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http://twitpic.com/5zfk4r
We cornered him by a skip, and barakta managed to grab him.
He's currently in the bath nomming a slice of chicken and some lacto-free milk like he hasn't eaten for a week.
We're not sure what to do next. No, we can't keep him. :'(
(I say 'him', he's not cooperative enough for me to tell.)
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Arrange a kitty-time-share with the neighbours, so you only have to look after him/her/it one afternoon each week?
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19:00ish update:
Kim has managed to make friends with wee kitten to the point where he's letting her stroke him and PURRING really loudly.
Kim phoned cat rescue and left a message as we can't keep him more than a day or so really. Hopefully they'll give us advice as we have no cat carrier or transport.
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Do I recall correctly that the reason you can't keep him is to do with tenancy contracts? Easy answer - move! ;)
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http://twitpic.com/5zfk4r
I predict a squee.
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SQUEEE!
Also, it's only wee, like a hamster. Your landlord will never know. :demon:
(or, your landlord might say it's okay, if you ask and show SQUEEpix)
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If the landlord's okay then we'll have to move in a year or two and won't be able to find anywhere to live because we have a cat :(
I think it's a female. It's not entirely clear at this age, and black fur doesn't help.
We're happy to look after her for a little while, but she needs a proper home. I called the local cats protection helpline (who were helpful with kitten-care advice), but I get the feeling they're up to their eyeballs in kittens and might not be able to take her. They said if I knew anyone who would want her, that would be great...
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2875.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2871.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2863.sized.jpg)
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Kawaiiiiii :)
Sadly I'd be sneezing my face off, and I'm sure the landlord would chuck us out if he knew about my bike habit, let alone added kittens :(
Good luck, hope that someone can take them off your hand.
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Another Squeeeee ! Would love a kitteh but I'm on the top floor and am out all day so it wouldn't really be fair on the 'ickle blighter. I'd be terrified of it getting onto an outside window ledge, or worse, the roof !
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I think that you got yourself a kitten, time to buy a basket and some food!
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Another Squeeeee ! Would love a kitteh but I'm on the top floor and am out all day so it wouldn't really be fair on the 'ickle blighter. I'd be terrified of it getting onto an outside window ledge, or worse, the roof !
Alas, snap...
Also slightly allergic, but I won't let that stop me if it becomes an option in the future.
Squeeeeeeee, indeed.
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Minky would go absolutely batshit, otherwise we would. :( Though I'm of the opinion that she'd be worth the hassle of finding accomodation with pets. :demon:
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Squeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Calling TimO........ kitteh with your name on it I think....
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Calling TimO........ kitteh with your name on it I think....
The idea did occur to me...
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Awww, what a sweetie!
Clarion has vetoed it coming to us :(.
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Balshammaroth and Nyarlathotep need a delicious tasty minion... :demon:
(also: renting plus cat is a total mare and the only reason I own. insert rant about rubbish UK landlords here...)
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*SQUEEEEEEEEE*
:D
I'm trying very hard to suppress the urge to make Julian drive me to Birmingham RIGHT NOW with our cat basket and a supply of kitteh blankets.
Balshammaroth and Nyarlathotep need a delicious tasty minion... :demon:
Little Bartimaeus and K'ril Tsutsaroth (or whatever the hell their demonic names are right now) would probably eat it for a crunchy little snack prior to their midday snooze.
TimO needs this kitteh... :)
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Let me have a word with Lyn
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She's perked up a fair bit with food (and, I suspect more importantly, fluid). No longer twitchy about being touched, enjoys being scritched on the head and even indulged in a half-arsed game of kill-the-shoelace. She has also demonstrated a rudimentary understanding of the point of cat litter. She's now a tired looking yawny kitteh and we've left her alone in the hope she snoozes.
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2894_001.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2877.sized.jpg)
(Can't beat a black cat in a white bath for making you wish you had a proper camera)
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Awwwwwwwww she's adorable.
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Is london too far to travel for her? We've got a kitty backpack carrier. Whereabouts in Brum are you?
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In an effort to converge two cat related threads, I suggest gluing lots of industrial diamonds to the kitten before firing it through the glass door.
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I've just been pointed at this thread, and it looks like I may be competing with Sam, and I don't have his Mojo. :o
I will say that you probably want to drive to Brum Sam, a kitten is not likely to stay that clean for the journey time from Birmingham to London, so you really wouldn't want to take it on a train.
With a car you can carry newspapers, and spare sleeping stuff (towels etc) that can easily be cleaned, because I suspect that they'll almost certainly need to be!
What's the panels opinion on a kitten that young? I work all day, so would have to go to work and leave the kitten to itself during the day. I've got a spare bedroom that I won't worry too much about accidents occurring in, since there's no way the kitten could have free roaming of the house when I'm not around. There are far too many ways to come unstuck when they're that young, and doing the cat curiosity thing.
I think at that age they are weaning, so can probably survive eating solid cat food, although I can obviously check that with the vet and the local cat bods (the woman in the cattery that Talisker used, is a bod in Croydon Animal Samaritans). I believe that generally at that age they're on some solid food, and some of mum's milk still, but I'm not an expert by a long shot.
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TimO - ours were ~8 weeks when we got them & we were both out of the house all day. They survived (and so did we).
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If Kim and Barakta can hang onto the kitteh for a few weeks, it'll be old enough to travel more easily and you'll be able to leave it for a little while each day when you go to work.
Ours were 16 weeks when we got them and the Battersea chaps said that for the first few weeks, I'd have to come home at lunchtime to see them, which I did.
Just sayin'...
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She seems to have the hang of solid food, so I expect will be absolutely fine on the kitten specific stuff (sadly the 24 hours shop didn't have any, but she wolfed down ~50g of chickeny cat food a couple of hours ago and hasn't barfed it up yet). I'm guessing somewhat about the age. She's very scrawny under all that fuzz, so might well be a bit older than she looks.
Obviously we're in no rush to put her through a big journey. The landlord's very much the non-intervention type, so there's no problem with her staying her for a while to build a bit of strength up.
It's been a while, but my general experience of young cats is that, much like audaxers, they pretend to have infinite reserves of energy while there's something interesting to do, but once left on their own will calm down and slink off for a snooze in a quiet corner somewhere.
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Ours were 16 weeks when we got them and the Battersea chaps said that for the first few weeks, I'd have to come home at lunchtime to see them, which I did.
There's something to be said for that, and I could probably do it for a few weeks, although I'd have to stop eventually, since over four hours a day travelling would be a bit of a killer after a while! (...especially if I was cycling. It would help return my cycling mileage to normal, 46 miles a day!)
It sounds like Kim and Barakta need to move the kitten on sooner, rather than later, which I can understand. I'm not sure there's ever going to be a good age to transport a cat, very few seem to like car travel, although my Dad used to know a GP who would drive to see her patients with her cat asleep on the rear parcel shelf of her car!
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Of course, everyone is missing the really important question, regardless of the eventual location, what is he/she/it going to be called?
YAFC (Yet Another Forum Cat) doesn't really trip off of the tounge. ;D
... of course Charlotte has a spreadsheet of several hundred cat names!
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I'm concentrating very hard on not calling her Jiji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki's_Delivery_Service). Because naming her would be bad.
On the other hand, it would be simpler than Charlotte's spreadsheet and easier to pronounce than 'bocb' or whatever the next standard issue forum username is supposed to be.
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Tim I step down, we decided that as amazing as it would be to have a new kitty, the journey on train might be a bit traumatic for her and then there's Frankie, we're not sure how he might treat a new baby kitty.
But you have to post pics and loads of them regularly :)
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I am not in a position to take on a cat on a permanent basis, but could certainly help go get it from Brum in the purple machine (also known as a car) to drop it at an appropriate new home if that ends up being London-way.
I'm also self-employed and not beholden to a landlord, so could "foster" it for a time if needed as I'm home for large chunks of the day! I do have a prior resident in the way of a dog, but she's exceedingly easy to deal with and rather likes cats as long as they're not Siamese.
As for names...FC for "Forum Cat" could work ;)
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As for names...FC for "Forum Cat" could work ;)
Ummm.... naming the kitteh that might cause some confusion (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4026).
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Hopefully it goes without saying that if Kim and Barakta can find a new caretaker for YAFC closer to them, then I'll happily bow out, since I don't necessarily want to expose the kitteh to unnecessary travel.
Sam, if you were trying to introduce another cat to Frankie, my understanding is that kittens are easier to introduce to an older cat than an adult cat would be, since the existing cat sees a kitten less as a threat than an adult (regardless of the fact that we may see the kitten as winning on cuteness).
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If it helps with transportation, I'm due to go to Warwick in a couple of weeks' time, and I'll be meeting a Birmingham inhabitant there. I also have a large bottle of Feliway for ease of kitteh-car-calming.
The above points could probably be constructed into a plan. :)
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You mean, drug the kitteh and kidnap it?
:D
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:D
I would offer to foster her for a while but:
The odds of Daisy not eating her/Tam not sitting on her by accident are slim
If that did work out, the odds of her ever being allowed to leave would be zero.
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I think a kitten would be easy to transport, train or car.
Just put them in something dark that can't be ripped open.
We shoved our cat in a wicker basket to get to the vets - put folded bin bag on bottom, old towel on that. easy peasy.
They are tougher than you think, and can go hours without food - just like audaxers.
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Just to alleviate worries, I have a broadly working car (a 15 year old 1.2L Corsa) and large spray container of
kitteh drugs Feliway.
Feliway is meant to help alleviate stress in cats, it's an artificially manufactured chemical based on feline pheremones. It sometimes worked with Talisker, who hated travel by car, bus and bicycle. He didn't mind trams and trains though.
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Moar pics! Kathy are you driving?
SWMBO said yes essentially
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Could you put a folded towel in the bath for her to sleep on ? Bath's are very cold to sleep in as anyone who has crashed out n one at a party knows.
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If more Londoners want forum kitties than Kim and Barakta can provide for, you might get in touch with the Sidcup sanctuary who are struggling enough that they visited our community library yesterday to put up hopeful posters.
I haven't told the Beloved Stoker about this. I'm not yet strong enough to face another bout of late-night kitty-mugshot-browsing.
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I think most of the cat protection bods and similar are struggling at the moment, it's that time of year. When I took Talisker into the vets, I was chatting to a woman who was there under the auspices of one group (Croydon Animal Samaritans I think), and she had five kittens with her for the vet to look at. She said that they currently had 41 kittens, plus obviously a mass of adult cats. :-\ Interestingly, they also have some Feral cat colonies (http://www.croydonanimalsamaritans.co.uk/index.php/animals-seeking-homes/feral-cat-sponsorship).
If I take on this one, I may chat to the woman I know at my local cattery, and see if it's reasonable to introduce a second kitten (possibly slightly older), and that way get better value for money (iyswim) out of my time. I was mostly planning on getting a couple of kittens or cats, but would probably have got them together, rather than individually!
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Update as of 08:30ish this morning was that she had decided the litter tray was a nice place to sleep and was all curled up in it. She hadn't seemed interested in fuzzy bathmats to sleep on - just weed on them - silly kitteh doing it wrong :facepalm:
We went to bed at nearly 2am after Kim had spent some time scritching and stroking her before finally leaving her to sleep - we felt she would be ok. Kim spent half an hour with her stroking her and talking to her at about 4am and then about 15 mins at 8am and I spent 5 mins saying hello on my way out to work and she was still sleepy and so so cute.
I'm not getting a reply from Kim to twitter DMs or IRC so suspect she's busy sitting with kitteh in the bathroom. Hopefully the cats protection people will call back and advise today as we'd like to get her to a vet/experienced cat person to check she's actually properly okay fairly soonish our main difficulty is lack of suitable carrier and transportation as we don't want to scare her. Hoping cat bods will have sensible thoughts on what's least scary/traumatic for her.
I really appreciate all the offers of help and taking her in that are coming up. I suspect we'll know more over the next day or so as to what's the best option for her. I so so wish we could keep her ourselves, but we really can't. :'( (literally)
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Ah, twitter DM just in from Kim: "Ate nonsense, grudgingly allowed me to de-snot eyes. Currently purring on my lap."
Am assuming 'nonsense' is some autocorrect nonsense bollocks.
As our plan is to keep her in the bathroom for the forseeable for weeing everywhere and "only room in our house which isn't full of crannnies of tech for her to hide in" values of 'safe'.
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Aw :)
You don't really *need* a cat carrier. I'm sure someone as resourceful as Kim could molish something slightly less durable, but perfectly serviceable out of cardboard and gaffer tape.
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Happy memories of taking Iphigenia, my pet mousie, to the vet in a Twinings Tea Box.
Now I think about it, she sat through an hour of lectures in there too!
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To be fair, at c. 8 weeks Pippin wasn't actually eating food, so Pingu had to go home at lunchtime for a week or two to give her kitten formula.
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Can I also just say, that in a time when the forum cats don't seem to have been having such a great time of it, it is great to see someone going out of their way to rescue a kitten who was really in need of rescue, and that so many people are then offering help to Kim and Barakta with it.
I know that on the scale of things, it's only a cat, and many may think relatively unimportant, but with the news often back to back unpleasantness and things in the world going wrong, it's nice to see people being helpful and friendly to the less fortunate, even if that happens to be someone small black and furry.
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Okay, update:
She spent the night snoozing comfortably in the litter tray, because cats are contrary like that.
Had a bit of gunk in her eyes this morning, and was a bit sniffly. She nommed down the other half of the sachet of catfood from last night without trouble, and has had some cat milk. I spent all morning with her on my lap, and eventually gained enough trust to clean her eyes out properly - they don't look too bad, just a bit weepy. I think we both must have fallen asleep for a couple of hours (purring cats have that effect on me).
I managed to persuade her that licking a knob of butter off my precision scales was a good idea. She appears to weigh ~640g. The interwebs are surprisingly non forthcoming with a decent kitten weight chart, but it looks like that's on the low side for 8 weeks, and she could well be a scrawny 10 weeks or more, given how prominent her ribs are.
She's had several wees since last night, but not as yet passed any solids. On the plus side, she hasn't vomited anything either.
I got a call back from the cat rescue people, who were delighted that I have a potential home for her. If she's got potentially infectious cat flu (which doesn't seem unlikely) it would be even more difficult for them to take her. They don't do vetinary care other than neutering, so I've made an appointment with a local vet, and molished a bicycle-friendly cat carrier out of one of barakta's plastic crates of bisexual propaganda. I expect they'll give her some antibiotics and probably some eye ointment (which is no doubt going to be fun).
Right, I should feed myself before trip to the vet.
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Of course, everyone is missing the really important question, regardless of the eventual location, what is he/she/it going to be called?
YAFC (Yet Another Forum Cat) doesn't really trip off of the tounge. ;D
I think that would be a great name for her. Pronounced "Yaffker", it trips off the tongue nicely.
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Thanks. Reckon the plastic crate will do the job for now, and has the advantage of not needing sterilising before it's safe for use with another cat.
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She's had several wees since last night, but not as yet passed any solids. ...
Talisker used to be an absolute sod for avoiding using the litter tray when I wasn't letting him out for some reason. He could go a couple of days without using it "properly", and then when he eventually did, you needed an industrial air freshener to get rid of the odour!
There can be a lot of variation in cat size and the features which you would age it by. It looks like one of the better ones is the development of teeth, but that could be hard to check, depending on how confident you are at grabbing an unhelpful kitten and getting it's mouth open. I suspect it probably also needs you to be reasonably familiar with what kitten and cat teeth look like as well, so it's going to be best done by a vet.
The moment you say something like weepy eyes, people start saying cat flu, it seems to be an almost Pavlovian reaction. When I rescued a kitten from the Purley Way a few years back, it had weepy eyes, and I had the same reaction from the local cat rescue bods. Once a vet looked at her, she was fine. It's probably just something that Mum would clean automatically for the kitten, so if it's been on it's own for a while, it's probably got a bit grubby.
The fact that it's eating so well suggests that (i) it's pretty healthy. Ill cats stop eating and drinking & (ii) it's possibly reasonably old, since it's obviously quite happy with solid foods, and not demanding only milk from Mum.
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We haven't had any more photos since yesterday, don't keep us waiting long!
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We haven't had any more photos since yesterday, don't keep us waiting long!
http://twitpic.com/5zshj5
Crappy phone pic from this morning, as I wasn't within arm's reach of the proper camera. I'll take more later. Now, the vet.
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We'll get some better pics this evening when Kim & Kitten are back from the vets when there's two of us and the 2nd person can do camera using. :)
Fingers crossed for the vet!
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Out of curiosity, have you checked whether any of your local cat charities (or even your vet) have a Stray Cat fund - some of them do, and can cover the cost of any necessary medical treatment if you'd find it problematic.
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Okay, been to the vet. This one has the makings of a skilled stoker, I think:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2905.sized.jpg)[1]
Somewhat predictably, the first of Silly Oak's finest unavoidable potholes[2] answered the passing solids question. Otherwise she seemed remarkably calm on the back of the bike. Which was more than could be said for the slobbery dog convention that was going on in the waiting room. We hid round a corner and she calmed down when I stroked her.
Vet didn't have anything unexpected to say. Confirmed that she is indeed a she. Gave me some antibiotic ointment for her eyes and some drops (thankfully not pills!) to put almost homeopathic quantities of in her food. He reckons she's more like 6-7 weeks old, but since she's eating solid food without problems and is obviously okay with being handled that shouldn't be a problem, so she'll be okay on standard kitten food.
I've given her some more cat milk, and she's settled back into the litter tray.
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2906.sized.jpg)
[1] For the avoidance of doubt, the lid of that box has several 22mm holes drilled in it: air, for the circulation of. You can't see them from that angle.
[2] I couldn't help but call 'hole' to her. I'm a soppy git really.
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*MOARSQUEE*
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They don't do vetinary care other than neutering, so I've made an appointment with a local vet, and molished a bicycle-friendly cat carrier out of one of barakta's plastic crates of bisexual propaganda.
Oh, you filthy pervs, trying to corrupt an innocent kitteh. *phones Daily Wail*
She's so teeny. I almost would offer to take her myself except my flat's too small, I'm allergic and I don't want a cat. ;D
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This may seem daft, but since she's determined to sleep in the tray you're using for cat litter, put the cat litter in another tray, and put it where she's been going to the loo (ie on the bath mat), and put something marginally more comfortable in the tray that the cat litter was in.
That may work, but since we're talking about a cat here, it may not. :-\ ??? ;D
She is looking very cute in those pictures, and obviously a bit more comfortable with you.
I also used to warn Talisker about holes and speed bumps when he was travelling by bicycle!
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YAFC (Yet Another Forum Cat) doesn't really trip off of the tounge. ;D
I think that would be a great name for her. Pronounced "Yaffker", it trips off the tongue nicely.
If she was a he (which she isn't), then that may have sort of worked as Professor Yaffle, of Bagpuss fame!
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I hope you're going to wash out that liter tray before you next cook in it... ;)
I shall show Mr R this thread tonight. I'm trying to twist his arm into getting a cat. He wants some horrible neurotic/psychotic pure bred (like a Burmese). I want a rescue cat.
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This may seem daft, but since she's determined to sleep in the tray you're using for cat litter, put the cat litter in another tray, and put it where she's been going to the loo (ie on the bath mat), and put something marginally more comfortable in the tray that the cat litter was in.
That may work, but since we're talking about a cat here, it may not. :-\ ??? ;D
She's got the litter thing sussed. Digs it a bit, wees, then sits down for a snooze. :facepalm:
Hasn't used the bathmat (for anything) since last night. Will dig up another old towel and see if she prefers that in a bit. I think she dislikes the way the bathmat snags on her claws.
Also, it's very hot, and we're going to want use of the bath at some point, at least temporarily. Going to see what her level of enthusiasm for a nice cardboard box elsewhere in the bathroom is after she's had some kip. She doesn't like open spaces: the first couple of times I put her on my lap this morning, she looked around and climbed straight back into the bath.
I'm assuming that the vet has said that she is a she?
Yeah, edited my previous post to include that.
She is looking very cute in those pictures, and obviously a bit more comfortable with you.
Amazingly so, though I suppose it makes more sense if she's that young.
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She's got the litter thing sussed. Digs it a bit, wees, then sits down for a snooze. :facepalm:
Cats, and kittens, generally pick up the idea of litter pretty fast. They don't normally sleep in it however. ??? Go figure!
She doesn't like open spaces: the first couple of times I put her on my lap this morning, she looked around and climbed straight back into the bath.
I think that's fairly normal instinct for any small, young animal. Basically she's trying to hide away from predators. I guess the only way she'll be less inclined to feel that she needs to do it, is once she gets more used to the environment, and realises that she's not being threatened. Giving her something to hide in / under / behind is probably the best you can do.
I'm assuming that the vet has said that she is a she?
Yeah, edited my previous post to include that.
... and I edited my post when I realised that you'd said it, but you read too fast. ;D
I'm surprised she's that young, but obviously a robust little individual, since she's also clearly doing pretty well.
I shall show Mr R this thread tonight. I'm trying to twist his arm into getting a cat. He wants some horrible neurotic/psychotic pure bred (like a Burmese). I want a rescue cat.
My sister has a couple of pedigree cats, which I'll accept are very cute and attractive cats. The trouble is, they look so attractive, and probably expensive, that she's afraid that they'll be stolen, so she never lets them out, unattended. They're basically indoors only cats.
With so many cats and kittens freely available, I can't see why it's necessary, or even desirable, to spend a fair whack of cash on a pure breed. I also think a random moggy is more like to be healthy, with good hybrid vigour, rather than the not trivial risk of inbred reinforced genes in a cat which has possibly got only a minimal number of ancestors.
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Hasn't used the bathmat (for anything) since last night. Will dig up another old towel and see if she prefers that in a bit. I think she dislikes the way the bathmat snags on her claws.
Try your favourite fleece garment ;)
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Hasn't used the bathmat (for anything) since last night. Will dig up another old towel and see if she prefers that in a bit. I think she dislikes the way the bathmat snags on her claws.
Try your favourite fleece garment ;)
Oddly enough Talisker's carrier is lined with an old fleece! I think it is very warm and comfortable for them (as long as they avoid the zip!)
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She doesn't like open spaces: the first couple of times I put her on my lap this morning, she looked around and climbed straight back into the bath.
I think that's fairly normal instinct for any small, young animal. Basically she's trying to hide away from predators. I guess the only way she'll be less inclined to feel that she needs to do it, is once she gets more used to the environment, and realises that she's not being threatened. Giving her something to hide in / under / behind is probably the best you can do.
Yeah. We made good progress this morning. After a while she was happy on my lap, stretching out and snoozing (she was free to climb back in the bath if she wanted, especially when I fell asleep). I'll try to encourage her to join me at floor level and explore the rest of the bathroom.
I'm surprised she's that young, but obviously a robust little individual, since she's also clearly doing pretty well.
Yeah.
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She's got the litter thing sussed. Digs it a bit, wees, then sits down for a snooze. :facepalm:
Mickey, one of our rescue cats is now 6 or 7 and probably every 9 months or so he has a phase of sleeping in the litter tray which becomes his space for a couple of weeks until he realises why I keep emptying him out of there.
Perhaps it's something which black fluffy cats do?
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She's got the litter thing sussed. Digs it a bit, wees, then sits down for a snooze. :facepalm:
Mickey, one of our rescue cats is now 6 or 7 and probably every 9 months or so he has a phase of sleeping in the litter tray which becomes his space for a couple of weeks until he realises why I keep emptying him out of there.
Perhaps it's something which black fluffy cats do?
When we got our kitten earlier this year, he spent most of the first 48 hours either in the litter tray or underneath the sofa, they probably feel more secure in there.
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It was only on the second look that I noticed the Baton in the carrier pic... ;D
Glad to hear she's doing well.
The 'non-interventionist landlord' comment reminded me of some friends from Uni. This cat walked into their shared house one day, got fussed a bit (they were 3 girls, all soppy about cats) and stayed - they reckoned she'd been stray for some time. When they moved at the end of term into a different shared house, they took her, despite a no pets rule. The landlord did come round quite often, at which time Billa (that was the name they gave her, I think it was Hindi for cat, or something) would be housed in a laundry basket, with someone sitting on the lid singing to hide the indignant mewing.
