Panther is still sleek, beautiful, black, and very special, as befits a cat who was able to call out to me telepathically as I walked through the county shelter, probably just days before they would have taken him out of this world. That’s pretty special indeed, because as cat listeners go, I’m pretty much deaf.

Panther is by far our oldest cat but still manages to get a twinkle in his eye and chase Jennifur around the living room every two or three weeks

While wading through the possible places to buy from I found VetAmerica
We bought a few none prescription items. Found some things I did not know existed for cats. Accurate descriptions, great service and reasonable prices. Check it out!

After the Moon
The sky slowly darkens
Grass smells fresh

Good to Roll in
Pleasant to eat
Fresh grass and warm soil
Glorious!

Panther has had several more episodes of pancreatitus. So we keep an I/V unit with a pouch of Ringers Lactate ready in the closet. We already had one cat chew through the tubing, so the closed closet is safest. When his fur looks bad and I tent his scruff which doesn’t go down quickly — with Steven’s help I give him subQ fluids from 50 to 150ccs at a time. Sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a day.

When Panther meows and makes me follow him, then jumps on the “insulin perch” I know to give him his 1/4 unit of Lantus/Glargine. But only after he eats!

We learned that Panther has a “sensitive” pancreas. That’s the organ that produces insulin and various digestive enzymes. So he eats prescription Hills Science Diet I/D and canned Purina Proplan salmon/fish or turkey and giblets. The canned food is amongst those recommended for diabetic cats.

During this time Panther has willfully downgraded himself socially from top male cat to the bottom of the social scale. So no more energy expended in boxing matches with Charger.

Panther is wise enough to direct us in what he needs and when. And we have become wise enough to listen. That is why he is still alive and experiencing a decent quality of life.

At some point I thought I felt Nightstar moving around on the bed. She stepped up and sat down on my hip in Sphinx pose. I was amazed because she never does that; she usually lies down right next to my pillow, under the covers with me, or at the other end of the bed entirely. I actually raised my head for a quick peek to make sure it was her, because Jennifur sometimes sleeps on top of me, but always on my stomach…but she was surely too dark to be Jennifur.

Well, we stayed like that for awhile. Every five minutes or so, I felt the urge to shift around a little, but resisted because I was sure she’d get off if I did…she seemed a bit precarious up there. Finally I couldn’t help myself and rearranged a bit. Amazingly, she stayed on, even rearranging herself a bit. I eventually started falling asleep and that’s when the fun really began.

Suddenly my head began filling with thoughts. I actually saw a page begin to fill up with writing about cats — a whole collection of things I had been planning to write for ages. Cat love; cat promises; cat prayers! And, if you’ve been following this blog for more than 30 seconds or so, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been able to write anything for months. Well, here I am at 5:30 in the morning writing now, and I’m seeing words fill up on the page just like it did a little while ago in bed. But wait, there’s more.

I had shifted a few more times and Nightstar stayed right where she was. Suddenly I had a flash…this didn’t really seem like the Nightstar I knew. I remembered Yang was in the room and I know he can sleep through any amount of movement. Steathily I found the tail and raised it up and looked. Even in almost pitch dark, I could see it was definitely a black tail and not a white one!

And yet the fur didn’t feel like Nightstar somehow. So I started counting off cats in my head. Not Yang, not Jennifur. We just weighed Nightstar at 14 pounds and this cat seems awfully light…so it can’t be Agile either. The door was closed, and the only other cat in the room was Panther…but he hasn’t even slept on our bed since 2001, and never on either of us.

Just about then, she (or whoever) jumped off. I couldn’t stand the suspense, so I sat up, put on my glasses, and found my flashlight. I looked on the bed and there was Agile where I had seen him last…with Nightstar sleeping right beside him. Jenni was on her shelf, and since Yang was nowhere on the bed, that meant he was in a box in the closet.

Which left Panther, who was eating from a bowl on the floor after jumping off the bed.

No pun intended (this time, anyway), but this floored me. Clearly Panther — who I’ve never been able to “hear” in all the time he’s lived with us — had sent me all this information for a reason, even sitting on me to make sure I got the message. So 5:30 in the morning or not (and I’m definitely not a morning person), I figured if it was this important to Panther, it was important enough for me to get up and get back to writing.

So here I am again, folks. And all hail Panther.

