On Cats

[big jim]

31 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Such a preponderance of BLACK cats in this thread!

my wife calls our 3 her black cat army! 

[Wacol]

 

Temujin - checking out the comfort of the new couch that had been delivered 10 minutes earlier.

 

 

 

[stewartingram]

I've had cats around me all my life. How about this one? Raffertey, a rescue cat around the time we got him from the RSPCA in 2008. The runt of the litter, described by the staff as a pathetic little thing!

I'll post some more pics later to prove them wrong.

[sigtech]

This is Ashley, a rescue cat we obtained  in 2016 from our local Cats Protection League. No one wanted her, so they advertised in the local free paper.

My wife saw this, and as we had been 'catless' for about five months - and I was getting desperate with all the cat cushions,cat pillows, cat ornaments and other cat substitutes scattered around the house, decided that we should go and see her. Her previous owner had asked for her to be rehomed. She had fallen from a 1st floor open window and broken her pelvis, which necessitated major surgery and a long recouperation..

At the CPL, we were introduced to Ashley, who came out from hiding at the back of her pen,  and I sat down on the floor next to her. She proceeded to climb on my lap looking up at my face, and began pawing and purring loudly: - SHE had made the decision for us...

She is a British Domestic Long Hair, and quite a character - due to her previous injury (we think) this seems to be her favourite position for sleeping!

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by sigtech
spilling!

[bodmin16]

Hi guys,  I don't post very often now but I do occasionally drop by and see what's occurring in RMWeb world.  If there was one post that was a certainty for me to post on it would be this.  Never had any pets as a child but have more than made up for it in the way of cats in the following 40 odd years.  All beautiful cats, but I will share these guys with you for now.  The first is Hendricks a ginger tom - so gentle, very talkative and extremely delightful, he is 3 years old now. We got him with his sister a tiny tortoise shell, extremely pretty and an absolute heart breaker.  She was most definitely a lap cat.  Sadly we lost her a few weeks back and we dont really know why - no obvious trauma, injury or illness.  We all miss her dreadfully even her brother, so we decided a couple of weeks ago that we would take this little fella on.  This is Monty, he is 12 weeks old and 75% rag doll.  Very playful and affectionate and has the loudest purr ever.  We have been so lucky with all our cats they have always been such pleasant characters.

Edited August 13, 2020 by bodmin16
To upload 3rd photo

[franciswilliamwebb]

21 minutes ago, sigtech said:

At the CPL, we were introduced to Ashley, who came out from hiding at the back of her pen,  and I sat down on the floor next to her. She proceeded to climb on my lap looking up at my face, and began pawing and purring loudly: - SHE had made the decision for us...

 

My congratulations, to whichever one of you did the rescuing 

['CHARD]

18 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Such a preponderance of BLACK cats in this thread!

 

Let's redress that with some more pale ones...

 

One of Sid's siblings, this is Mungo-Bean, better known as simply Mung, or Phantasmagoria Mumbo-Jumbo as the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy would recognise him.  The photo really cannot do justice to the might of this cat, he was an enormous, rangy blue-point Siamese and every inch my faithful boy.

 

Born under my son's bed in 2004 his life would be cruelly cut short on September 23rd 2016 when he inadvertantly sniffed a Parkinsons disease tablet of my father's, carelessly dropped by a carer.  As we were to discover, such pills are lethal to a cat's nervous system, and my son and dad watched the horrible event unfold.  R.I.P Mung.

[kevinlms]

32 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

 

Let's redress that with some more pale ones...

 

One of Sid's siblings, this is Mungo-Bean, better known as simply Mung, or Phantasmagoria Mumbo-Jumbo as the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy would recognise him.  The photo really cannot do justice to the might of this cat, he was an enormous, rangy blue-point Siamese and every inch my faithful boy.

 

Born under my son's bed in 2004 his life would be cruelly cut short on September 23rd 2016 when he inadvertantly sniffed a Parkinsons disease tablet of my father's, carelessly dropped by a carer.  As we were to discover, such pills are lethal to a cat's nervous system, and my son and dad watched the horrible event unfold.  R.I.P Mung.

You are saying that Mungo-Bean merely sniffed a Parkinson's disease pill and that caused sufficient reaction to kill him? Wow!

[Classsix T]

Here's Mia (so named because she has a propensity to 'squirrel' on her hind legs to gain a better view of higher up things of interest. Mia-cat, Meerkat, geddit?). 

A cat very much of her own devices. She certainly does not like being picked up thankyouverymuch and couldn't be described as a lap cat, with mood swings between aloofness and neediness (haven't they all) in equal measure. But of course she's very loved, and is sometimes reciprocal!

That's unfair, but you'd think for a moggy that when she does venture onto your lap and goes absolutely floppy, belly showing mental when fussed, she might do it more often! She's still relatively young though so maybe when she gets past clearing the garden of butterflies, dragonflies (seriously!) and mice, she'll work out a lap is a happy substitute. Daft mog.

