Oh-oh

Peanut, because of his megacolon diagnosis, needs extra help keeping his excretory function rolling along properly. He therefore gets two laxatives twice daily, top-dressed on his canned food at breakfast and supper, atop the dollop of high-fat special food for his weight-retention problem, which I spread over the regular wet food like so much high-calorie frosting on a fishy pate cupcake. Believe it or not, he devours it happily, though I do need to encourage him to finish the whole bowlful at times, depending on what the regular-food substrate is.

This entire concoction is served in his own white dish, while everyone else gets a dark blue one -- except Pumpkin, who gets a light blue one since he gets Cosequin stirred into it twice daily for his arthritis. I have a set routine for preparing all eight bowls for the six cats (small dollops in the two extras so Schooner the greedhead can move from his to those instead of stealing from someone else). The cats have adopted set positions for their meals -- Sally and Pumpkin on their own bits of countertop, the other four in their preferred spots on the floor. I have a set routine of how I pick up the bowls for distribution to make sure the right bowl goes to the right cat.

Then when they're all served I stand by to monitor them and make sure Cat A doesn't go to Cat B's bowl, while Cat C.... You get the picture. I also often need to encourage Peanut to finish his serving by twitching the bowl, turning it, etc.

All very carefully calculated to see that everyone gets what s/he should. And yet....

And yet, this morning as I'm standing there watching, thinking about the day ahead, suddenly I notice:

Everyone's in their usual position, but:

Peanut's eating out of a blue bowl.

Schooner is halfway through the white.

Aiyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I snatch it away from Schooner and see to my dismay that yes, all the top dressing and half the regular pate has been enthusiastically gobbled up. I re-top-dress with high-cal food and laxatives and give the pitiful remnants to Peanut (dragging him away from a blue bowl) and continue to block Schooner from getting to the white bowl again till I'm sure that Peanut has chowed down his daily dose.

Schooner I'm sure will take no lasting harm from a dose of lactulose and a quarter teaspoon's worth of Miralax. But I dread the prospect of the coming poonado.

Especially since Schooner is utterly incompetent at burying his dumps.