The Diary of A Simple Man

Widget's Last Day

2025-03-31T13:27:38Z

Widget died early this morning, 3/31/2025. Many tears here today.

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Fang Found

2025-01-24T00:37:45Z

Sebastian found Widget's missing fang a few weeks after he lost it. It's far too late to have it reattached, of course. But truth to tell, I didn't think Widget would still be alive by this point.

He was terribly feeble and his fur was patchy even 6 months ago. His fur is still terribly patchy, but he has rallied and seems to have a lot more energy. I can't really explain that, since he actually is quite old. But it's good to see him eat!

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A Bath for Widget

2021-02-06T06:44:52Z

It had come up many times over the years, but I be didn't think it was likely to happen. Still, today (technically yesterday), Widget had a problem in the litter box. It left him dirty enough that there was no question that we had to wash him.

So we grabbed him, put him in the bathtub and locked ourselves in with him. Then we turned on the tub faucet. Widget was terrified, of course. He'd never been bathed before.

Long story short, we cleaned him pretty well with Dawn blue dishwashing detergent; they use it on oil-soaked birds, so I figured that it would be safe for him. He let out some really heartrending cries and clawed the shower curtain down (making a few claw-holes in the process), but we washed him well.

We were both surprised at how he looked soaked. We'd expected him to look much smaller. We were also surprised at how little blood we lost; we both got scratched, but not too badly and he didn't try to bite at all.

We dried him as best we could and left him in the bathroom for a couple of hours to dry himself off. When he emerged he seemed surpassingly calm. Although when I went upstairs to scrub the tub, Sebastian told me that Widget reacted strongly to the sound of water from upstairs. He actually snuggled against Sebastian! I wonder what he was thinking?

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Oh. My. God.

2019-06-27T15:39:59Z

I didn't realize that he'd be gray. He's freakishly soft where he was trimmed. They got between his toes, but Sebastian asked them to go easy on his head. We fed him, but he's a little freaked out. His mouth is hanging open fairly often.

It's hard not to laugh. I hope he'll grow some fur back on his hind end soon, because I don't want to see a cat butt.

The groomer told me that he'll shed a lot less and have a lot less trouble with hairballs. That hadn't even occurred to me!

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Grooming Widget

2019-06-27T04:49:20Z

Widget is going to be groomed for the first time in his life tomorrow afternoon, and Sebastian and I are both kind of worried about it.

The groomer said something about giving him a "lion cut". I looked that up tonight, and apparently it means shaving him except for a mane around his neck and maybe a tuft at the end of his tail. That seems terribly undignified for him, and neither of us want that.

We are hoping that he can simply do a general trim, perhaps temporarily turning widget into a shorthair rather than a longhair. Get rid of the terrible clumps on his back, and get rid of the fur between his toes; he has no traction because of that fur, and that really needs to be fixed.

I hope the guy can do that!

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