Cat-alogue

[Jan McNulty 17,516]

 At age 14 we're not taking any risks with her. We don't have pet insurance - does anyone have any experience/can recommend a good plan or is it just a bit too late to take out now?

 

 

I think it gets more expensive as your pet gets older.  A friend gave up her pet insurance when her cat passed a particular age and the premium doubled.

 

When I got Chip from the Dogs' Home I got a free month from Pet Plan but when they sent me details for continuation but it was £20 or so a month.  I went for Tescos instead!  Chip is only between 4 and 5 though.  

[taxi4ballet 7,854]

I'm still not sure whether I was seeing things this morning...

 

Driving along a fairly quiet road, I was approaching a zebra crossing when I saw a cat walk towards the crossing and sit down. It looked both ways, waited for an oncoming car to pass, and when the road was clear it trotted quietly over the zebra crossing, and away up the path.

 

[porthesia 609]

Hi LinMM

 

East Hoathly is not that far away, so worth looking into. Her meow is virtually back now and she seems fine. It was a long lasting antibiotic as we can't get tablets down her so I think she's over it. She's quite fit otherwise (touching lots of wood)

[Jacqueline 1,590]

Last few times I was at our local vets, they were selling/promoting a plastic syringe like device for getting pills down feline throats. I well remember the struggle with our cat, holding her under one arm while trying to prise her mouth open and get the pill in her mouth. Then you were supposed to massage her neck to encourage swallowing the pill.

She would then hold the pill in her mouth before spitting it out elsewhere. The vet made it look easy but animals sense your unease and play on it. This syringe is placed in the cat's mouth and the pill is launched down the throat before the cat has a chance to object apparently. What could possibly go wrong?

[taxi4ballet 7,854]

Er... You hold the cat down with both hands, and with your third hand you grab hold of its head, with your fourth hand you prise open the jaws, and with your fifth hand you manipulate the syringe. Piece of cake 

[porthesia 609]

Me and my other half tried the green syringe device - still didn't manage to get the pill down the cat, well yes we did, down the front of the cat when she spat it out

 

Edited for typo

 

PS why can't I use the smiley faces?

Edited March 7, 2017 by porthesia

[LinMM 6,668]

We used to put Toscars pills into bits of chicken ....make a sort of hole and hide it in the piece.

Sometimes it worked.

On other occasions we thought it had worked but would then find the pill on the floor near his dish later!!

 

By far the best were the homeopathic powders because these we could just mix in with his food and he more or less accepted this

 

A pity you can't get all these pills in powder form or liquid and mix into the food.

There would still probably be days when they would just not touch the food though!

[alison 11,015]

Spotted the other day as I gazed out of the window: one of the local cats - and there are a lot of them - sitting comfortably curled up on top of someone's motorbike   I guess the engine must still have been warm - or perhaps the cat has aspirations to higher things?

[porthesia 609]

My eldest daughter and her boyfriend finally wore us down and Orion and Nova arrived on Sunday.  Two small black balls of fluff that are so far tearing out our heart strings as Nova (not my cats and I didn't choose the names) has been unwell since his inoculations, de-fleaing and de-worming on Monday - another trip to the vets today for anit-inflammatory injection and he is to have another anti-inflammatory injection with the 2nd part o the inoculations.  I had forgotten just how much fun and how cute kittens were.

 

They have yet to meet Tia as we made the decision not to have her inoculated this year as she had a funny reaction last year. She's 14 years old and should be fully protected from the kittens - just not them from her.  Keeping fingers crossed it all goes well!

[Ellie 821]

I read this today and thought I'd share  . A lovely article with some lovely comments. Enjoy.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/09/adopted-stray-cat-pet-ginger

[Jane 1,406]

Thank you for that Ellie. We were adopted by a sick stray a number of years ago who has stolen a big part of our hearts. Funniest, most loving cat we've ever had. Unfortunately the resident cats have never taken to him, which he really doesn't understand! 

[Pixiewoo 308]

I have to share ...

 

I have 2 cats ... siblings ... born on a farm. We live rurally, but not on a farm.  One cat hunts and catches the occasional bird ... in the past 7 days the other cat has brought us 3 baby rabbits, a frog, several mice/voles/shrew, innumerable birds and today ... a mole!!!! There can not be any wildlife left! 

How I long for the days when the only thing he could catch was a worm! 

 

The only positive I can find is at least he kills them and doesn't bring them home to play with! 

[taxi4ballet 7,854]

Mine brought us a weasel once.

[Jane 1,406]

We’ve had a weasel once too, he had the head in his mouth and luckily we spotted him and shouted to take it outside as it was still alive. 

Moles used to be our laziest cats prey - he lay beside the mole hill until they started to poke their noses out and then would pounce. Could take all day. 

