Our big brother, Pepper

As many of you know, we have a male cat named Sgt. Pepper (Pepper for short). It's been really interesting watching him adjust to the boys move into his territory - especially since he's always been fairly dominant. Before the boys were born it was fun listening to Pepper chase after Matt when Matt just wanted to walk up the stairs and go to bed. Pepper would try to nip at his ankles like he was hunting for food. Matt would have to run up the stairs, turn around real quick to stare him down, then a playful hand-to-paw fight would erupt 'till Matt had enough and they would both hop into bed. This was their nightly ritual.

We believe that Pepper has found it in his heart to accept the boys even though they're sometimes loud and take up valuable bed space. However, he hasn't always been so accepting. He's been urinating outside of his litter box off and on. Recently, we found a few spots of urine that had blood in it. Worried for everyone's health, Kristi took Pepper to the vet this weekend to find out what the problem is. It turns out that this is a bladder infection that's fairly common for house cats on a canned food diet. He put him on antibiotics and we're feeding him a special prescription diet for a few weeks to see if it clears up. After some research, I found that the newly renovated living room was the culprit for some of the urinating in there. I guess he lost all "sense" of where he was and needed to get familiar with it the best way he knew how. Yuk! So Matt and I invested in some heavy-duty cleaner and started to pay extra attention to him. It seems to be working so far. Word of advice to pet owners, change one thing in a room at once - not all in the same day!