One of them still has her, gosh, 9 or 10 years, and several moves later, she lives with Debz and her boyfriend. She's a bit deaf now, but still romps after a cloth mouse on a string when she has a fancy to, and always acts like she hasn't been fed for weeks when anyone arrives, in hope of an extra dinner.
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The "my pong space" draw is strong (especially among insecure beasts), and they're not exactly peeing buckets, so it's probably wicked away never to be felt as dampness.
Also: KITTY! :smug:
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Want moar pix of teh cute !
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Having ingested about a sixth of her bodyweight in milk and noms, including the first dose of her antibiotics, she's visibly rounder and (after a much needed snooze, which we persuaded to have in the carrier box while we made use of the bath for its intended purpose) massively perkier. She's just been exploring the rest of the bathroom, found another bath mat to pee on :facepalm: and had an experimental swat or two at the feathery kitteh toy I just had to buy for her.
It seems that she's hurt her left front paw. I'd noticed she was avoiding putting weight on it when leaning forward into the food bowl this morning, but attributed it to pieces of cat litter stuck between the pads (it's just the wrong size, unfortunately, and she's only just got to the point of letting me pick it out). Having persuaded her to let me have a proper look, it seems that the skin on the main pad of the paw it torn and hanging loose as a flap. The raw bit is obviously sore to walk on, especially if it gets dry litter stuck to it.
So we've taken the litter away and accepted the path of least resistance and put the recently peed-on bath mat in the litter tray for now. I'm not sure what else we can do - she doesn't seem to be gnawing on it excessively (playful finger-nibbling suggests that she doesn't really have the teeth for effective gnawing yet), and I'm not sure that my bar-tape-fu is up to putting a remotely cat-proof dressing on it. :-\
Other than that, she's a totally different cat to last night. Visibly much happier, no longer scared of every random noise, and seems to have developed an instant purr reaction whenever I go near her. She's happy to let barakta handle her too, though less actively enthusiastic. She's also demonstrated that (with chair assistance) she's able to climb in and out of the bath on her own. We've moved everything out of the bath to the floor, and set the carrier box on its side with a fresh towel as lining. She instantly got the idea when she investigated - curled up inside and started purring. That's possibly the only time I've ever had a cat not turn its nose up at a cat bed on principle.
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I think most of the cat protection bods and similar are struggling at the moment, it's that time of year.
You wouldn't believe it round here. We were told we can't have a rescue cat because we're too close to a main road (about 200 yards, across numerous walled gardens). Our garden was also undesirably small. We were told not to bother asking again unless we moved to a more suitable address.
She is unbearably cute. If my sister didn't already have a houseful of cats, she'd probably be en route to kidnap her right now.
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Yeah, I was refused a rescue kitten or two (or even full grown cats) because I worked full time!
Cat flap plus quiet neighbourhood plus garden plus good income, but no because I wouldn't be home enough? For a CAT? It's not like I was away for days on end, I was in a basic 9-5!
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I wonder if some of the cat rehoming charity reason for being reluctant to get involved directly with out rescue kitten have been related to the staff/volunteers feeling/realising the rehoming criteria are too stringent/OTT so they can't get enough people eligible to take the cats on for "rules reasons" even if they were willing. So if cat doesn't become their problem how we rehouse her is our problem - especially if we sounded like we had clue and had thought things through.
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There was an article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago saying that animal charities were seeing an increase in pets being left with them after their owners had lost their homes and been unable to take their pets into rented accommodation. Rather sad.
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It seems that she's hurt her left front paw. I'd noticed she was avoiding putting weight on it when leaning forward into the food bowl this morning, but attributed it to pieces of cat litter stuck between the pads (it's just the wrong size, unfortunately, and she's only just got to the point of letting me pick it out). Having persuaded her to let me have a proper look, it seems that the skin on the main pad of the paw it torn and hanging loose as a flap. The raw bit is obviously sore to walk on, especially if it gets dry litter stuck to it.
... I'm not sure what else we can do - she doesn't seem to be gnawing on it excessively (playful finger-nibbling suggests that she doesn't really have the teeth for effective gnawing yet), and I'm not sure that my bar-tape-fu is up to putting a remotely cat-proof dressing on it. :-\ ...
I was trying to think if there's anything sensible you can do for her paw.
To an extent, I suspect injuries to the paw (and pads) are quite common in cats, since it's what they walk on, it's inevitable in the wild, and probably more so in our litter strewn culture, that they will injure their paws from time to time. I'd imagine their bodies are probably able to deal with it fairly well.
Talisker did have a few bandages wrapped around his legs, when he'd had a drip in, and as I recall they stuck quite well to themselves, but not particularly to fur, which makes me suspect that they were specially made for cats and dogs and other furry creatures. I would have guessed that a human sticky plaster would stick rather horribly to fur, making it hard to get off painlessly.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Bandages_Thumb480.jpg)
I have no idea where you would get such bandage from, other than a vet.
I'd just keep an eye on her, and take her back to the vets if it looks like it's getting more painful. If you're feeling paranoid, give the vet or the cat protection bods a ring and ask their advice. Inevitably another visit to the vets will be expensive, even if it's only to wrap bandages around the paw and give you some antibiotics. Antibiotics could also be interesting, if they need to be given orally! If it was me, I'd probably ring the vet up and ask their advice, I'm sure they'll be happy enough to give you a couple of minutes for free over the phone (especially since you did spend money with them the other day).
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Yeah, I was refused a rescue kitten or two (or even full grown cats) because I worked full time! ...
I'm quite surprised at that, given that you're in Slough, which really isn't that far from London, so is likely to have a similar population.
I would imagine that if you had a criterion that required cat owners not to work full time, you'd only very occasionally rehome a cat or kitten in London, because a lot of people here work full time. This is largely, as I understand it, a function of a younger population profile, and high house prices, and probably does vary from area to area.
I've certainly lived in places where outside of the mornings and evenings, you very rarely see people around, because they're at work (I've always tended to work slightly odd hours to miss the peak traffic times, so I'm more often around at those times).
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Update:
She spent the night in her new residence:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2907.sized.jpg)
She took a liking to that corner, as it's enclosed by the sink and shelving, but has a good view of the room. I rearranged things so that her bed was in the corner with the 'litter' tray in front of it, so the whole area smelled somewhat of wee. This got a purr of approval form her.
I fed her again (including homeopathic dose of amoxycillin suspension) at about 7:30 this morning. She scoured the plate thoroughly, so I don't think we're going to have trouble getting that into her for a while. She promptly went back to bed for a wash and a snooze, so I left her to it for a while.
A bit later, I brought her some cat milk, and she was in proper perky kitten mode:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2911.sized.jpg)
Her sore paw makes running about chasing things difficult, but after some exploring she came and sat on my lap, and we had a satisfying hour and a half of grooming, snoozing and finger-nibbling. Her eyes and nose were a lot less gunky this morning, and she let me wash her face without fuss. I got a reasonable look at her paw while we were playing, and she appears to have bitten off the loose flap of skin. The pad is still a bit raw, but less weepy and not obviously infected looking. I'll get barakta to have a look with her superior red-things vision later.
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2912.sized.jpg)
She also managed to produce a reasonable looking quantity of surprisingly solid-looking stinky cat poo, which I quickly disposed of. I'm unreasonably happy about this as I was starting to worry, given the sheer volume of food she's eaten.
And she's developed an interest in dangly things. That has to be good:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2932.sized.jpg)
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Oh my gods, the cuteness!
<Not very masculine> Squeeeeee ... </Not very masculine>
;D
It sounds like you're doing a fine job with her Kim, clearly she's doing a lot better than I'm sure she would have been, left to her own resources.
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Almost unbearably cute :)
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She also managed to produce a reasonable looking quantity of surprisingly solid-looking stinky cat poo, which I quickly disposed of. I'm unreasonably happy about this as I was starting to worry, given the sheer volume of food she's eaten.
When Montezuma (my previous cat) passed his first stool deliberately and accurately in the litter tray after I got him home, I was so proud I felt I ought to have taken a photograph or something.
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(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2949.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2963.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2965.sized.jpg)
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Have you considered telling your landlord that she's not a pet: she's a highly trained disability assistant cat? ;)
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While I'm sure she'd make an excellent hearing cat for the deaf[1], it isn't our current landlord that's the problem. I suspect if we asked nicely they'd be fine about it. It's that when we try to move to somewhere Not Birmingham[2], our chances of finding somewhere within barakta-friendly distance of her work with a landlord/agency who will tolerate my lack of income will be low enough without having to worry about pets. And I couldn't bear to have to give a cat up a couple of years down the line purely because of evil scum-sucking estate agent weasel wankers. :(
[1] Not as silly an idea as it sounds. You can't beat a cat lurking in your visual field for alerting you to random Interesting Noises.
[2] Which, frankly, we'd quite like to do.
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I can see that
It is do-able though; we rented with 2 cats for a couple of years until recently, and when we were looking all the agencies said "no pets" but most of the landlords were fine about it if we asked.
But I can understand what you mean; it'd be terrible to have top part company in a year or two
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When we moved to London we found it almost impossible to find somewhere. Without a pet.
(This is more a comment on the ridiculous cost of living in London than anything else.)
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Living in Streatham, I had Talisker around for a few weeks, cat sitting, when my ex-wife was away, but strictly speaking I wasn't supposed to have pets, even temporarily. Similarly to others, I think that if my landlord had noticed, he wouldn't have minded, but I was largely a perfect tenant, and once a landlord realises that he'll have no problems with you, he'll do pretty much anything to keep you!
I did also look after another friends pet cat, when her landlord had to come and do some work in the flat for a couple of days. That cat spent most of the time in my flat hiding from me, under the kitchen units, but she did come out eventually. :)
I can understand why you would want to avoid an additional potential problem.
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Mini update: Kitteh says it is TOO HOT (don't worry she's got plenty of water!) and she trusts me enough to decide my fingers are fun to playbite and playgrab. Nibbly kitteh!
Sadly I couldn't play for too long as my BiCon TODO list is horrendous but I'll get kitteh playtime later.
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Your going to keep her. She's used her kiteh cute powers to worm her way into your hearts .....
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...and she trusts me enough to decide my fingers are fun to playbite and playgrab. Nibbly kitteh!
You someone may regret that in a few months :)
Feathers on a piece of string is the *best* kitten toy
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Mini update: Kitteh says it is TOO HOT ...
My sister's cats (Pedigree British Shorthair Blues) are the only cats I've ever seen that pant, like dogs. There coats are quite thick, so in the hot weather, when they've been playing too energetically, they obviously overheat eventually, and just sit there, with their tongues out, panting!
Feathers on a piece of string is the *best* kitten toy
A bit of string by itself is a pretty good cat/kitten toy!
If you've got it, something like a piece of narrow of kernmantle is good (ie climbers accessory cord). Since it's thicker than strings, they can see it clearly, and grab onto it with claws easily. String tends to slide between claws rather freely, so isn't as much fun to grab and kill!
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I'm always amazed that kitehs are so cute when they grow up to be just about the most efficient killing machine on the planet (had to deal with two half mice left on the drive by our cute little madam today).
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...and she trusts me enough to decide my fingers are fun to playbite and playgrab. Nibbly kitteh!
You someone may regret that in a few months :)
Feathers on a piece of string is the *best* kitten toy
I do wine cork attached to a piece of string but that's probably because I am a cheese eating surrender monkey!
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My sister's cats (Pedigree British Shorthair Blues) are the only cats I've ever seen that pant, like dogs. There coats are quite thick, so in the hot weather, when they've been playing too energetically, they obviously overheat eventually, and just sit there, with their tongues out, panting!
As opposed to other cats who sit there with their tongues out because they've been distracted mid grooming session and forgotten to put them in again...
If you've got it, something like a piece of narrow of kernmantle is good (ie climbers accessory cord). Since it's thicker than strings, they can see it clearly, and grab onto it with claws easily. String tends to slide between claws rather freely, so isn't as much fun to grab and kill!