[Balletfanp 1,610]

We back onto woods, so we have had innumerable mice, voles, shrews etc. (often several a day). Birds galore (I think they have wiped out the entire Goldcrest population 🙁), including robins at Christmas and quite a lot of live ones which are “fun” to try to get out.... Squirrels, three rare dragonflies, a spate of slow worms (they found a nest in our garden), and a large raw turkey breast (I don’t like to think how they got hold of that....🤔😐).

[Shade 477]

I love cats but do worry about the carnage. We rescued a slow worm that was heading to the road the other evening. He was quite wriggly.

[Balletfanp 1,610]

They are very wriggly....

[Jane 1,406]

Our cat laid in the shade of the hedge today as a pair of wagtails walked all round the garden. I was ready to scare them off as they got closer to his hiding place but he barely made the effort to even look at them. For some reason he has no interest in birds. 

[alison 11,015]

Earlier today, while on my way to work, I was a little stunned to see, in a window of a house adjoining the pavement (UK usage!), a cat which had clambered up the (ordinary plastic, I think) Venetian blind in a window, pushed its way between the slats so that it was against the window, and was attempting to perch on the part of the window frame surrounding the fanlight (!)

[Jane 1,406]

I’m guessing you don’t live with a cat Alison? Sharing your home with a cat nothing surprises you. If you think it’s impossible the cat just sees it as an extra challenge.  

[Balletfanp 1,610]

I sat in our living room for over an hour a few weeks ago before finally noticing a large magpie perched on the curtain rail.... could my cats have possibly been involved...? Hmm, I wonder! 😂

 

 

[LinMM 6,668]

We arrived back at my parents house who had two cats at the time ( over ten years ago now) one Boxing Day to see books all over the floor! At first we thought the cats had just been chasing each other and getting over excited but then ....and cannot remember now who saw it first...saw a poor blackbird sitting right up on the top book shelf!! 

Goodness knows how long it had been there for ages I should think but luckily seemed okay.

My dad got it and went out and put it on the garage roof and it eventually flew off but it was a miracle it didn't end up as Christmas dinner for one or the other of them!! 

[taxi4ballet 7,854]

Sad news - world-famous social media star Grumpycat has passed away aged 7.

[alison 11,015]

It was on the front page of one of the papers - I think The Times? - this morning!  He was mighty young.

[Mandy Kent 494]

We had to close our cat flap ‘ in’ door , new rescue cat Tabitha was creating too much carnage, reducing the baby starling population plus a few headless mice. Her new nickname is Killer Queen . Simba never hunts or catches anything . 

[LinMM 6,668]

I had a male cat called Toscar and he was hopeless at catching birds ....not that I wanted him to be good at it ....a bird would have had to practically drop in his mouth I think. He did all the right moves though that sort of low squatting and creeping along the ground stuff but the pigeons he stalked would just flutter off a few yards as if to say what on earth do you think you're playing at! 

I wonder if female cats in general are better hunters and catchers!

[Balletfanp 1,610]

Unfortunately my two cats are both expert hunters and we back onto woods - so the summer months are a constant conveyer belt of dead/alive/half-dead/mutilated animals or birds. I have become quite adept at catching live birds in a tea towel and removing them outside again. I wish I could say I am as expert at trapping rodents....

 

We have had - besides the expected selection of mice, shrews, voles, birds etc. - several large squirrels (thankfully dead - not sure I could chase a live squirrel around the house!), a spate of slow worms (they found a nest in the back garden and helped themselves), several dragonflies, a raw turkey breast (?!), and a live magpie (how they wrangled that through the cat flap I’ll never know!). The magpie perched on the curtain rail for over an hour after I got home from work before I finally noticed it was there! And yes, we managed to get it out of the nearest window, although not without a lot of flapping and panic (mostly on my husband’s part) and mess.... 🙁

[Mandy Kent 494]

3 hours ago, LinMM said:

 

 

I wonder if female cats in general are better hunters and catchers!

That could be true, lionesses do all the hunting in a pride of lions don’t they?  

[LinMM 6,668]

Yes Mandy Kent!

The reason I say this is that where I used to live in London on "Toscars" territory as it were a neighbour had a female cat who was a prolific bird catcher ....much to his owners chagrin.

One day I was doing the washing up when I saw this cat literally go flying through the air from one tree to another and she landed dead on top of this pigeon totally amazing. When I told the neighbour later he told me all these horror stories of her prolific predation and I shared Toscars rather lamentable record absolutely zilch....well as far as I know.

Also since I've moved to Brighton ( Toscar deceased unfortunately) the cats in the garden who are always at it are females.

We had a couple of wood mice living in a hole in the garden wall and one of these females would spend up to an hour a day trying to scent them out fascinating to watch all the antics but as far as I know again she didn't get them. 

[ninamargaret 1,924]

Strange how cats vary in their hunting habits. I had a lovely long haired tabby who had been a stray, and in the 7years i had him he didn't catch a thing.He did once being in an ancient and dessicated  bird that he had found and looked very proud of himself!