From: STella@thelema.uucp (STella)
Subject: Re: socks
Summary: safety concern and flushing kitty
Organization: Idiosyncratic Anarchic Order
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 09:40:43 GMT

In article <BzutL3.LIw@dale.cts.com> npm@dale.cts.com (Nancy Milligan) writes:
>I also had a cat that just LOVED to be spun around.  She would jump into
>a plastic sack and then I would twist it up and let it unwind.  Her little
>head would be poked out of the sack.  When I let her go she would wobble
>away looking like she'd been hitting the rum.  But as soon as she could
>walk a straight line she'd jump right back in the sack ready for me to
>wind her up again.

Just a quick note about those plastic grocery bags; if a kitty gets
its head stuck through the loop, charges about chased by the bag, gets
it hung up on something, then tries to roll to escape, it's possible
for hir to twist the bag tight around hir neck so sie can neither
escape nor breathe.

I once woke up from a sound sleep of exhaustion (you bottlefeed a
litter of ferals and you'll KNOW what tired is) with the conviction
something was wrong.  Running frantically through the house, I
eventually discover that Gandalf (you remember Gandalf, the one I am
teaching to accept leather backrubs?) had gotten his then-kitten head
shoved through the loop of a grocery bag into which beefjuice had
leaked, then twisted in his attempt to escape till he was breathing
only in torturous wheezes, so soft I could NOT have heard them from
the bedroom.  A quick slash with a knife took the handle off the bag,
a twist or two made enough slack that I could get the knife under the
handle and cut it without cutting him (did take a chunk off my finger
in my hurry, but O, well) and a few minutes observation and calming
strokes, and he was OK.  But that was the first night I brought him to
bed with me, and in the last decade and a fraction, the only times he
hasn't slept with me are when he's sick or I'm so sick I can't stand
the irritating rumble of his purr or the unbearable stomping of his
kitty feet.  I think he KNOWS I saved his fuzzy ass, and I wish I knew
howcome I woke up so sharply just in time.

So after you've played spin the cat, put the bag away, please.

[This is not the only time I've been compelled to do something that
turned out to be a Good Thing for the cat.  I was once sitting for my
kitty-friend Coca, and her person had asked me to check on her daily
starting the day afer she'd left.  But about three hours after
departure on a hot August day, I found myself compelled to run (I
don't DO "run" -- I'm built for comfort, not speed, and a brisk walk's
about all I'll generally do) the mile to her house, let myself in, and
find that Coca had gotten herself shut into the mudroom, an
unventilated place with a large, west-facing window.  I estimate the
temperature was about 115, and Coca was semi-conscious.  I threw her
in the toilet and flushed, and after a few flushes she got lucid
enough to complain about this, and bit HELL out of the hand that was
holding her head above water.  (Sorry if flushing the cat squicks some
of my non-fans, but I knew her person doesn't use toilet chemicals,
and it was the quickest way I could think of to lower her brain temp
FAST, and that was the one thing I wanted most to do.)  But while I
can believe that Gandalf's desperate wheezes MIGHT have been heard
when the heater and the fridge were both quiet, I have no model for
understanding why I JUST HAD to go check on Coca a day before I was
scheduled to do so.  But Coca was my beloved (St.) Luna's mother, and
I'm awfully glad I did.]

STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
STella%thelema.uucp@dec.com	Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian!
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats