Pets of the community

[Roland]

Debby, they look so cuddly.

Tiger and Skye are still in the making friends stage. They like to chase each other all around the house. As soon as Skye goes inside her tunnel Tiger leaves her alone. Even if just her head is inside and her body hanging out, he stops and walks away.

We bought a big cat tower. There are 5 or 6 places a cat can sit, but Tiger has decided it’s his and chases her off.

He loves getting pets and rolls on his back for belly rubs, but still won’t let me pick him up. When being pet he gets so excited sometimes he drools. Nothing wrong health wise…it’s just excitement.

They did have a few issues of hissing and growling. I just left them to work it out.

[richardandtracy]

Albert, my avatar cat, always forgot to swallow when purring, so dripped drops of drool.

One night at our last house, before we had the central heating fitted, I was in bed on my side and Albert lay down on my arm. His head was over mine, and he closed his eyes and started to purr. A couple of minutes later he dripped, straight down my ear canal.. Ohh, that was horrible.

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

Oh dear, that made me giggle, poor Richard!
Lexi has just made the closer acquaintance of granddaughter Esmee, who for a seven-month-old was surprisingly gentle patting Lexi's head and fondling her ears. When it looked like turning into an ear-pull, we decided it was probably time to swap Lexi for a cuddly toy....

[Roland]

No fear of Tiger drooling into my ear for a while. He still won’t let me hold him.

[Roland]

Today was vet day. As you can see, they were not happy.

[Serinde]

Leather gloves time.

[Roland]

I thought I would need a Kevlar suit. lol.

I ended up chasing Tiger around a room. He tried to hide in a corner and as I got close…he pooped. Then he ran to the litter box, pooping all the way. Poor little guy was so upset. I literally scared the cr@p out of him.

[fccs]

My Jackson, who has not an aggressive bone in his furry body, turns into something entirely different at the vet. He hisses, growls, cries, and tries to bite. I even tried a different vet to see if it was just the one vet and/or office. Nope. He just hates every vet apparently. At least he's not discriminating against any one vet.

[richardandtracy]

We've had some interesting times at the vet with our cats over the years.

First there was Albert (my avatar cat) who hated vets. He had a number of incidents.
One where he had a sore right front paw after getting a fighting wound in it. To examine the paw, we sat him down in front of the vet and held his rear down on the examination table. The vet picked up his right paw to look at it. Objecting to this treatment, Albert raised his left front paw to take a swipe at the vet. And promptly fell forward and hit his chin on the table because there was nothing supporting his front.

Then, a couple of years later he had another fighting wound, and got loose from the two of us trying to hold him on the table, urinated on the table, leapt half way across the consulting room onto a shelf just below the fairly low ceiling. Then while continuing to urinate on the shelf, he ran around the room knocking everything that was on the full shelf onto the floor. Only when the 16lb cat jumped down from the shelf and broke the consulting room computer's keyboard were we able to catch him again.


Then there was Jack.
He was a Tabby who was allergic to cat fur (grooming made him wheeze like a steam train). Anyway, he HATED vets with a passion that was strong enough to make an otherwise lovely cat quite aggressive. He was red flagged by the vet even before the incident I'll describe.
I held Jack on the table for a blood sample to be taken to check for kidney problems, and the vet came in with gauntlets. Jack turned into a frenzied ball that I couldn't hold, leapt onto the vet, claws and teeth digging in as he landed, ran up the vet's front and raked his neck, aiming instead for his face. The vet called for help, and the entire staff joined the vet in the back room to overpower him so they could take a vial of blood. In the end, when the vet came back into the room for us to put Jack in the basket, the vet had blood soaked dressings on his neck and dressings visible through the tears in his shirt. I think the vet gave more blood than Jack.


Fluffy, a gorgeous Black Norwegian Forest Cat.
When giving an booster jab, the new and inexperienced vet grabbed a roll of skin on the back of Fluffy's neck, and stuck the needle right through, emptying the booster into thin air. While the needle was still in his neck, Fluffy twisted his head round and gave the vet's hand a single lick, as if to say 'Forgiven'.

On another occasion the vet wanted to listen to his heart (he had a massively enlarged heart at that point, though we didn't know it), and Fluffy's purrs were so constant and loud the vet had to give up.


Then our current biggie, Ozzie.
He's a Maine Coon, a big cat despite being the runt of the litter. He seems to collapse in on himself when we get him to the vet. He goes all tiny & timid, and almost whimpers while there. Silly mog.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

It's a pity that vets don't have the time to spend on the kitten that comes in. Perhaps in a separate room, making friends so that the eventual grown cat will recognise that this is yet another, albeit odd, member of staff.

[Roland]

Richard, that all made me laugh. I’m sure it wasn’t funny when it was happening though.

The vet was joking about Tiger having a cat allergy. He sneezes a lot…but he also climbs in to every dusty corner he can find.

Up to now Tiger has been my husband’s cat. He greets him, demands pets from him, rubs against him all the time. But at the vets, I was holding him, cuddling and petting him. I woke up this morning with Skye sleeping on top of me and Tiger cuddled up against me purring.

[Mabel Figworthy]

And... relax

[richardandtracy]

That's lovely, Mabel.

Today seems to be cool enough for the cats to want to sit on my lap any time I sit down. Legs are getting quite sore, but can't let a cat down.

Regards,

Richard

[fccs]

One of my granddogs, sound asleep.

[richardandtracy]

Just makes you want to grab that rogue vertical back paw and shake it.
Adorable.

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

Isn't that just the picture of "snug and comfortable"?

[Roland]

Both are gorgeous.