As you can see from the bin photo, she finally gave me a good reason to install the new laces that I've been failing to put in my docs since a chainring-related accident a few months ago. She's been having good fun attacking the old one. One of my parents cats had a favourite shoelace that she'd carry around the house in the manner of Linus van Pelt, that got progressively shorter with wear, until one day she tried to eat it and we decided that extracting it from the resulting vomit and washing it off was probably not a good idea.
I bought her a feathery-thing-onna-string toy yesterday, and while she's interested, she's reluctant to chase or pounce on things while her paw is sore. The shoelace seems more fun to tangle herself up in.
Wiggle were kind enough to deliver a kitten-sized cardboard box this morning, which I expect she'll have fun with when she feels more like running around. Excellent cat toy is a cardboard box.
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As opposed to other cats who sit there with their tongues out because they've been distracted mid grooming session and forgotten to put them in again...
LOL, Talisker used to do that quite often, although I only ever managed to photograph it once!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/tali/tounge.jpg)
As you can see from the bin photo, she finally gave me a good reason to install the new laces that I've been failing to put in my docs since a chainring-related accident a few months ago. She's been having good fun attacking the old one. ...
Aha, I hadn't quite worked out what that was. Black laces being played with by a black cat on a dark floor surface is a bit challenging to observe!
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Awwwh! She is cuute.
Reminds me of this pair, nearly 17 years ago....
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6029/6005032207_aee419b9ec_z.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/6005032207/)
kittens01 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/6005032207/) by The Pingus (http://www.flickr.com/people/the_pingus/), on Flickr
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She's been properly active and playful tonight. That shoelace is clearly her favourite toy, and after a while she was taking (slightly inept) flying leaps at it and/or barakta's legs. Still limping a bit on her sore foot, but not enough to stop her playing.
After a fair bit of that, and some food, she calmed down enough to administer eye ointment. She happily flopped on barakta's lap for an extended scritching session, but when barakta got up, instead of going back to her bed as we expected, she wandered over to me (I was sitting on the toilet seat) and started trying to climb up my leg. She's obviously decided that I'm primary cat mummy, and knows exactly where she'd rather snooze. This is both adorable and sad in equal measures.
I got in the chair and let her stretch out and snooze on my forearm for a bit, but I need to sleep myself, and sitting in a chair is not a good place to do it. I put her back in her bed and stroked her a bit, but she got up and went to sit on the shoelace in the middle of the floor. Aww.
http://twitpic.com/60krmf
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Looks cute and will taste lovely with a rosemary and thyme rub :demon:
So the little ball of fluff is getting under your skin yet?
For names I vote seefer, cat, kat, tree, leaf, summer, may, puss, p cat, dog or killer of the demonids of pentaco 3 or killer for short.
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amzin how much better she looks after just a few days.
looks like a keeper to me.
tres cute.
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Shall we open a rent a kitten cafe? Look mum a really cute kitten can I stroke it....doesn't role off the tongue.
http://kittenfluff.com/2008/04/14/rent-a-cat-at-cat-cafe/
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(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2963.sized.jpg)
Puny human. Resistance is futile.
On the basis of this picture I think Midwich or Mephistopheles might be a better name.
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Puny human. Resistance is futile.
On the basis of this picture I think Midwich or Mephistopheles might be a better name.
Hypnotoadcat...
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Puny human. Resistance is futile.
On the basis of this picture I think Midwich or Mephistopheles might be a better name.
You do realise that it's a fairly standard look for a cat, admittedly because it is planning world domination.
Midwich seems strangely appropriate. if only because it may have been planted to observe our ways, and plot the international overthrow of YACF (or have I been watching to much late night TV again? ;D).
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She was quite perky this morning and I had to flick water at her to keep her from joining me in my quick bath (less splashy and dizzy inducing than a shower would be) :) She's not scared of us at all now and will approach us of her own accord when cute noises are made or we come into the room.
I dragged poor old Kim out of bed at 0815 to feed her as I don't rate my ability to do the antibiotics wrangling (and it's important to do it right!) and poor kitteh was HUNGREEE "Oh Hai, look at me walking to my NOMZ bowl and licking it hopefully" and repeated walking back to it in between playing "cute cat manipulate for food" games :D
When I left for work Kim was sat in the chair with madam on her lap getting lots of stroking after she'd nommed a half kitteh food sachet! She's a completely different shape in just a few days and is looking fantastic. Shoelace is still her favouritest thing ever, she can play with it by herself or inveigle us into playing it with her.
We're still not going to try and keep her as hard/sad as it is. As Kim said last night, it's hard enough now, we couldn't/wouldn't do it if we had her longer term. We're aiming to get her a as socialised and trusting of humans as possible for whenever TimO can take her if that's still the plan. A friend is visiting us this weekend so third human so we'll see how she is with "stranger" and so on.
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This morning's new trick: climbing my leg when I haven't got any trousers on. Chicks dig scars, right?
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This morning's new trick: climbing my leg when I haven't got any trousers on. Chicks dig scars, right?
You know the forum rules, we need pictures ;D
As barakta says it's going to be hard. When we were kids we looked after 2 cats for a few days en route to their new home on a friends farm. I can still remember the tears and tantrums. :'(
You'll be making sure she goes to a good home and presumably will have visiting rights.
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This morning's new trick: climbing my leg when I haven't got any trousers on. Chicks dig scars, right?
Ha ha. Reminds me of a friend of mine. He had a cute little black kitten, who I taught to climb up my leg and sit on my shoulder. Highly amusing to all who watched.
Then, several years later I popped around for a visit, to be confronted by an enormous black tom cat. The cat took one look at me and engaged his grappling hooks to climb up my leg and body and sit on my shoulder.
Ow ow ow ow. ;D
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This morning's new trick: climbing my leg when I haven't got any trousers on. Chicks dig scars, right?
You know the forum rules, we need pictures ;D
Actually, it barely left a mark - she doesn't weigh enough to do any real damage. Speaking of, I should see if I can persuade her to sit on the scales again...
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Any excuse for pictures of Kim's legs! ;)
*giggles* at Hulver, that sort of thing does make me giggle at teh cute!
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I may have to make a quick shop at some point. I've got plenty of cat food, and milk, but kitten food is preferable, since it's got a high protein content etc, so that kittens put on weight faster. The cat litter I've got is also clumping, which works well with the automatic cat litter tray, but it's less advisable with kittens, since they can try and eat it, and it can end up sticking to them etc. More traditional non-clumping litter is probably better. It's also generally cheaper, so a win win situation, except for my nose! Which reminds me, I'll also need air freshener, and carpet stain remover!
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Any excuse for pictures of Kim's legs! ;)
*giggles* at Hulver, that sort of thing does make me giggle at teh cute!
:P
Whiskey used to sleep across my shoulders when I was working at the table doing my homework. Great fun till she started doing the same thing when I was on the toilet....
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Our old Amy used to just throw herself at you and hope you'd catch her. Sometimes it ended in a flailing ball of scrabbling claws...
The worst one was once when I was shaving, bent slightly forward over the bathroom sink wearing just a dressing gown. She came running up the stairs, into the bathroom at full Amy speed and launched herself into the air to land in the middle of my back with all claws engaged. Ow.
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Wondering how the food evaporated:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2972.sized.jpg)
*flop*
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2976.sized.jpg)
*YAWN*
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2981.sized.jpg)
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*YAWN*
Cats do have incredibly big yawns, don't they! It's verging on being a flip top head. ;D
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That first photo :D
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Just weighed her at ~785g :o
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From 640g 2 days ago... but you said her ribs were visible so she can't have been getting enough previously :thumbsup:
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Yes: when we caught her she was ribcage, almost nothing, pelvis. And that 640g was *after* she ate 50g of food and a fair amount of milk. Now she's ribcage, BELLEH, pelvis - and actually has energy.
Knowing what cats are like, I'm impressed that she's managed to go from so little to eating healthily without even one vomiting incident.
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So that's an over 20% increase in her body mass!
Yikes, she must have been eating well since you've had her.
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Pie! :P
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So that's an over 20% increase in her body mass!
Yikes, she must have been eating well since you've had her.
We've been giving her 50g of kitten food four times a day, plus the odd saucer of cat milk. It's on the upper end of what they suggest, but she seems happy enough keeping it down and I reckoned the short term priority was to get plenty into her.
She's now producing loads of sensibly-coloured urine, and is moving her bowels regularly, if not necessarily in optimal places (I narrowly saved a YACF jersey this morning).
Ohgod. I've turned into one of those baby people. Talking proudly about poo and vomit, sleep-deprived and not having done anything interesting since she arrived. How did it come to this? :facepalm:
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I think you need to talk to Butterfly about re-skilling as a nanny. A bright new future awaits you.... ;)
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Oh teh CUTE!
May I just say how exceedingly lucky this little madam was to find you both... :thumbsup:
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Another proud moment this afternoon: she finally decided that she'd eaten enough and made burying-the-bowl motions, rather than licking it clean with an enthusiasm that could grind telescope mirrors.
She's seriously perky today. Even in flopped-on-my-lap grooming mode, I had to grab her by the scruff of the neck to get her eye ointment in. Not that I'm entirely sure she needs it - her eyes have been looking fine since she started washing her face properly (though she still needs help to do behind her ears).
She's taken to playing hide-and-seek (mostly behind the toilet), and has discovered the awesome cat-toy potential of an empty loo roll tube (which, amusingly, she is almost small enough to get her head stuck in). It rolls around and makes a really good noise on the lino floor, and is just the right size for grabbing and kicking/biting.
Oh, and as those following my twitter feed will know already: last night she discovered moths. :D
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How are you going to be able to give her up, Kim? :'(
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Because it's the right thing to do :'(
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They are under orders to come down early for FNRttCs, and visit her. :)
The implication of this, is that Barakta will have to get the Tandem out, and join Kim on the ride. ;D
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There is, sadly, no way barakta can ride the tandem for more than maybe an hour or two without shoulder damage. What's needed is an n+1...
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Have you worked out how she's getting to Croydon? As I said, we're happy to help transport her, but that won't be for a fortnight.
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TimO's taking the opportunity to double his car's annual mileage. ;D
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TimO's taking the opportunity to double his car's annual mileage. ;D
That's actually not far from the truth!
Still, since I'm paying stupid amounts of money to have it available, I should try and use it more, and at least that way the cost per mile isn't quite as insane!
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She's just met Red (occasionally of this parish) and wasn't remotely nervous, in spite of him having the smell of Other Cats on him:
"Hello you're new..." *sniff* *sniff* "Ooh! Shoelace!" *attack*
I reckon she'll get on with TimO just fine :thumbsup:
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... but it sounds like I should stock up on shoelaces!
Does this mean she has a strong opinion about sandals? (ie not being in favour of them, being shoelaceless).
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Tim I reserve the right to come visit :D
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Does this mean she has a strong opinion about sandals? (ie not being in favour of them, being shoelaceless).
She likes sandals too. They have wiggly toes in them, which she can pounce on!
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She's even perkier this morning and not finishing all the 1/2 pouches of kitten food which is a good sign she will self-regulate her feeding which is excellent - some cats never will.
It took two of us to do eye ointment this afternoon, me to scruff her a bit and kim to just-do-it and she's not pleased. We'll distract her with shoelaces later!
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This thread now has 2126 views.... there's a lot of kitteh lovers out there. :)
Tim will have to install a live camera feed to keep the fanbase happy...
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That's good, if she's not stuffing herself any more, then I'd guess her body is not telling her to eat everything in sight, so she must be a lot closer to her natural weight. :thumbsup:
You do tend to have to be a bit assertive with treating them, don't you! Talisker never ever liked being given his hyperthyroid pill, but since I never took any nonsense from him, he more or less accepted it, and only managed to spit it out about once a month (at which point he got grabbed, and it went back in!)
Tim will have to install a live camera feed to keep the fanbase happy...
I've already been thinking about it, although I'm slightly worried that a power cable may be an attractive item to play with!
I think I can use a spare old netbook, with a minimal Linux install, and a webcam hooked over the top of the door, so the only cable would be about 6 foot in the air, which I'm guessing she won't be able to get to!
I don't think my ADSL connection will support a live video feed, but I could probably feed a snapshot back to the lab server every few seconds.
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I think I can use a spare old netbook, with a minimal Linux install, and a webcam hooked over the top of the door, so the only cable would be about 6 foot in the air, which I'm guessing she won't be able to get to!
