Life seems to always fill a void. We lost Lacey last month at the ripe old age of 16. Even though I miss her, it was nice not to have to attend to her many daily needs. Well…shortly after that Harley started having dental problems. He does seem to be nearly recovered from them now. Harley is our oldest cat at 15 years of age. He looks great though.

However during the problems he was not able to eat the regular, dry kitty kibble that we feed.  We discovered this because he was meowing all the time. Now, he did often tell us when the food bowl was empty so we thought that was the case. But it wasn’t. At first we told him, Harley there is food. This was met with a look of disdain.

Finally one day he got us to follow him to the food bowl by calling us. We told him there was food. So he flung a tiny, fish-shaped piece of kibble at us. Bingo! We noticed at this point that he was thin and apparently not able to chew the food. So now Harley gets canned food two to three times a day. Once he has put enough weight back on we will see about getting him a dental. I am leery of having a cat of his respectable age go under anesthesia until he is fattened up a bit.

In the mean time, he is enjoying this new routine.  He gets his canned food in a crate so he can eat at his leisure. He is a cat, how else would he eat? This keeps the five dogs and two other cat from eating it. Harley greets me in the morning with meows of “Food! My food! Starving!” As soon as I open the crate door, he runs into the crate and out, and in and out, making sure to get my attention. As if the meowing wasn’t noticeable. I give him a can of food. He meows “thank you”. When he is finished, he meows again. “Let me out”. Or if I am in another room, he MEOWS! I come to let him out and he again says “thank you”. Harley has always been a polite cat. He has various little purrs and trills that he also uses when he is happy with us.

We go through this again in the afternoon when he gets a snack. I will give him any little bit of canned food left from breakfast or maybe some bites of leftover chicken that I mince up. By evening he is ready for another meal and we go through the routine again, with him getting another can of cat food.

Since he is again looking healthy and happy, I am glad to do these things. At least he doesn’t need medicine and other care. By the way, Harley is short for Harlequin, since he is a black and white cat. Long live Harley Cat.