 

C6T. 

['CHARD]

43 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

You are saying that Mungo-Bean merely sniffed a Parkinson's disease pill and that caused sufficient reaction to kill him? Wow!

 

We believe 100% this is what happened, yes.  The cat had a fit/ seizure and died horribly.  My father said he (Mungo, not my dad) was nudging something round the floor before he became unwell, and this did tie up with the blue pill I found nearby. 

 

I checked the active ingredients in the medication leaflet and searched them on line, and one was highly toxic to cats, even if they just sniffed at the pill containing it.  I was so shocked that I mailed a piece to our local radio station, where one of the presenters is a real animal welfare champion; she read out a warning to cat owners in households where such meds were prescribed or lying about. 

 

The sad book-end to the whole episode was that on the 365th day of that annus horribilis, 22nd September 2017, my dad passed away.  I don't have the list of medications now to check, but I will try and find the content of what I sent to the radio show.

[Classsix T]

21 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

 

"Yes, yes I am very handsome...a burden I bear, comfortably..."

['CHARD]

 

Here's the third of the triplets, Lexi, or to use her pedigree name Phatasmagoria Material-Girl. Living the longest of the Phantasmagoria triumvirate I sadly had to have Lexi put to sleep in early February this year, at the decent age of nearly 16.  Here she is checking out the sink in the remodelled downstairs bathroom we had installed for dad.

['CHARD]

 

To round-off, here are the Phantasmagoria triplets shortly after the move to dad's in October 2015, from left -Material-Girl, Mumbo-Jumbo and Monkey-Puzzle (Lexi, Mung and Sid).

 

After Mung had tragically died, I contrived to visit Mad McCann of this parish en route to the far end of Galloway, shortly before Christmas 2016, where I would collect the young lady that would open the next chapter....

[Classsix T]

'Chard's mixture of cat's names and music brings to mind a series of images I tripped over a while ago (apparently cats and the internet are a thing, who knew?). They might not mean much if you're unaware of LP artwork now considered classic but are an absolute hoot if you know the originals.

C6T. 

[big jim]

3 hours ago, sigtech said:She proceeded to climb on my lap looking up at my face, and began pawing and purring loudly: - SHE had made the decision for us...

 

they seem to know, or play us for fools at least! 
 

this was Lola literally 5 minutes after being let out of her carrier when she came to be a foster

 

after that we couldn’t let her go, similarly fae, there was just something about her that made her feel like one of the family straight away

 

as for hank, the people who found him said he was hissing and scratchy when they caught him, he had been abandoned in morrisons car park, when my wife went to collect him he just got out of the crate and snuggled up to her, when he got to our house he just plonked himself on the sofa with fae who just looks bemused at any cat smaller than her and went to sleep, the vet last week said he was all claws and teeth when she was examining him but once he came back to me he was good as gold again!

the sad thing with hank is he’s not feral, as soon as he came to the house he used the litter tray without encouragement so had obviously been litter trained at some point, but he wasn’t microchipped and an appeal in social media etc didn’t bring forward an owner, this of course happened at the end of lockdown which is what we feared, people who needed companionship at the start got bored quickly, thankfully we have only had a couple of cats from that scenario come through our doors recently

 

some of the sadder cases are older cats who’s owners have found a new partner and they don’t like the animal so we get requests to come and collect them, “or I’ll just set her free in the countryside” it’s heart breaking to see the cat get upset and pine for weeks not knowing what it’s done wrong

 

my wife’s job is to do home checks on potential new owners and match cats up with new homes, she has had a 99% success rate so far, all of the older cats she’s refined have gone on to have a better life than before 

 

[laurenceb]

These people should be reincarnated as cats - in South Korea

Edited August 13, 2020 by laurenceb
Why do you only find a spulling mastak after you have posted!

[Classsix T]

11 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

These people shuld be reincarnated as cats - in South Korea

I'd be appreciative if this thread didn't descend into personal kangaroo court vengeance. Much as I detest those that'd do harm to others (of any species), spleen ventilation achieves little and ignores fundamental core issues. 

 

C6T. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Classsix T

[iL Dottore]

There are some lovely cat and kitten photos on this thread (he says through gritted teeth, being a dog person) and they all deserve love, care and a happy existence. So although they may not be for me, there is something very reassuring about knowing there are plenty of people out there to take care of these often magnificent beasties.

In regards to cats and drugs, one thing I learnt during my studies is that cats have very strange metabolisms and often react in odd  (and as we have seen sometimes fatal) ways to drugs. I believe this somewhat peculiar metabolism is because cats are obligate carnivores (there is no such thing as a vegan cat and feeding a cat a vegetarian or vegan diet is guaranteed to kill the cat). Which, in practical terms, means for people with mixed households (cats AND dogs) they can feed their dogs on catfood but can’t (and shouldn’t) feed their cats on dogfood!