Um... She's a kitteh! I'll bet she could get to your ceiling light if she had a mind to! ;D
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LOL, hopefully she won't be quite capable of that degree of acrobatics initially!
I've got V4L working with a cheap webcam, and camE will grab an image and upload it. I should be able to use this to post an image to a webserver, possibly with the last n images available on a page.
I did something similar in the past, I had a Axis webcam on Talisker when I was living in Streatham. It demonstrated that when otherwise unoccupied, a cat will spend 99% of it's life asleep, and the small remaining time mostly eating, and going to the loo! I think Talisker spent less than ten minutes a day watching the world go by outside, and he had a good clear (if possibly frustrating) view of squirrels, birds, other cats, foxes etc
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Yes, but he knew you were watching him.
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With the aid of a slightly better camera:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_007.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_021.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_032.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_042.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_043.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_074.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_088.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_100.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_103.sized.jpg)
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(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/kitten_032.sized.jpg)
Awwww, I remember our kittens doing that :-)
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As is customary to post in these situations...
*SQUEEE*
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She's completely lost interest in the bath, presumably as it may contain Wet Stuff or traces of Wet Stuff.
What she has discovered is football.
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This is going to be painful isn't it!
It was bad enough when Talisker jumped up onto my lap, and badly estimated it, requiring the deployment of full claw four paw drive. Normally that's fine. When you're wearing lycra, not so much. <Ouch>
I need to get some table tennis balls, cats can go totally nuts bouncing them around!
Oh, and squeee, the cute!
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She seems to like the bath when someone is in it. Disturbing and cute to get up after rinsing your hair to find a kitten staring at you through the shower pane. I can also confirm that she likes playing with spectacles left on sides and rummaging through wash bags.
TimO, she's a fantastic little cat. You're going to love her, and she's going to like you just fine when you meet her.
Though, jeans for the win on Thursday. Your legs will thank you.
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I need to get some table tennis balls, cats can go totally nuts bouncing them around!
We had a load of those for my parents cats when they were young, awesome fun on a hard floor. I cut a slit in one and added a ball bearing, then glued it closed. This ruined the bouncing performance, but the unpredictable motion was deemed appropriately entertaining.
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...I cut a slit in one and added a ball bearing, then glued it closed. This ruined the bouncing performance, but the unpredictable motion was deemed appropriately entertaining.
Oooh, cunning!
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Whats squeee?
Is it like meow?
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Whats squeee?
http://squee.icanhascheezburger.com/
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Whats squeee?
Squeee is not rigorously defined, and has a number of meanings. The one used on here generally is this one (as cut'n'pasted from Wikipedia):
Squee, a term to express cute overload.
The Wikipedia term only has two "e"s, but the number of these is fairly variable, three being common here. A lot more isn't uncommon.
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She's back on the proper cat litter today, and seems much happier about it.
She's currently curled up in a sleepy purring ball on my lap, after some eye ointment and ear-washing lessons.
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Black-and-white ones are the worst. I know this from experience. TimO - prepare yourself for up to 20 years of fighting, slaughtering and clawing.
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Apparently black and white kittens are the hardest to rehome, according to a local cat protection bod they're considered to be "common".
A cat's colour has never really worried me, beyond the fact that white furred cats, and especially those with white ears, can suffer from skin cancer, so you should put sun block on them in the summer! (although whether you can get sun block which is safely ingestible by cats I'm unsure).
Anyway, she's only a tiny bit white, she's mostly a black cat. I've also seen a book which said that totally black cats are relatively rare in Europe because they were persecuted as being Witches familiars, so that often black cats have a small patch of white somewhere, which is how those genes survived to be passed down.
Talisker was utterly black, not a spot of white fur on him, although he had more grey fur with older age (don't we all!), and on one occasion a white patch for a month or so, after he brushed against some fresh white paint somewhere. ;D
It's good to hear that she's using the cat litter, so I don't need to stock up on bath mats. ;D
I've got clumping and non-clumping stuff, so I can try them both on her, and see which she prefers. I'm not 100% sure about the clumping, because of the suggestion that kittens can ingest it, and it can end up sticking to them, because they're not as good at cleaning themselves as an adult. As a kitten it would rely on mum to help keep it clean, so I guess we have to do that task.
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I think most of the cat protection bods and similar are struggling at the moment, it's that time of year.
You wouldn't believe it round here. We were told we can't have a rescue cat because we're too close to a main road (about 200 yards, across numerous walled gardens). Our garden was also undesirably small. We were told not to bother asking again unless we moved to a more suitable address.
She is unbearably cute. If my sister didn't already have a houseful of cats, she'd probably be en route to kidnap her right now.
I used to have a house which backed onto a main 40mph feeder road. The CPL lady laughed when I told her of my concerns and said it wasn't a problem. It was when one of them was hit (and survived; in fact, she's still terrorising rural Bedfordshire 13 years later) - the critters cost me a fortune because I moved house right afterwards.
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I don't understand why people have such an issue with black and white cats, like TimO says, colour isn't vastly important to me. I'd be happy to rescue black and white cats when we're in a state to home a cat properly!
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I've no problem with black and White cats either - our Lady Chilli Pepper is a real scruffy, non-symmetric black and white cat and is lovely (most of the time).
We didn't even discuss colour when we were thinking about adopting a cat, other than the agreement that all-White cats really do look evil!
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... all-White cats really do look evil!
... but all white cats are Ceiling Cat (or one of it's furry angels), it's the all black, minions of Basement Cat that you have to worry about. Blofeld had it wrong, and his cat was clearly a spy, checking up on him. ;D
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She really is a very sweet looking kitteh.
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Black and white cats are my favourite, especially if they're black with a white bib and paws. The only ones I'm really not keen on the look of is tortoiseshells, but I wouldn't refuse a cat on the grounds it was a tortie.
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She really is a very sweet looking kitteh.
So far she seems to be a very sweet natured kitteh even now she's PERKed up and is distracted by everything as a possible *KILLTHING* *pounce*.
She liked being cuddled and stroked as well as playing and of course her nomz!
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For all that cats are cute, the reason they have a fairly long symbiotic relationship with humans, is that as regards anything small and crunchy (which applies to a lot of what we consider vermin), they are incredibly efficient killing machines.
Still very cute though. ;D
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Yeah, apart from Jake, who is utterly useless at killing and likes to play with them to make them squeak. Then he gets bored and lets them go. In the house. :facepalm:
We have a black and white cat, Minky. She's beautiful. Annoyingly I don't seem to have any pics online.
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I think it's fair to say that most cats will kill little animals whenever the chance arises, but not this one:
http://youtu.be/8M4ea1WE4Pc
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For all that cats are cute, the reason they have a fairly long symbiotic relationship with humans, is that as regards anything small and crunchy (which applies to a lot of what we consider vermin), they are incredibly efficient killing machines.
Just imagine how deadly they would be if they could be bothered to stay awake for more than one hour per day.
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She seems to like the bath when someone is in it.
A former landlady & colleague of mine had a cat like that. Sometimes it would walk round the edge of the bath. Since one side was against a wall, this often resulted in a shriek, followed by calls for me to come & get the cat & dry it.
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A colleague has a couple of ex-kittens, now young cats, one of whom likes walking around the edge of the bath. I don't think it's fallen in yet, but you do tend to think that it's only a matter of time!
They've also been known to jump onto lilypads in their pond. This worked when they were small kittens (to an extent), but now when they think that what can support a small frog can also support them, they're very wrong, and frequently quite wet. ;D
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So far she seems to be a very sweet natured kitteh even now she's PERKed up and is distracted by everything as a possible *KILLTHING* *pounce*.
She liked being cuddled and stroked as well as playing and of course her nomz!
Heh, "ooh, wiggly thing" *pow**pow**pow*.
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One of ours used to perch on the rim as you were in the bath, she never fell in though. It was a cast iron bath and she used to get in after the water had drained and roll around on the warm surface. :)
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When my ex and I had two kittens, one would very frequently sit on the side of the bath watching one or the other of us.
Until one night he fell in when I was having a soak. He was a VERY unhappy cat until he managed to get dry.
After that, he sat and watched on the toilet for quite a few days before he dared get up on the side of the bath again ::-)
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Our tortie used to like sitting on the edge of the bath, when she was younger and more svelte. When I was heavily pregnant with the EldestCub she was particularly fond of stepping across to perch on the island created by my bump. Although she was a little perturbed when he responded to her engine-like purring by kicking the living daylights out of her!
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I want a tortie cat.......anyone want a cat time share?
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Because we haven't had any pictures for a while, here she is pretending not to be tired:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2998.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3001.sized.jpg)
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What a pretty little madam!!!
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Aww, want to come home and get kitteh cuddles nao! Only an hour to go.... zzzzz.
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What a transformation from the pictures on page 1 of this thread... She's a lucky little kitten to have been happened across by Kim and barakta (and TimO). :thumbsup:
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Spotted the big black cat who may well be her mother in the neighbours' front garden earlier this evening. I feel bad for taking her baby away :'(
(While accepting that said baby is now properly nourished and hydrated, pretty much free of the sniffles and will soon be in the running for the YACF most spoiled cat award.)
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Makes you wonder about the rest of the litter. :(
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Dont feel too sorry about it. There is a garden and some dense bushes at our head office and some feral cats live under the bushes. Every summer they have kittens and even though people put out food for them quite a lot of the kittens die. You've insured that at least one little kitty will have a good chance in life now.
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Makes you wonder about the rest of the litter. :(
I assume she's either the strong one who survived, or the weak one who didn't prowl off in search of critters on her own.
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Makes you wonder about the rest of the litter. :(
I assume she's either the strong one who survived, or the weak one who didn't prowl off in search of critters on her own.
the cunning one who found some kind hoomins to spoil & pamper her... ;D
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Makes you wonder about the rest of the litter. :(
We've not seen any other small kittens out there just the one we have. I'd try and rescue any others if there were.
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Especially for TimO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETCusT5kNM
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Especially for TimO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETCusT5kNM
The Cat Came Back is one of my favourite short animations. Always worth watching. ;D I've actually got it on DVD.
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Frankie too loves sitting on the bath and occasionally dipping his paw in.
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Moar cute!
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3007.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3030.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3056.sized.jpg)
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Moar cute!
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3030.sized.jpg)
Cute? Cute?! That's terrifying!
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Cute? Cute?! That's terrifying!
Only if you're a shoelace.
She spent most of the last hour stretched out on my lap, purring. (What she actually wanted to do was curl up under my chin, but I don't have the boobs for that.)
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You have x weeks to train her to attack stripey socks on sight. This may involve shopping for suitable target material....
(http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=1880;type=avatar)
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We lost our moggie of 12 years last year which was hugely upsetting.....mmmmm.
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You have x weeks to train her to attack stripey socks on sight. This may involve shopping for suitable target material....
(http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=1880;type=avatar)
Oy! She doesn't need encouragement, I'm expecting blood to be drawn when she climbs up my enlycraed leg anyway!
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I have been away for a few days, and have just found this thread. What marvellous happy all-round kitteh goodness.
Oh, and squeeeeeeee!
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I am going to miss the little triangular inquisitive face looking round the shower glass thing and wondering why the hoomin is sitting in WATER! I was worried she'd jump in after me this morning with sharp consequences!
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I had much the same this morning with Kai. He sat watching me, somewhat quizzically, wondering what I was doing in the bath. I think the soap confused him more. I guess water makes sense, but bubbly soap isn't something that you particularly find in nature!
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I think Zev may have been in the bath after I drained it as the floor was awful wet even accounting for us avoiding bathmats (cos she'd been pooing on them before her paw was ok for litter) and she looked quite pissed off! I only had time to give her a very quick scritch before getting to work.
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I can't wait to see the 2 of them interact. She looks so tiny and sweet. I think Kai will be glad to see another cat.
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I'm more than a little nervous about letting them see each other.
Since they'll be in different rooms, I can probably swap them over for a few hours, so that they get used to the smell of each other. This is probably more important for Kai, since he's far bigger than her, and kittens are going to be naturally expecting to have to learn to interact with other cats, so I don't think she'll necessarily have a problem with him.
