little bitty girl

I am sure many of you out there have thought that perhaps one day, you would like to collect a urine sample from your cat. Let me tell you that it's not as fun as it seems.

Mindy's been licking a part of her belly and now it's turned into an awful rash. We brought her to her doctor because I thought she must have some skin allergy but the doctor said sometimes cats lick their bellies because their stomach or bladders are bothering them. They do it because they think if they lick it, it'll get better. Or it could also be a behavioural thing that she's recently developed. To rule out any internal issues, we had to get a pee sample.

So the vet gave us this tiny container of black pebbly things, a plastic container to collect the sample, a giant eye dropper and litmus paper to record the pH balance of her pee. We were supposed to clean out her litter and put in the black pebbly things and then expect Mindy to pee in it.

Poor fastidious anal retentive Mindy spent most of her morning, out of her routine, looking at her litter than running away or looking at her litter and then trying to get one of us as if to say,"Dudes. My toilet does not look the same as it normally does." Finally, we carried her to her litter and told her that she needed to pee in it. She looked at both Stefan and I and gave us the most incredulous look. I think if she could have lifted an eyebrow, she would have. She then just refused to pee for the following three hours, even though we could tell she really needed to.

Finally, after her many hesitations I decided to take matters into my own hands. I carried her and put her in the litter and rubbed her belly where her bladder was, as I had seen the vet do. The vet had previously tried to get pee from her during her initial visit. After doing this pushing on her bladder thing twice, she finally gave up and peed.

Now, we're just waiting for the results. I hope it all turns out to be okay.