So far the week is not off to a great start.  We had another cat get sick and depart after not being able to get his yellow marking liquid out.  It may have been because at the end his yellow marking liquid looked and smelled a lot like red syrup. His name was Gadget and seemed really cool, for a cat.

One of our other really sick cats seems to be feeling better these days.  His name is Ivan and he has what father calls 'can't sir'.  I'm still not sure what he can't do, except that when he first started to visit he didn't want to eat much at all.  I think he could, his mouth smelled ok and his licker seemed to work, but he just didn't want to.  Vocal Vonnie says Ivan is more famous than me now, on account of the fact that he got his name in the newspaper.  I wanted to tell her that I use newspapers for my marking liquid, but I was a bigger dog than that and focused my frustration on cleaning Bea's ears.  Her ears are very clean now.
Mostly Vocal Vonnie is upset that her new cats have to eat the wet kibbles in the cans in order to keep away the very problems that Snuggles and Gadget struggled with.  Vonnie blames mother for recommending the smelly food, that she says "her cats crave like addicts" and that the cat litter box smells bad.  Of course I heard her dogs bark a different story about the litter box.  They say it's delicious.  Mother says "canned food is a small price to pay for a healthy urinary tract.  All of the current literature supports canned food as the best choice for cats", and although I can tell that it pains Vonnie, she knows mother is right.  I know it's a tough lesson to learn Vonnie, but barking from one who knows, it's easier to learn it now than the hard way.