Since he's already more than a little shell shocked by everything, and I suspect she will be after a 2½ / 3 hour car journey, hopefully they won't see too much of a threat from the other cat, and will just be happy that there is someone else feline to interact with.
I will not leave them together, until I'm absolutely certain that he won't try and harm her, and even then in a situation where she can run and hide in places that he can't get too. Even the most patient and friendly cat will have off days, when a kitten could be annoying to them.
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Thing with young kittens is they haven't really learned about the off switch yet. If there's an audience (human, feline or canine), they'll be perky and playful or groomy or just plain *pestery* even when they don't really have the energy left. This can easily annoy an adult cat, even if they're absolutely fine with each other territorially. Put them in a room by themselves and they'll happily curl up and sleep, though, so keeping them apart at least some of the day will probably be a good idea until she's a bit older.
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You need to apply the mother cat off-switch - a gentle swat to the head, pinning kitten to the floor. Hold down until resistance has ceased. Then lick clean (this last bit is optional).
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Once a few weeks are up, and I can let Kai out (through the cat flap), I won't be able to let Zev wander about anyway, since she would also be able to leave using the cat flap.
So, Kai will be able to wander about, in and out, at liberty whenever he wants to, and Zev will have to stay locked up in the spare room. If he can communicate this, she's is going to be annoyed. ;D
When I'm at home, I'll block the cat flap up, and let them both wander around. Kai will have to ask to be let out and in then, which I'm sure he'll work out!
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TimO you are a scientist can't you strap something on their backs. So that when they get too close to each other the bounce away, a bit like magnets?
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You need to apply the mother cat off-switch - a gentle swat to the head, pinning kitten to the floor. Hold down until resistance has ceased. Then lick clean (this last bit is optional).
I've been using a variation on this technique to good effect to persuade her to allow me to administer eye ointment: Rubbing her ears with a moist thumb is remarkably effective at persuading her that it's grooming with mummy time, at which point she becomes much happier about touching her face (allowing me to pick the dried gunk out of her eyes and so on). Get the timing right and you can have the ointment in her eyes before she's worked out what's going on.
She'll then happily sit and wash herself all over (though she can do her face, she hasn't quite worked out how to do behind her ears yet), and maybe doze off. Maybe.
Incidentally, having stopped the ointment (and antibiotics) two days ago, her eyes are now gunk-free, and while she still sneezes occasionally, this says more about her ability to find dusty corners than the state of her upper respiratory tract. :thumbsup:
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TimO you are a scientist can't you strap something on their backs. So that when they get too close to each other the bounce away, a bit like magnets?
I believe buttered toast is traditional...
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Just seen TimO off with a small black cat on a black fleece in a cat carrier in the dark. We did our best to tire her out, and she was curled up and quiet, so hopefully the journey won't be too traumatic.
Awkwardly she was still in perky playful mode when Tim arrived, so she wasn't really in the best of states for meeting new people, but she was soon happy enough to play chase-the-shoelace with him and eventually let him stroke her a bit without too much objection. She was mostly interested in the exciting new smell of his shoes, and the exciting new laces to attack.
I reckon they're going to get on fine. :thumbsup:
We're both sad to see her go, but glad she's going to a good home with someone we know.
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I've just arrived in Croydon, and she's been unloaded, and moved into the spare bedroom.
She's right at the back of the cat carrier, and staring at me with wide eyes. I don't want to grab her, aside from the trauma to my hands, it wouldn't be very friendly, so I'm hoping that she'll wander out, but somehow I suspect she'll out wait me, and I'll have to go to bed.
She's actually having a wash at the moment, so not too traumatised, and I've got food, milk and water out, in an attempt to encourage her with an attractive smell.
No photos at the moment, and I've forgotten where I put the camera as I came in, so I don't want to wander off and leave her whilst I search for it.
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Heh yeah she'll probably wander out on her own. Good luck and hope you've managed to get some sleep TimO. Thanks for letting us know you're both okay.
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I've just come back into the bedroom to find her eating. Yay!
She's obviously still a bit nervous, because she took a couple more mouthfulls, before retreating back into the carrier (with a brief leg stretch midway), but that's definitely good.
I should also thank Kim and barakta for looking after me last light, and for doing such a good job looking after her. I was fed, and chatted too, which I needed after three hours of driving to Birmingham. I was even worse by the time I got back to Croydon, but at least the relatively light traffic around London (literally, on the M25) late at night, made the journey relatively easy and moderately fast. I saw a slight police presence in Birmingham, but nothing too significant.
She's was washing herself quite thoroughly, and had moved to middle of the basket, rather than right to the back, she's also come out for a brief wander around, and is currently scoffing food, which I don't want to disturb. When she's done I'll try a bit more cat fishing, using an old shoelace!
Here are a couple of photos taken with the zoom lens, from right across the room. I had to use the flash, because whatever I do otherwise, she's a very dark blurry blob. I need to dig out a tripod.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket1_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket1.jpg)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket2_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket2.jpg)
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Aww. She looks mostly wary and confused rather than anything worse so I'm sure she'll perk up soon, especially with food and patience. Good luck!
Kim packed the shoelace she had at ours with a handful of other things in the bag we gave you but yeah I suspect any old shoelace would be good.
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She's got quite confident after I sat in her room for a couple of hours. I did get out the shoelace of doom, and she has been happily chasing it around the room. It doesn't really matter how scared or apprehensive she gets, the shoelace will bring her back out!
She's also found, and used, the litter tray, which is good. :thumbsup:
I even managed to pick he up, and handle her, with minimal problems. I do need to have a bath, and swap my dressing gown for a slightly more kitten claw proof pair of jeans, before I let her investigate running over me too much more.
What's down here then ... ?
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/small.php?file=_8121039.JPGR&size=480) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/_8121039.JPG)
My neck can be thiiiiis big.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/small.php?file=_8121041.JPG&size=480) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/_8121041.JPG)
Umm, milk.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/small.php?file=_8121045.JPG&size=480) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/_8121045.JPG)
Die, pig dog shoe lace, die.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/small.php?file=_8121054.JPG&size=480) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/_8121054.JPG)
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Is it wrong that I find myself wishing she'll always stay that teeny?
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Aww! Thank you for the update + pics, I knew asking you to submit to catslavery once more was the right thing to do.
She's looking good. I absolutely agree about the shoelace, it's how I have bonded with her cos I'm not as 1337-a-cat-whisperer as Kim is.
It's very weird not having Zev in our bathroom anymore, feels quite empty but hasn't been as sad as I expected as we know where she is and how safe and happy she'll be.
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Some video footage. Not terribly exciting, but trying to film a kitten whilst playing with her only works sometimes!
(The video seem to stop around three quarters of the way through. It may be this machine, which can only just about plays YouTube video. Are they working fully for others?)
Playing with a squeaky dangly mouse toy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I74WCOobLvM
Attacking the Shoelace of Doom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmI2-VEG4lk
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(The video seem to stop around three quarters of the way through. It may be this machine, which can only just about plays YouTube video. Are they working fully for others?)
Work fine here. :thumbsup:
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(The video seem to stop around three quarters of the way through. It may be this machine, which can only just about plays YouTube video. Are they working fully for others?)
Work fine here. :thumbsup:
Ah good, thanks. Just the netbook then. It's a bit underpowered, and it's a bit of a miracle when videos play at all (they still tend to stutter).
Overnight Zev had disappeared all of her catfood, and milk. I must remember to put some dry food here as well, so she can fall back onto that if she gets starving enough.
Currently she is chomping her way through a portion of Hills wet kitten food at speed. The boxes of kitten food suggest that at her age and weight, she should probably be eating 1½ to 2 pouches of food a day, at most. She seems to be easily eating 2, and sometimes more, so I think she's still trying to make up lost time, even if not stuffing her face quite as rapidly as possible.
She is drinking the cat milk faster than Talisker used to. Currently she's drinking more than a bottle a day. The bottle that Kim and barakta gave me is gone, as has a second one from my stock. So, that's two entire bottles in just over 24 hours!
To be fair, she's a kitten, and kittens drink milk, but they don't generally see off the amount of solid food that she's also doing justice to. ;D
She's not particularly fussy about the wet food. She's had Sainsburys own brand, Applaws, and Hills, and hovered all of them up with nary a quibble.
She's gone back to being very nervous of me this morning, and wouldn't let me smooth her when I was fishing her in with the shoelace of doom. She did let me pet her a bit whilst she's eating, but I think that's because food takes precedence of anything else, even being nervous!
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.. I will say that you probably want to drive to Brum Sam, a kitten is not likely to stay that clean for the journey time from Birmingham to London, so you really wouldn't want to take it on a train. ...
By the way, I was entirely wrong about this. She didn't make any mess, and indeed is still sleeping in the same basket, using the same old fleece as a bed.
I took two complete baskets up with me, with associated stuff to sleep on, and a towel (which in the end I draped over the basket to reduce light and noise, and hopefully encourage her to sleep). I never heard a sound from her, and because she is a black cat, on a dark purple old dressing gown, in a dark car, I couldn't see what she was doing, but I'm guessing it wasn't too traumatising, since she's fine now.
Even though I took the Feliway up with me, I failed to remember to use it. :facepalm:
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So when is the web cam set up? It will be like having a kitten trapped in my monitor.
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So when is the web cam set up? ...
Probably not until Monday. I'll direct the images thorough a work webserver, so that the ADSL line doesn't collapse from the requests. ;D
In principle it works, I just need to hack up some simple web pages, and create the ssh keys to allow scp to work automagically across the link, when I'm not around to type in passwords!
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Here's some footage of her scoffing her breakfast, although on inspection, whilst she ate some of the meat, what she also did was lick off all of the gravy! That's a normal cat approach, Talisker did it, my parents old cat Cindy used to do it, and I'm sure many other cats do it. In fact my parents would sometimes give Cindy a saucer of gravy left over from the Sunday roast, although that was rare, because I absolutely love gravy, so would tend to hoover most of it up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgFO26s7AIc
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So when is the web cam set up? It will be like having a kitten trapped in my monitor.
Just don't let it see the mouse....
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If you listen carefully to the audio, you can just hear her purring as the start, before she decides that attacking my hand is more fun. ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR_bedSrh4A
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Cute
But you may really regret inculcating a habit of fighting hands :)
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But you may really regret inculcating a habit of fighting hands :)
It's OK at the moment, she has the memory of a goldfish. Standing over her tends to scare her (not surprising really!) so I tend to crawl around on all fours, or my knees, but at some point I sometimes need to stand up, at which point she'll scurry off into her box, or behind the chest of drawers. By tempting her with the shoelace of doom, I can have her back in a few seconds, oblivious to what had scared her earlier.
I think that's the only time I've let her do that anyway. At the moment her teeth and claws are not very sharp, so it's perfectly safe, and at least in part I was playing up to the camera. :)
She's getting less wary of me, but I don't think I've got to Kim's level of familiarity yet. I can sometimes grab hold of her, and check out her paw, but in general she's not happy with that, and at best I can pet her slightly, so long as I'm careful to not raise my hand too suddenly. Snoozing on my lap will have to wait.
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The step liked aspic jelly....we would share pork pies especially the cheap ones as I'd eat the meat and pastry and the cat would eat the jelly.
Might be worth a try with natural yoghurt, step cat loved that and we would share a pot getting her to lick the stuff off my fingers.
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Heh, yes she liked that. I find she starts it by indicating a tummy rub and then goes for you so if you ever want to avoid that go back to her head and neck...
I could hear the purr and she's quite good with claws and teeth - if she got too enthusiastic I used to do the mummy-cat press lightly on the top of her nose as a "tone it down" signal which she always responded well to.
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I have to be so careful petting her. With an adult cat, they tend to lean against your hand when you smooth them, but she obviously hasn't learnt that yet, and is so light and frail, that even with the lightest hand, she tends to sway a bit under the slight pressure!
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Yeah! She would do a good line in skidding across our bathroom floor if I wasn't careful. She's so enthusiastic it's a job to remember just how tiny she really is and she's got more bulk than she had originally.
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These two are such lucky kitties. It's lovely to see such a happy ending for them both. :thumbsup:
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Heh, yes she liked that. I find she starts it by indicating a tummy rub and then goes for you so if you ever want to avoid that go back to her head and neck...
