Fun and games with Yoyo and Manohra

JUST CALL me optimistic, hoping that the infections both Wan-Wan, my poodle pup, and the kitten Manohra (also known as the “Wild Child”) have will clear up as they continue taking their antibiotics.

My thanks to readers who have asked about the two kids. I have to laugh, though. Along with their condolences, every reader has asked the same question: “How do you catch them to give them their medicine?”

With Wan, there’s no problem. She likes the taste of the liquid antibiotic. Allowing me to pick her up and put her on the sideboard, she leans her head back, opens her mouth and swallows all the medicine I slowly expel through the syringe.

We have only one problem. Wan expects a treat afterwards, but I don’t want to give her one. Because of her liver problems, she has to eat a special food that she absolutely hates, and I don’t want to spoil her appetite, even though we have to wait a half-hour after taking the medicine.

The little dog has learned to wait patiently, even if she’s waiting for food she doesn’t like.

Manohra is entirely different. It’s easy to give her the medicine, but she doesn’t enjoy being forced to take it.

The clever cat has figured out that she’s supposed to eat before she takes her medicine. In the morning, she runs to her food, eats as fast and as much as she can, and then runs upstairs to get away from me. When I go up to look for her, I find undigested food vomited all over the stairs. Her little body cannot hold all the food she’s put in her stomach.

In addition, the infection has already caused her to be very sensitive to the presence of the other cats, especially Yoyo. The boy doesn’t want anything to do with her, but perhaps from the pain from the infection and the instinctive need to claim territory, Manohra’s been attacking him.

Call her “optimistic”. She’s around three kilos; Yoyo, around five. There’s no way she could beat him up, and yet she continues to try. If he even glances at her, she begins yelling. Her tail bushes out, her eyes widen, and she lowers her body for an attack.

Yoyo cannot resist the challenge. He attacks, jumping on top of her.

It’s easy to pull the two cats apart. Even in the middle of a screaming, yelling, fur-flying battle, Yoyo always allows me to lift him off her and to put him where she can’t attack him.

Manohra is not as obedient. She’d bite and scratch me if I tried to pull her off. In the middle of a fight, she’d attack anyone who came near her.

You’d think that as I give her the medicine day after day, she would start calming down as the pain lessens. Instead, her aggressiveness increases. She must be under more stress than I realise, or just giving her the medicine puts her under stress. She begins looking for Yoyo, attacking him whenever she can.

One day, as I carry Manohra towards her medicine, she sees Yoyo. In my arms, she’s usually quiet, but not today. She begins yelling, and before I can turn away to block her sight of him, she bites my finger.

Oh, the pain! Blood drips all over the floor as I drop the cat.

This is no way to give Manohra her medicine. As my finger swells from its own massive infection, I take the Wild Child to the vet’s, where she’ll stay until she finishes the medicine (in about a week).

Then, we hope, without pain and with a vacation from Yoyo, Manohra will return home, a gentler, less stressed cat.

So call me optimistic.