Jasso meets cats

"Tigers are nimble and light on their toes, My respect for tigers continually grows."  That's a line of poetry that Calvin recites to Hobbes to affirm his recognition of feline greatness.  Everywhere you turn there are cats, and they must be given their due.  Jasso has a prospective adoptive home and it sounds like a good one, but there are two cats involved.  I've been known to refer to cats and kids as "obstacles to adoption" because they just complicate matters when you are trying to place a dog.  Not all obstacles are barriers, however, they are just something that must be overcome.

I didn't have any information about Jasso and cats so I contacted the shelter where he came from. The director of that shelter contacted Jasso's former handler to ask about cats and was told that he had never really been around them, so he just didn't know.

With that bit of non-information, I set out on a Friday afternoon mission to meet cats.  I contacted old friends at the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and wrangled an invitation.  (I also met a rottweiler while I was there, but I'll save that for another day.)   I brought Jasso into a small room and they brought in a cat.  Jasso displayed zero prey drive and actually, no interest at all.

Clay's mother has a cat.  She's a young one and doesn't seem to have had any bad experiences with dogs.  Maya has met her on several occasions and the cat seemed interested in her and even wanted to play.  Jasso and I stopped by.  True to form, the cat was curious about the dog, not at all scared and certainly didn't seem to sense any danger.  Jasso had absolutely no interest in the cat.

This seemed a little too good to be true.  I decided to try one more so we drove over to the vet's office.  They produced a kitten and the young woman holding it sat down on the bench next to me, but still Jasso didn't care.

Jasso's vet was there and she came out to ask about him.  That was fortuitous because Jasso has been having a urinary incontinence problem.  I've been pulling wet bedding from his crate pretty regularly for the past week.  We managed to get a urine sample, they tested it, and it showed some bacteria but no blood cells.  They gave me some antibiotics to treat him for a possible urinary tract infection.  If that doesn't clear up the problem, we'll try him on Proin.  I still have a bottle of that from Cabell who had been on it for a long time.

As always, thanks to the wonderful folks at Old Dominion Animal Hospital who saw us as a late in the day walk-in.  (They like Jasso.)