Lily Spruces Up

This morning, I had the pleasant task of taking Lily to the vet to have her nails trimmed. This was a necessary evil because tomorrow, she is going to be the "Guest Pet of the Day" at Vacation Bible School. (Expect a full report tomorrow. If she doesn't behave, we will be looking for a new church.)

Lily enjoys riding in the car, but upon entering the examination room at the vet's office, she becomes a hissing, biting, snarling beast, like something out of a horror movie.

It took two technicians to hold her and several attempts to get every claw trimmed. When they finally finished, one technician pulled out a bag of cylindrical, nearly 3-inch long brown treats. They were so large, I thought they were surely for dogs.

"Here, Lily. Would you like a cat chew?"

While Lily sniffed it, the technician told me that kitties usually don't care for these treats but occasionally like to lick them. They use them more as a calming device. But before she had finished telling me this, Lily had the entire chew in her mouth. It was so ginormous that for a moment, I thought she might choke. But that was only a fleeting thought, because she devoured the chew as if she had been lost in the wilderness without food for weeks.

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed the technician. "We've had these chews forever and have never seen a cat actually eat one! Here, Lily, would you like to take one home with you?"

She poked a second chew into Lily's carrier. GULP! Down it went in no time flat.

"Whoa! That's amazing!" she cried.

I've told them on previous visits about Lily's voracious appetite: How she will eat (if allowed) all kinds of food (mandarin oranges, lettuce, Cheetos, apples, cheese...) and even inedible items (carpet, ribbon, brads, dryer sheets, Kleenex, toilet paper, masking tape...). There is virtually nothing that this cat won't eat.

I don't think they really believed me until today.