I could hear the purr and she's quite good with claws and teeth - if she got too enthusiastic I used to do the mummy-cat press lightly on the top of her nose as a "tone it down" signal which she always responded well to.
You are the cats mother :P
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If you need a cat annoyer, (when they are more settled) I can annoy the pair of them, steal cat biscuits drink the kitten milk etc
I sooooooo want a kitty kat, but know that I wander off for a few days....miss the step cat. :'(
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She would do a good line in skidding across our bathroom floor if I wasn't careful. ...
LOL, she can't do that on carpet, and Kai has the bathroom. When I start to introduce them to one another, I'll swap them over between the two rooms, to let them pick up each others smell. She'll have the potential to skid then!
I can't believe she was ever lighter, she's so tiny even now. The cat I rescued from the Purley Way (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21713.0) two years ago, was heavier and larger than her, and the vet estimated she was about six weeks old. Either this one is going to go through a growth spurt, or I'm going to end up with two small cats (Kai is not a big cat). I'm not sure how much malnutrition affects growth of kittens, and whether she can "catch up" if that's the case.
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Oh, and I checked her left paw earlier. Actually I checked both paws, so I could make a comparison!
It's obviously been injured, but it just looks a little redder than the other paw. I haven't seen her limping, or in any way favouring either paw, so I'm guessing it's not causing her any problems.
When she sees the vet on Wednesday, I'll point it out, and get him to check it, but I don't foresee there being any problems with it.
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Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected? ???
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Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected? ???
Based on what?
Kim was putting some treatment on her eyes:
... Gave me some antibiotic ointment for her eyes and some drops (thankfully not pills!) to put almost homeopathic quantities of in her food. ...
I haven't specifically looked at her eyes recently, but I hadn't noticed any problem with them.
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Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected? ???
They look ok to me:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket1.jpg)
Look at all the pictures, not just those on page 1.
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I just went and looked carefully at her eyes, or as carefully as a physicist can!
The lenses look clear, there's no obvious cloudyness. Both eyes look identical, the pupils are dilated a similar amount.
She hasn't made any sort of gestures to suggest that her eyes may be irritating her, and hasn't squinted or blinked excessively, indeed when I just looked at her, she opened her eyes up nice and wide, so I got a nice clear look at them.
She hasn't had any sort of discharge, or crustyness, in fact less than adult cats like Talisker used to have. I'd occasionally clean the gunk out of his eyes, very carefully with a tissue, but I wouldn't want to try that with her, she's not as relaxed with me yet. Luckily there's nothing there at the moment which needs cleaning, she must be doing a good job of cleaning herself.
There's no evidence of wateryness or weeping anywhere in the adjacent fur, and I haven't seen her third eyelid at all (the nictitating membrane), which is a good thing.
I can't really check he eyelids, I don't think she'd tolerate me fiddling with her eyes that close, and to be honest, my fingers are large enough it would be difficult to do safely. I'll leave that degree of inspection to a vet, if necessary.
As far as I can see, her eyes are fine. Since she did have an issue with them last week, I'll get the vet to inspect them closely, and print out the details of treatments that Kim has sent me, so he knows exactly what she's been treated with.
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Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected? ???
Her eye infection cleared up after about 4-5 days on antibiotics/drops, along with her respiratory symptoms.
TBH, most of the gunk visible in the early photos was as much a symptom of not grooming properly as anything else. She only started washing her own face on day 3 or so, in response to some gentle encouragement from me.
Her eyes are clear in this, later, photo:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3005.sized.jpg)
(The slight residue visible under her right eye is antibiotic ointment)
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This is her eyes, as of about five minutes ago. It's not the best shot, but she's in the cat carrier, which is a little dark, and I didn't want to use the flash, because it would have scared her, likely temporarily blinded her, and the reflections from her eyes would possibly have made it useless anyway. Out of four shots, this was the one where both she and I moved the least, so it's the most in focus.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevEyes_480.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevEyes.JPG)
Things are far clearer when you actually look at her eyes, it's difficult to get a decent shot under those circumstances.
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When having a brief Google for cat eye problems, I was little amused to find that the WebMD site has a pet's element, pets.wemmd.com (http://pets.webmd.com/). It seems to contain some useful stuff, even if from a USA perspective (eg articles on declawing).
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So when is the web cam set up? It will be like having a kitten trapped in my monitor.
Just don't let it see the mouse....
Lazer pointer more like.
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Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected? ???
They look ok to me:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/ZevInBasket1.jpg)
Look at all the pictures, not just those on page 1.
Note the matching eye colour and basket..........chamelion eye cat.
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Note the matching eye colour and basket..........chamelion eye cat.
That's largely the effect of the flash on her eyes. I believe that you don't get redeye with cats, but you get others colours, such as white, yellow, blue and green. This is caused by the reflective layer in a cats eyes, which generally gives them better night sight than us, but probably poorer vision overall. Her eyes don't look anything like that colour in daylight.
Reading up on spaying, at least one site says "... as long as she’s at least eight weeks of age and weighs at least eight pounds". Which is a bit odd, because Talisker as a full grown adult male cat, barely weighed eight pounds. If I have to wait for her to attain that weight before she can be spayed, it could take a long time, since she's currently small for her probable age.
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Given the use of pounds, I'd assume that was an American site. American cats tend to be *huge* (I'm not entirely sure why).
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Well Maine Coons are a lot more common in the US than they are in the UK, and they're one of the biggest cat breeds, but I didn't think that in general a random US cat was any bigger than a UK one. Maybe they take after their countries cliché’s and wear striped suits and eat too many McDonald's burgers.
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OK, the webcam is set up, and grabbing images to the server OK (as far as I can see from a PC downstairs). I'll have to do some work at the web server end, when I get to work, but if you're lucky there will be a view later on.
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They wanted to wait until 5 months for spaying ours, but in the end there was too much interest being shown in Daisy's undercarriage, and they were done at a little over 4 months. They certainly weighed less than 8 lbs then - probably 5 or 6 lbs. They're 4-5 kg now; even Daisy (who is a small cat) was 4.2 kg last week.
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I'm slightly worried about her today. Watching on the webcam (and no, I haven't sorted this out for general access yet), she didn't appear at all, so I presume she spent the entire day (from about 10-30 to 16-30) in the cat carrier, which is where she tends to stay anyway, when she's sleeping.
Even though I'd left a programmed cat feeder to open at 1200 (which it did), and she already had some food, and a saucer of milk, she doesn't seem to have touched any of them significantly.
I was playing with her a while back, and she's as packed with beans as ever, so certainly not lacking energy, but didn't seem to be tempted by the food or milk. When I dunked my fingers in the milk, she licked it off, and took a couple of laps of it from the saucer, but then lost interest.
I'm not sure I should be worried yet, since she's clearly still energetic, but it seems unusual for her not to eat, and given how small she is, the food ought to go through her quite fast (the litter tray has been used, but I don't know when, it's out of view of the camera).
Maybe now that she's up and doing stuff, and the noise in the house should keep her more active, she'll eat more.
She's sort of sneezed a couple of times, which is also a little worrying, since she's done that a few times previously.
She is booked into the vets first thing on Wednesday anyway, for a checkup, but given her size, and small capacity for food, I'm slightly worried that she could go downhill even faster than an adult cat.
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:-\
She was snotting and sneezing a lot when we first got her, but that had petty much stopped other than the odd sneeze after sniffing around fresh cat litter or dusty corners, which I don't think counts for anything, and occasionally when she was disturbed from deep sleep.
Not wanting to eat is worrying, though, if she's not just tired (she spent most of last Monday in floppy sleepy can't-really-be-arsed-to-eat-but-if-you-insist-oh-this-is-quite-nice-actually mode after getting lots of attention at the weekend, then was back in wanting-to-kill-things mode on Tuesday morning).
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She hasn't really got any access to anything that dusty, and if she did, she would have investigated all the dust and whatnot already, and cleared it out!
It's really the lack of eating that's worrying me. If she's still not eating tomorrow morning, I'll give the vet a ring and see what he thinks.
She seems to have plenty of energy if I play with her, but I can see on the webcam that once I leave the room, she just lies down, and doesn't do much, which is unlike her. From the thudding of paws next door, she seems to have unlimited energy, even if I'm not in there.
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At Feline's suggestion to give her some Tuna (which I don't have), I gave her half a can of Encore Sardine and Tuna adult cat food. I very briefly microwaved it, to accentuate the smell, and she wolfed half of it down immediately. :thumbsup:
The food I had put down for her, Halls kitten food, and Sainsburys kitten food, does look more than a bit artificial, whereas the Encore, just looks like bits of fish (admittedly cooked fish). If I liked fish, I'd probably be able to eat it, their chicken cat food just looks and smells like cooked chicken.
I can hear her running around like a mad thing upstairs now.
I think I'm suffering from excessively worrying new parents syndrome. :-[
I'll definitely mention the sneezing to the vet on Wednesday though.
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I think I'm suffering from excessively worrying new parents syndrome. :-[
Know the feeling. It comes after all the proud poo conversations.
I'll definitely mention the sneezing to the vet on Wednesday though.
*nods*
Glad she's eating.
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Overall she ate almost a whole can of cat food, and a smallish saucer of cat milk yesterday, which isn't a patch on what she ate previously.
I heated up some more smelly fish cat food (more of Talisker's old supply of Encore, most of the kitten food isn't that strong smelling, or fish flavoured), and also some milk.
She's had a little of both, although barely enough of the milk to notice. Clearly she either hasn't got an appetite, or it doesn't smell right. Previously she was glugging the milk down, almost an entire bottle in one day!
From an energy point of view, she still has plenty, she'll bounce around like a mad thing if you play with her, and is doing some stuff even when I'm not in the room. She's also using her litter tray, so there's clearly stuff going through her, but not as much as before.
I think she should be OK for a while, as long as she's not torpid and lethargic, I think she's OK, and I'll be seeing the vet tomorrow morning, so I'll ask him when I should start worrying, and need to ring them up.
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... and she's found out how to get under the bed. This was inevitable really, it was only old pillows and cushions stuff around the periphery which was blocking her. Now she's worked it out, there's no point in blocking her again, since she'll just pull another pillow or cushion out until there's a kitten sized hole.
It took me five minutes of swearing to pull the bed away from the wall. Mental note, never buy another cheap double bed from Argos, they're really heavy!
She can't really get away from me now, not that she really could anyway, the shoelace of doom will always attract her out!
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Maybe she's stopped eating as much because she's caught up with what she missed and now she can eat at normal levels.
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Just in case you were tempted to stop adding to the ongoing saga of Zev and Kai, can I just mention how entertaining and interesting these heart-warming tales and pictures are, even for (or is that especially for?) those of us who don't have cats!
+1. Those of us who used to have cats are the saddest of all!
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Yeah, I agree with Kirst. I was surprised by how much she was eating at yours TimO as she was eating approx 1 + 1/3 to 1+ 1/2 pouches a day + milk for the 4 days or so before leaving ours and leaving a few chunks behind.
She may have gone into "new place == starvation mode" at TimO's initially and the eating less is a settling down as much as anything else. Kittens managing their own food intake is as I understand it a GoodthingTM but yeah I'd be interested to hear the vets view after tomorrow.
I also love these updates, makes missing her a little less hard :)
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Possibly she was doing that, and probably she didn't eat much when she was first moved, because she was so nervous, and just hiding in the cat carrier, so when she did come out, she had some catching up to do.
As you say, I'll ask the vet on the morrow.
Here's a rare shot of her being in the view of the webcam. I still haven't automated stuff, I've got too much work to catch up with, and I need to sort out the Public keys, and whatnot, which I don't do frequently enough to remember how to do it. It's also between an OpenSSH client, and a quite old ssh.com server, just to make life a bit more interesting!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/webcam_095458.jpg)
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Eventually she did eat most of the cat food, although it would have cooled down by then, so the smell would have been minimal. This evening, she just ate most of another half a can of fishy cat food, and had some more milk, whilst watched over by her human servant:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Zev/webcam_193242.jpg)
I warmed up the food and milk again, but she scoffed them down fast enough, that I don't think she's got any problem today. I haven't seen her sneeze today either, so maybe she was just briefly a little off colour yesterday.
