As promised!! A much-anticipated photo of another one of my cats!!

Wait, no. That wasn’t what I promised, was it? But let me first tell you how ridiculously hard it is to get a photo of Lucie, so you are really blessed today. She is semi-feral and will run like the blazes from anyone holding a camera, even if the camera looks like a harmless iPhone.

The above photo was taken with said iPhone, from pretty far away, which is why it is so blurry, blown up like this. You’ll probably just have to take my word for it that Lucie is one gorgeous cat.  She is 15 months old, and I’m hoping that as the years go by, she might grow to be tame. I’m not holding my breath, but we can always hope.  Because hope is what, gang? That’s right:  It is 100% FREE!!

A quick update on the halogen lamp. It appears to be completely dead. So one of these days here soon, I will have to break down and buy a new floor lamp. I hate to do it because I will be moving to a new house sometime within the next year and I hate to decorate an entire house around a single floor lamp, so my other option is to just spend good money on a really boring lamp that will blend into any future decor down the road.

In the meantime, though, I have a ton of reading to do for school this week, not to mention I have a play I have to write, and I really can barely see a thing here in this cave of a room.

Okay, I promised yesterday to help you with the flea problem you might be having right now with either your feral colony, or just your regular house cats. There are two ways to go: chemical or natural, and I recommend combining both if you can tolerate chemicals at all.

First, if the problem is indoors, vacuum. Then, use this miracle spray!!

It is a little expensive so check online for a good price. Right now, California Pet Pharmacy has it on sale for $14.50 plus shipping, for 16 oz., which is a great price. My vet charges $27 plus tax. But this stuff is the BEST.  You spray it on everything, let it dry (about 20 minutes or so) and then everyone, including pets, can go back into the sprayed area. You don’t need to cover things, you don’t need to vacate the premises for hours. It lasts for 7 MONTHS, and even if eggs hatch in the area, new fleas will not live.

It is not an overpowering chemical smell, either. The smell goes away pretty quickly. If you are dealing with an indoor infestation, it is still best to vacuum at least once a week.

Next, dealing with fleas on cats. With ferals, I recommend Capstar Pills, crushed up in wet food, at least once  a week. They are flavorless. The cats will eat the food and not eat around the medication. (Here is a link to 1800petmeds, but they are slightly higher than what my vet charges, so check with yours.)

This will get expensive, but these pills kill any living fleas on the cats within an hour. It does not kill eggs or prevent further infestation, which is why it gets expensive. But if you can afford to give them the pills once a week, within 6 to 8 weeks you can get the infestation under control. But you have to make sure that the area they live in has also been sprayed, to help prevent further infestation.

I also recommend crushing up a brewer’s yeast w/garlic tablet for cats in their food everyday. A lot of people will warn against the garlic, but the garlic is in trace amounts, and really what you’re weighing it against is a constant flea and/or tick infestation on the cats for the rest of their lives, which isn’t any healthier. The tablets are really affordable and the cats love the taste of them.

These things work, gang. But you’ve got to be vigilant with a long-term repellent method, like the brewer’s yeast w/garlic pills daily. The reason I can only recommend the chemical approach with ferals is because the spray and the capstar pills do not require getting anywhere near the cats themselves. If you deal with ferals you know that it is impossible to get close enough to them to apply anything to their fur, let alone –[insert uproarious laughter here] — give them a bath!

Tomorrow, I’ll post about the natural products that work well for my tame house cats.  In the meantime, have a terrific Tuesday, gang, wherever you are!! Thanks for visiting.