Fig. 1 · Live · Chicago · Around the clock

Is Nigel peeing?

Present answer: Indeterminate until observed. See fig. 1.

3 a.m., a Chicago basement. A camera on a litter box. An email when the cat uses it. The reading list we wish we’d had. Reasons below. Citations attached.

Email alertsForm 1 of 2

An email each time he uses the box.

One email per visit, any hour. Confirm by email first. Unsubscribe in one click. Addresses are never sold or shared. Privacy.

Fig. 1 · The box · IRRec
--:--:--Standby
Fig. 1. The box, by infrared. One Reolink, one laptop, one tunnel. No audio. A dark frame indicates a fault in the laptop, not the cat.
Patent-style pen drawing of Nigel sitting in his litter box, with numbered reference lines.

Fig. 2. Subject (12) in tray (10). Tail (14), litter (16), eyeshine (18), dark patch (20). Pen.

Case no. 1

The case for pointing a camera at a litter box.

Not a joke. Four and a half healthy years, then one day he couldn’t pee. From the kitchen it looked like nothing much. It was a complete urethral blockage, which kills in about two days.

The timing was lucky. It is no longer left to luck. Has he been? Did anything come out? A log answers that. A memory does not.

The rest of the site is the reading list. The apparatus may be absurd. The disease is not.

The whole story →

Case summary

Filed by the owner · not a clinical record
Subject
Nigel. Male, five. White, dark patch on the head.
Presentation
Extra trips to the box. Long visits. “Digging.” Still eating. Assessed at home as “a bit weird.” Assessment incorrect.
Findings
Complete urethral obstruction. BUN over 130; healthy is under about 30.
Course
Catheter. IV fluids. Three nights.
Diagnosis
FLUTD. Managed, not cured.
Intervention
Wet food. More water bowls. One infrared camera.
Discharged · under observation
BUN at admission
130+

Healthy: under about 30.

Nights in hospital
3

IV fluids. Urinary catheter.

Hours observed, daily
24

Infrared. Room lights off.

Box to inbox
~30s

Typical delay, box to email.

Tractatus Litterarius

Propositions concerning the box.

Numbered in the manner of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Only the numbering is borrowed.

2.1 is the one that matters.

The manifesto →

  1. 1

    The box is all that is observed.

  2. 2

    What does not happen is also information.

  3. 2.1

    Repeated visits that produce nothing, in a male cat, are an emergency. It has a deadline.

  4. 2.2

    Straining is not constipation until a vet says so.

  5. 3

    The camera does not diagnose. It records.

  6. 3.1

    The difference between a scare and a death is rarely the treatment. It is the hours before anyone looked.

  7. 4

    The subject has not been informed of the camera.

  8. 5

    Everything else is water.

  9. 6

    The apparatus may be absurd. The disease is not.

  10. 7

    What cannot be settled at home is settled by a veterinarian.

Index cards · what we wish we’d known

Six signs worth interrupting your evening for.

None proves a blockage. Any one is worth a call. In a male cat, several together are worth a car ride.

No. 01

Straining, nothing to show

stranguria

Squat. Push. Nothing. The most important sign on this page, and the one most often mistaken for constipation.

The sign most often misread at home.
No. 02

Trip after trip

pollakiuria

Six visits an hour, a few drops each. Frequency alone is a reason to call.

Count the visits. Write the number down.
No. 03

Crying in the box

dysuria, audible

That’s pain. Cats hide pain, so by the time you can hear it, it’s been going a while.

Audible pain is rarely early pain.
No. 04

Pink, red or rust

hematuria

Any tint in a clump counts. Inflammation, crystals, stones — catch them before they become a plug.

Pale litter makes color visible.
No. 05

Going somewhere new

periuria

Tile, tub, sink, bathmat. A cat avoiding the place that hurts. A symptom, not spite. Never punish it.

Treat it as a symptom, not behavior.
No. 06

Licking, hiding, not eating

late signs

Grooming down there, withdrawal, a skipped meal, vomiting. With straining: stop reading. Find your keys.

With straining: go now.

Which signs mean tonight →

Here the voice stops

Plain text

If a male cat is straining and nothing is coming out, it is an emergency now.

Not in the morning. A blocked cat cannot pass urine. Potassium and waste build up in the blood within hours. Without treatment, a complete blockage can kill a cat in 24 to 48 hours, sometimes less.

  • Call your vet. If they are closed, call the nearest 24-hour emergency clinic.
  • Say: “I think my cat is blocked.” Those words get you seen faster.
  • Do not wait to see if it passes. Do not try to fix it at home.
What happens at the emergency vet

Why the typeface changed: at 2 a.m., with a cat in a carrier, you need instructions, not literature.

The apparatus

Three boring machines and one small database.

Lenses, wires, relays, a body reported to a distant office: Burroughs’ control machine, without the control. It watches. It reports.

No AI. No subscription. Deliberately simple, so there is less to fail at 2 a.m.

The build log, with a diagram in pen →

  • The eyeA Reolink E1 over the tray. Infrared, so the room stays dark.
  • The brainAn always-on laptop. Pulls the feed, watches a rectangle for motion, restreams it here.
  • The mouthOne email per visit, via Resend. It states the time. It does not diagnose.
  • The memoryA list of confirmed email addresses. Each removable in one click.

The literature · card catalog

What we learned in a waiting room, filed.

Seven guides, sourced to the veterinary literature. Written by an owner, not a vet, so each states when to stop reading and call.

Start hereSF 985 .U7 no. 1No. 1

FLUTD: Four Problems, One Name

Four problems under one name. Why male cats are the ones that die of it. The signs, in order. And the line between an appointment on Monday and the car, tonight.

Cats — Diseases. Male cats, misfortune of.

 EmergencySF 985 .U7 no. 2No. 2

Your Cat Is Blocked. Here Is the Night.

The call. The catheter. The numbers. The bill. The ride home.

Veterinary emergencies. Waiting rooms, fluorescent.

 SF 985 .U7 no. 3No. 3

The Tao of Dilution

Water is the lever. Wet food, bowls, diets, supplements.

Cats — Nutrition. Water, as policy.

 SF 985 .U7 no. 4No. 4

The Architecture of Calm

A stress disease that lives in the bladder. Boxes, pillars, silent standoffs.

Cats — Behavior. Corners, theory of.

 SF 985 .U7 no. 5No. 5

The Hermeneutics of Litter

Read the box: clumps, counts, color, location.

Litter. Interpretation, texts and otherwise.

 SF 985 .U7 no. 6No. 6

The Urinalysis, Annotated

The lab report, line by line, with marginalia.

Urine — Analysis. Crystals, overrated.

 TK 6680 .N5No. 7

The Apparatus

Camera, laptop, tunnel, email. How it works.

Surveillance, domestic. Control machines, benign.

 SF 985 .U7 no. 8Forthcoming

Not yet written.

Whatever you wish you had known first. Suggest it.

Subjects: by correspondence.

Unfamiliar word? The Lexicon →

A note on genre

Warhol filmed a man sleeping for five hours. Fig. 1 has been running considerably longer.

— The management

Most of the time nothing happens in fig. 1. That is the intended result. The apparatus exists for the occasion when something should happen and does not.

Running time: continuous. No intermission.

Subscribe

Watch a cat use a litter box. Possibly save a different one.

The emails are about Nigel. The point is your cat. If one of them sends you to look at yours more closely, it has done its job.

Questions, answered →

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