved that I do not have to pill a cat.