The only minuscule downside: I have to draw out 1/2 to 3/4 of one Unit of insulin for each dosage. Which is about 1/16th of an inch. No worries!!

Our veterinarian provided us with some informative handouts, empathy, and watched me repeatedly practice drawing (measuring and getting out the tiny air bubbles from the syringe) and giving the insulin. Of course I used saline, not insulin in my practice attempts. I learned that each type of insulin must be used with the specified syringe, in Panther’s case U-100 type syringes which have ultrafine short needles.

In my usual style of wanting to know more, as quickly as possible, I spent my day off from work on the Internet.

The first thing I learned is that we are not alone. Many others have feline and canine friends with diabetes and they have shared what they know freely.

Here are some of the places I visited:

Feline Diabetes is the best, most up to date by far of all the sites I visited. Their tagline is “Since 1996, The Original Internet Guide to Feline Diabetes“. A lot of really helpful and supportive information. They also have many useful links.

Recordkeeping is really important, so the family knows that the injections were given and at what time, as well as recording how your pet is doing — activity level, eating, urinating, drinking, etc. For a variety of pre-made charts you can download (free) go to this page on Pets with Diabetes (see link below), and insulin logs on the Feline Diabetes web site.

One of the many factors our vet explained was the importance of reducing the amount of carbohydrates in Panther’s diet. So we switched to Purina DM which has about 7% carbohydrates, and found lists (see below) of canned cat foods and their nutritional analysis. By the way, carbohydrate content is NOT listed on any cans of cat food we looked at. Basically you have to switch to feeding only wet foods, as all dry food has high carbohydrate content. This makes dental care even more important in diabetic pets.

Other useful sites and pages:

Pets With Diabetes
like Feline Diabetes, but broader in scope as canine and guinea pig diabetes issues are addressed as well. A fantastic site for educating yourself about caring for a diabetic pet.

Tips for giving insulin injections

Cat Health FAQ with articles and useful tools

Tables of nutritional information including carbohydrates, in wet and dry foods and non-U.S. food charts Keep in mind that with the Menu Foods Recalls, some formulations may change once the products are remade and reintroduced.

BD Diabetes.com this company manufactures syringes of all types. They have some veterinary articles about diabetes in pets.

Frugal Feline Diabetes Please note some of the links are broken. They advocate doing the glucose curve yourself, but after talking to some vet techs we decided it was too risky and time consuming to do ourselves.

On another note, the initial financial cost of diagnosing and the glucose curve testing can add up. Fortunately, we do not need their help, but for others IMOM (In Memory of Magic) can help with the financial aspects of caring for a sick pet. Their mission statement: ““Helping people help pets”. To better the lives of sick, injured and abused companion animals. We are dedicated to insure that no companion animal has to be euthanized simply because their caretaker is financially challenged. To educate on the importance of spay and neuter in relation the proven health risks for animals who have not been spayed or neutered.”

Some of the things our cats say to each other are rather nasty. No wonder cats are renowned for getting into fights!

Luckily, Susan is a regular Dr. Doolittle and is in a position to understand most of this.

The other day, Panther came by the bedroom, where we have Glory behind a steel security gate for everyone’s protection. Susan missed the opening salvo of the exchange, but she did hear Glory call Panther an "unkempt vagabond". Panther drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster in such circumstances, said to Glory, "Well, your breath smells bad", and stalked away.

After Susan told me what the to-do was about, I straightened Glory out a bit, reminding her that Panther was quite a well-groomed gentleman, even if he was (and he was!) formerly a wandering cat. I didn’t remind her that her breath does smell bad, courtesy of some periodontal problems that we’ve been working on with her.

I don’t know what set Glory off, but she’s not the only one to exhibit bad manners in conversation. A few weeks ago, Glory went to the vet because she had been under the weather, who told us that she should put on some weight (she was around 6 1/2 pounds at the time, and although she is quite petite, that is still too light). After we brought her home, I was carrying her through the kitchen past Jennifur, who said something that suddenly got Glory extremely agitated. I asked Susan what had happened, and she advised me to bring Glory into the bedroom.

After I had done that and came back out, I found Susan trying to stop herself from laughing out loud. She whispered at me, as though Glory shouldn’t hear and get riled up again: "Jennifur called Glory a ‘sickly pipsqueak’"!

