Harmony's Vaccination Day

I wasn't planning to blog this weekend, but after Harmony's somewhat eventful vaccination this morning, I changed my mind.

Harmony has never been the best behaved of cats at the vet clinic. When she was sterilised at six months, I went to collect her from the vet clinic in the evening, expecting her to be already waiting for me in her carrier. But when I got there, the vet technician ushered me into the back of the surgery. Despite the post surgery drowsiness, she was behaving aggressively and none of the clinic staff would venture close enough to carry her out of the cage in which she was recuperating.

The cage was at the top of a three-tier stack, and I had to climb a ladder as Harmony was in the top cage. As my head popped into view, Harmony let out a hiss and a spit. I was startled as she had never done that before. I said, "Harmony, it's me, mummy!", upon which her eyes became more focused and she seemed to calm down a little. I stretched my hand into the cage and started rubbing her cheek. When she had calmed down even more, I reached in and carried her out and down the ladder.

Since then, she has been a little spitfire every time we have been to the vet's.

Anyway, coming back to today's events... Like I said, Harmony is not the best behaved of cats at the clinic, but she actually starts to kick up a fuss from the moment she's placed in her carrier. She begins by meowing very loudly (the 'please call the SPCA, I'm being abused' kind of pitiful loud meow) all the way along the corridor, to the car, throughout the whole road trip (about 20 minutes) and into the vet clinic. Two tricks we've learnt to reduce all this meowing is firstly, to spray Feliway into her carrier about 10 minutes before placing her in it. She will still meow, but less insistently. Secondly, while one of us drives, the other has to continuously stroke her all the way to the vet clinic. This totally keeps her from meowing. The only time you would hear a peep from her is when my hand gets tired and I stop stroking.

Harmony seemed pretty placid when we arrived at the vet's. Even when we placed her on the examination table and then the weighing machine, she was still feeling alright with the world, more interested in sniffing the stethoscope than anything else. But when the vet tried to give her a deworming pill, her dark side began to show itself. She hissed at the vet and gave him her best evil look until he decided rightly, that perhaps it would be better to give her the deworming medication in a syringe, which she quite willingly swallowed. Then came time for the vaccination. The vet technician had to hold down Harmony's front paws while the vet approached her with the needle from behind. It didn't take long for her to bite down on the vet technician's hands. Alex then took over from the vet tech as she stood aside to recover from her shock. Showing no mercy, Harmony hissed and spat at and bit down on Alex's hand too. Luckily, in that short space of time, the vet managed to inject her and the visit was over. Fortunately too, there was no damage to the vet tech's hand (not even a scratch), while Alex had only a tiny toothmark on his. I guess Harmony's meow was worse than her bite.

The next bit of drama took place when we got home. The ride home had gone very smoothly with Harmony relaxed enough to want to come out of her carrier and have a wander about the car. But the minute she stepped into the flat, she started to throw up. In the space of less than 10 minutes, she threw up 6-7 times and did a runny poo. I called up the vet clinic and the staff said that she could just be reacting to the liquid dewormer plus the car ride, and that it was nothing to worry about. Looking really ill with her eyes squinting and red-rimmed and her mouth slightly open, she went under our bed and hid there. It was something that she had never done before. We lay on the floor with her until she fell asleep, then we crept out and went for lunch.

Coming home a couple of hours later, we found Harmony on the sofa with her left eye still a little red-rimmed (see photo above), looking very sorry for herself. We made a fuss over her, which she seemed to enjoy, and happily, by night fall, she was back to her old self, playing with her toys and messing with the water in the bathroom sink.