Keep ‘em purring, folks!

[big jim]

4 minutes ago, Classsix T said:

I'd be appreciative if this thread didn't descend into personal kangaroo court vengeance.

 

C6T. 

agreed but you do have to bite your tongue sometimes when a perfectly healthy cat comes to stay because the owner got bored, is moving away, Step daughter doesn’t like her, we’ve heard them all

 

another annoyance is an old cat, suddenly needing medical attention is surrendered to the charity, gets the attention it needs then the owner expects to get the cat back afterwards, of course there are all sorts of contracts signed up before the cat is surrendered meaning they can’t get it back and it will be rehired but you’d be surprised the number of people who think the charity is basically a free vet service, all the work carried out by the vets on the rescues is paid for by the charity, they certainly don’t do it for free 

 

 

[big jim]

@iL Dottore we have had a cat through our doors who was raised vegan from a kitten, sickly little thing, weaned onto meat and now a picture of health

 

drugs: clooney on the first page the one who was all matted belonged to a druggie, before being abandoned by him who thought it funny to inject him with heroin, thankfully he’s all alright now and living the life of a lord but early on in his foster we did actually consider having him put to sleep as he was so pitiful and for want of a better word ‘damaged’ And we thought it best for all concerned then lockdown happened and he was stuck with us and he just turned a corner and recovered, learned to use a litter tray and started to clean himself properly 

[Classsix T]

39 minutes ago, big jim said:

agreed but you do have to bite your tongue sometimes when a perfectly healthy cat comes to stay because the owner got bored, is moving away, Step daughter doesn’t like her, we’ve heard them all

 

another annoyance is an old cat, suddenly needing medical attention is surrendered to the charity, gets the attention it needs then the owner expects to get the cat back afterwards, of course there are all sorts of contracts signed up before the cat is surrendered meaning they can’t get it back and it will be rehired but you’d be surprised the number of people who think the charity is basically a free vet service, all the work carried out by the vets on the rescues is paid for by the charity, they certainly don’t do it for free 

 

 

I absolutely agree Jim. You're well aware how I'm appreciative of your family for doing right by our feline friends and the utter contempt I hold for those abusive scum that, well, needs people like you to do right. However, it'd be dismissive of a number of issues to just demand some sort of "revenge" on those poor cat's previous human interactions wouldn't it?

 

What you're essentially doing is saving cats from humans that in actuality shouldn't have been allowed to have them in the first place. Sorry, that's the truth of it.

Often on "Cat from Hell" the guy was less a cat whisperer than telling the dopey humans that what they were doing just bugs the bejeez out of a moggy.

When there is that much ignorance about, I don't find flippant remarks about reincarnated vengeful retribution at all useful. Legally responsible cat ownership, perhaps. Sorry, that's me. 

 

C6T. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Classsix T

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

 

In regards to cats and drugs, one thing I learnt during my studies is that cats have very strange metabolisms and often react in odd  (and as we have seen sometimes fatal) ways to drugs. I believe this somewhat peculiar metabolism is because cats are obligate carnivores (there is no such thing as a vegan cat and feeding a cat a vegetarian or vegan diet is guaranteed to kill the cat). Which, in practical terms, means for people with mixed households (cats AND dogs) they can feed their dogs on catfood but can’t (and shouldn’t) feed their cats on dogfood!

 

Years ago my mum's cat, as it was getting old, started having fits. She (cat, not mum!) was put on valium, a dose that made her a little woozy but would've apparently completely floored a human. Every species has its own different reactions to drugs and diets, take the example of chocolate being poisonous to quite a few animals (which some people  don't realise when they give it to their pets).

Edited August 13, 2020 by Reorte

[Edwin_m]

 

Here's Gizmo, aka the mobile furball, specialises in finding unusual places to sit.  

 

Before we got him from the rescue home a couple of years ago we never remember seeing any long-haired chocolate cats, but now we notice them all over the place including several on here.  There was even another Gizmo on local BBC internet for having disappeared and been found many miles away and six years later.  

Edited August 13, 2020 by Edwin_m

[didcot]

3 hours ago, big jim said:

clooney on the first page the one who was all matted belonged to a druggie, before being abandoned by him who thought it funny to inject him with heroin

 

Why would someone do that, it beggars belief. Well done for taking him on.

[Andy Hayter]

3 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

Years ago my mum's cat, as it was getting old, started having fits. She (cat, not mum!) was put on valium, a dose that made her a little woozy but would've apparently completely floored a human. Every species has its own different reactions to drugs and diets, take the example of chocolate being poisonous to quite a few animals (which some people  don't realise when they give it to their pets).

Chocolate is apparently also poisonous to humans.  The reason we don't recognise that is that the lethal dose is very high - average lethal dose is around 22kg!

 

Useless bit of information.