(Anyone who doubts that Susan actually hears the cats talking like this should reflect on the fact that Susan never uses words or phrases like "unkempt vagabond" and "sickly pipsqueak". At least, I’ve never heard her talk like that, but then I’ve only known her for 27 years…)

Even if you have your cats in a fenced enclosure, they can climb, they can dig, and strangers can come by and just open the gate — see the true stories in the article "What To Do If Your Pet Is Lost Or Missing" .

The stray cats we feed have dug places under our fence that they can slip through to come in and eat in safety. OK, we helped a bit by removing rocks near the gate bottoms.

One of our four indoor-only cats, Panther is also known as "Houdini Cat" because he has demonstrated expertise at getting out of our home. He can lift out screens from windows with his claws. He has appeared out of nowhere and streaked out of a sliding door that was open only briefly. In honor of these accomplishments, Panther now has a microchip implanted between his shoulders.

We have trained both Panther and Glory to wear harnesses and walk on a retractable leash (or they trained us to follow them, we’re not entirely sure . This helps them get the "outside time" they want in a safe manner, and forces us to have some exercise too.

There are several methods to identify your pet:

Collar and tags: Any vet or large pet supply store offers individualized imprinted ID tags for sale. Both metal and plastic are offered at stores; we prefer metal as it will not crack or become damaged as easily as plastic. You must imprint a way of contacting your family, should your pet be lost. The downside is that collars can tear off and with them the ID tags.

There are a number of options as to what you can have imprinted:

• Your pet’s name
• Vet’s office phone number and a unique identifying number for your family that is in their records
• Your cellular or home phone number
• If your county keeps registration numbers on pets (ususally only done for dogs), this unique number and the county agency phone number can be on the tag.

Microchip: About the size of a large grain of rice, this is injected by your vet between the shoulder blades. It has a unique number that is read by a low level radio frequency scanner (the chip only emits energy when it is being scanned, so it is considered perfectly safe for your cat’s health). The chip manufacturer (or another pet search entity chosen by the manufacturer) has a list of all microchips sold and which veterinarians (or breeders) bought them. It can be read by a hand-held scanner which animal shelters and many vets own. Once read, the unique number is traced to the vet or breeder, they are called, and the vet or breeder in turn calls you as her records show that microchip is in your cat. Microchips have quickly become the best way of positively identifying your cats, no matter how far they happen to roam; there are many happy stories out there.

Tattoo on inside of hind leg: An older method, in which your vet tattoos a family member’s social security number or AKC (American Kennel Club) number (for dogs). This is mostly useful for "proof of ownership", rather than locating you as the owner, unless your cat happens to be registered with AKC.

We were so happy with Panther that we became in our brother-in-law’s words, “cat-crazy”. Two months after adopting Panther, we began looking for a youngish female as a companion for him. Through a no-kill shelter (operating out of a PetSmart store) we found Jennifur. We talked at length with the woman whose house she was living in. We were happy to find a shy female who would get along with our calm, regal Panther.

Boy, were we in for a surprise!

According to the shelter person, Jennifur had a rough start in life. Born July 4, 2000 under a mobile home near a school to a feral mother, she had been at the bottom of the feline social hierarchy in the shelter home. Jenni had had her shots and been spayed, and the shelter had verified she was free of any disease or ticks. We had her checked by a veterinarian, and brought her home.

It took three days before she would crawl out from under our bed to eat more than one bite at a time. She ate fast, barely chewing her food. She only ate if we stood by her to “guard her”. Jennifur was very thin, her coat rough. Every noise frightened her. Jenni would often make mistakes when jumping and miss an easy perch and fall. We called the woman whose house she had lived in many times to ask about various behaviors and problems. A few times in the first month, we talked of giving her back to the shelter because we thought she was starving and neurologically damaged and beyond our ability to help her live.

Jennifur decided to bond with David first. They both kept late hours, he working on the computer, Jennifur prowling the big office. She ate a bit more food than before. Then she starting drinking out of David’s glass of water. In 6 months Jenni no longer ran in terror if one of us entered a room. Very slowly Jennifur reached her current weight of 9 lbs. She rarely misses a jump now and her coat is glossy.

Three years later Jennifur is calmly lying by the screened window on a shelf, next to me as I write this.

Jennifur has taught us endurance, fortitude and the power of forgiveness.