Feline Mystery

There's nothing like a houseful of cats, in our case, four, to create a mystery.

Yesterday we noticed that Manny, our 2 year old boy (well, castratus) kitty, didn't show for breakfast. His two passions are breakfast and out. We searched high and low, and finally found him in a closet. Very unusual. So we called the vet. Must rule out urethral blockage, they said, and advised we go to a nearby veterinary ER.

There was no blockage, but manny was breathing at 60-80 per minute.

They did an xray and some tests and concluded it was an asthmatic type reaction, and decided to keep him overnight.

Last night DK found chunks of fiberglass on the living room rug.

Backstory: our basement is half finished, and gives way to the unfinished cellar through a louvered door which closes with a hook-and-eye. The house is 113 years old, and the previous owners were not known for the robustness of their house maintenance. The front stone wall of the cellar was boarded over, poorly insulated, contained a broken window somewhere behind the wallboard, and last winter, got so cold that the water pipe into the house froze and split.

So we just had someone fix the window, repoint the concrete between the stones -- not an easy task, as the outside wall is under the verandah -- and pack in more insulation inside. He didn't replace the wall board, so it's basically insulation strips visible down there.

The last time I went into the "cellar" was Friday. It's a strict no-kitty zone. I saw no kitties accompany me, for whatever that's worth. DK doesn't think he went in there after me.

We THINK we saw Manny Friday night.

Saturday was when he began to act strange.

So after DK found the fiberglass on the rug upstairs, I went down into the cellar and, in the middle of the floor was a huge chunk -- 2 feet by 2 feet at least -- of fiberglass, of such heft that I'm nearly positive I would have noticed it immediately on Friday had it been there then.

So.

Did the kitty somehow get stuck in the basement, rip a chink of fiberglass out of the wall, inhale it and become ill ?

How did he get in ?

How did he get out ?

Is the fiberglass just a pink herring, and the kitty has simply become asthmatic ?

Was some other animal trapped under the verandah and somehow got into the wall and into the cellar ?

Poor kitty.

Poor us (seven hundred bucks later.) Not to mention the bazillion pills a day we have to insert into the kitty. And the new, byzantine kitty litter we must use.

Bad kitty.

The first thing Mannydid on returning home today was run downstairs and lie down in front of the louvered door.

I guess we've found his third passion -- fiberglass.

Looks like cotton candy... (cue Homer Simpson tape -- "Fiberglass, mmmmgggmmmgmgmgmgmeeooowww !!!)