She's as active as ever, and even though she retired under the bed now, instead of into the carrier, the shoelace of doom works as well as ever, and she'll soon ricochet out! Her litter is pretty much clean of anything solid today, but she's eaten quite a lot in the last few hours, so I'm sure it'll be along shortly!
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I just went up and used the shoelace of doom to grab her, and plonk her in front of her milk, so she promptly decided to eat the cat food instead! She's eaten pretty much all of that now, so that 1½ cans of cat food today, which is approaching half of what Kai's eaten, which is pretty impressive for a cat nowhere near to half of his weight and volume.
She's not overly interested in the milk though, which is a little odd, because when she was first here, she was drinking that preferentially to eating any meat.
I'm feeling much happier about her appetite today.
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Cats aren't really built to drink milk (except nursing kittens of course) so I wouldn't be too upset about her not being interested in the shmilk. We tried it with ours when it first came out and they weren't interested. YCMMV.
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Cats aren't really built to drink milk (except nursing kittens of course) so I wouldn't be too upset about her not being interested in the shmilk. We tried it with ours when it first came out and they weren't interested. YCMMV.
This is cat milk, so it'll be OK with her system. At her age, she could still be getting milk from Mum, although she is happy with solid food, and two days ago, she couldn't get enough of the milk. She has drunk all I put own for her now, so I'm guessing that kittens aren't that different from human children, and change their mind as often as the weather changes. Today they like it, tomorrow maybe not. :)
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She's obviously getting used to me. Today she didn't immediately run for cover when I came into the room. but actually stood up and walked over to me, to be petted briefly.
I got her food, and warmed it slightly, and she started scoffing it right down. She even positioned herself, so that she could swap between the meat and milk every minute or so!
She didn't finish it all, but I didn't expect her to, and she made a significant impact upon both. She did sneeze once, but that could have just been a random sneeze. I'll still mention the sneezing to the vet later.
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That was relatively painless. :thumbsup:
She's healthy, the vet couldn't find any problems with her, and he went over her very thoroughly. He reckons she's actually closer to 3 months old (he did look very carefully at her teeth), than the 9 weeks that Kim's vet estimated, which presumably made her even smaller for her age!
She weighs about 1.1kg now, so not that far off twice the weight that she was when Kim and barakta caught her. :o
She had her first vaccination jab, she'll go back in three weeks or so to have the second one, and will need to go back in 2-3 months(ish) to be spayed, and probably chipped at the same time (as Kai was).
We don't need to deal with fleas, since Kai has been treated (and will continue to be), and she won't be going outside until after she's been spayed and chipped, and fully vaccinated.
I do have a tube of worming past, which I'll give her over the next three days. I'm leaving off doing it until tomorrow, since I think she's had enough trauma for today.
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Keep the updates coming, Tim!
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Delighted to hear she's starting to approach you on her own, she did that to Kim much sooner than me and was only really approaching me rather than me approaching her to stroke her when sleepy the last few days or so.
Very glad to hear your vet decided she was healthy, interesting about the age thing cos that means she was and still is TINY for her age and that it really was then or never on the day we rescued her :thumbsup:
We found she was happy to eat antibiotics in food but skewed it so she was 1) hungry and 2) had a small portion in antibiotics meals so she would definitely eat all the stuff. Hopefully it'll be easy to get stuff into her!
Yay for the updates.
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That's an immense relief. :thumbsup:
1.1kg :o
I got the impression that my vet wasn't all that interested in determining her exact age, beyond "old enough for solid food", presumably as it didn't affect treatment. She wasn't exactly in a state for a thorough teeth inspection at the time anyway (though she let me have a decent look while playing a few days later, and certainly appeared to have a full set), so I think he was basing that mostly on weight.
Glad she's coming to greet you as you enter the room, that's a really good sign.
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Bugger, I just remembered, that I forgot to ask the vet about her paw. It's probably OK though, when I looked at it yesterday, it didn't look that dissimilar to the other paw, so it's probably healing fine.
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And Yay for Kim & barakta's Kitty Rescue & Rehoming Service :thumbsup:
And another one for Tim's Free Feline Flophouse :D
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Well TimO's Feline Flophouse has just taken delivery of 72 cans of Kitten food (in five different flavours), at an average price of 75p a can. :o
Actually, the two flavours of Animonda Carny Kitten are 200g tins vs the others which are 70g and 85g tins, so offer better value for money, since at her present rate of consumption, they'd each last over two days. If you equate the larger cans to three of the smaller ones (not quite, but close enough), then that's an average price of 45p each, which isn't quite so bad.
So, she's got:
- Animonda Carny Kitten - Chicken and Rabbit
- Animonda Carny Kitten - Beef and Turkey Heart
- Applaws Kitten - Chicken Breast
- Almo Nature Kitten - Chicken and Tuna
- Schesir Kitten - Tuna with Aloe
I'm not quite sure what Aloe is in this context, I'm guessing it's some form of plant, but quite what that's doing in cat food I'm not sure.
That nominal 120 cans will probably last her somewhere between 2 and 2½ months.
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Aloe's a succulent plant, as in Aloe Vera. dunno why it'd be in cat food either.
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Aloe's a succulent plant, as in Aloe Vera. dunno why it'd be in cat food either.
According to Wikipedia, it's a genus of about 400 species of plant. That doesn't help regarding cat food however!
A quick Google suggests that Aloe Vera may have some effect on FeLV, but that was via injection, not ingestion. Otherwise it looks like Aloe Vera can produce loose stools, so possibly it's in there to make sure the cat's regular?
Since it's a German product, possibly there's some mistranslation or colloquialism involved.
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Or it's designed to appeal to hippy cat owners?
Tuna == dolphin-killing evil
Aloe == herbs
So they cancel out? ;D
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
<recycling hippy hat>
What a shocking example of over-packaging. I hope you can recycle cardboard round your way
</hat>
<parsimonious student hat>
Looks classy, 45p a can on average you say? Serve with rice, or pasta?
</hat>
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<recycling hippy hat>
What a shocking example of over-packaging. I hope you can recycle cardboard round your way
</hat>
It is an utterly pointless exercise in over-packaging. I thought the Germans were better than us, at that sort of thing.
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Note the matching eye colour and basket..........chamelion eye cat.
That's largely the effect of the flash on her eyes. I believe that you don't get redeye with cats, but you get others colours, such as white, yellow, blue and green. This is caused by the reflective layer in a cats eyes, which generally gives them better night sight than us, but probably poorer vision overall. Her eyes don't look anything like that colour in daylight.
Most Wednesdays I put the bin out using a headtorch. I usually have two small furry helpers; Tam's eyes shine amber and Daisy's are green in the light from the headtorch.
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
I do not speak a word of German, but I had rather got the impression from WWII movies that "Scheisr" was a Rude Word. :o
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I suspect that you're thinking of Scheiße. Google Translate won't change Schesir into anything, and it normally translates obscenities ( :-[ !). It looks like it's possibly a real name, rather than a meaningful word, after all Whiskas, Applaws, Iams and Felix don't translate into anything.
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She seems to have had a good night, if slightly ravenous. The two bowls I left in her room, one with her last meal, and the other, which had had some remnants of the meal prior to that, have been fairly efficiently left clean. Likewise all the cat milk had gone. She hadn't finished the dried food, but had obviously had some impact upon it.
When I fed her, half a can of something German with chicken and tuna, she ran to the bowl, and started tucking in, which was a first. I've generally had to encourage her to notice the bowls, before her nose also noticed, and which point she got the idea.
She is also slightly at risk of being thudded by a door. I think that before when the door started to open, she'd leg it for wherever felt safest, in her carrier, under the bed etc. She doesn't any more, and I almost hit her with the door earlier! It takes a little force to open the door, so I'm going to have to be careful, or I could send her flying.
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... I still haven't automated stuff, I've got too much work to catch up with, and I need to sort out the Public keys, and whatnot, which I don't do frequently enough to remember how to do it. It's also between an OpenSSH client, and a quite old ssh.com server, just to make life a bit more interesting! ...
After a fair amount of buggering about (including loosing all ability to SSH into the server, twice!) I've replaced the god awful ssh.com daemon with an OpenSSH one. I still haven't got things working fully, but it should be moderately easier to debug, and I don't have to run public keys through ssh-keygen just to get them in a format that the ssh.com daemon can understand. I moderately regularly setup public key authentication between OpenSSH server and client combos, so it shouldn't be a show stopper, just a mite fiddly.
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It's interesting that when I go into Zevs room first thing in the morning, she's always immediately friendly. She'll get up, do that cat arching back and stretching thing, and then wander over to bonk her head against my leg or hand, or whatever she can, pretty much like most cats.
Five minutes later, and I think she's dropped into hunting / playing mode, where if offered a hand to sniff, she'll either run away and peer at it from behind something, or jump at it to attack! I can normally trivially catch her using the shoelace of doom, but unless I leave her alone for quite a long time, she doesn't revert to being instantly friendly.
It's amusing how small she seems, when at the end of the day, I outmass any cat by a significant factor. When I went in, I got down on my knees, and made myself relatively small, to try and seem less threatening, and she wandered up, and then had to strain to look up at me from her position just in front of me!
The kitteh eating macine vacuum is coming out shortly, to clear up all the litter shes managed to scatter around the litter tray. A couple of time she's used the carpet as a litter tray, and I suspect it's because there's so much litter on the carpet, that it's not obvious (to her) exactly where the tray is. Luckily kitten faeces (at the moment) is pretty dry stuff, and isn't messy. Alternative theory, it's getting stuck to her bum, and comes out of the tray with her. Either way, she was using the tray OK, so I think it's just a temporary aberration.
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
I do not speak a word of German, but I had rather got the impression from WWII movies that "Scheisr" was a Rude Word. :o
Schesir is an Italian company, not a German one. Schesir isn't a German word at all, which tipped me off. Kai and Zev's food is from the land of pasta...
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
I opened up a can of this, this morning.
It's actually looks pretty good (from my non-eating perspective). It appears to be large chunks of Tuna, in what I originally thought was jelly, but has more the consistency of gravy. Possibly that gravy stuff relates to the "aloe" element, but I need a German to check!
Zev appears to appreciate it, she tucked in fairly rapidly, although I've yet to see how much she's eaten. Kittens take a while to eat a meal, not surprisingly. I'd expect her to take around 10 minutes, in two or three goes, to eat half a small tin of cat food. Kai would eat an entire tin in less than 5 minutes!
From their website (http://www.schesir.de/kitten_thun_aloe.html), run through Google Translate:
Composition:
Tuna Euthynnus affinis (50%), Aloe (at least 5%), sunflower oil (at least 1.3%), rice (1%)
Ingredients:
Moisture 82.5%, 14% crude protein, crude fat 2.1%, crude fiber 0.1%, ash 0.6%
Vitamin supplement:
Taurine 200 mg / kg, vitamin A 5000 UI, vitamin D3 500 UI, vitamin E (alpha tocopherol) 50 mg / kg, 35 IU vitamin B12
Which at least tells me there's not a lot of whatever it is.
It seems to get recommendations from people, and they compare it to stuff like Applaws, which I know is pretty high in meat, and generally goes down well.
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Well, it definitely gets the thumbs up (or whatever that toe is called on a cat's paw) from Zev. She pretty much inhaled the first half of the can. She ate that as fast as I've seen her eat anything, so either the Aloe has no effect on taste, or it's some sort of happy kitten drug. ;D
I've put the second half of the can down now, along with refreshing everything else.
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That Schesir German website is just their in-country distributor. You might do better looking at the original manufacturer in Italy - schesir.it
http://www.schesir.it/eng/home_gatto.html
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OK, a minimal cat cam is working, the following picture will be the most current live shot from the camera. If it's out of date, then the camera is off. If it's blank, then I've probably broken something somewhere.
I'll right a brief webpage that should update periodically.
A warning though, based on recent experience, don't expect a cat to suddenly appear and dance around on camera, I've seen her on camera for as little as five minutes in an entire day!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/catcam1.jpg)
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If you go to this link (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/catcam1.php), the CatCam webpage will reload every five seconds. The image is transferred from the server every five seconds, so you should pretty much always have the newest image.
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That was lucky, all of ten minutes after I got things working, she wandered onto camera and had a good nosh and drink. :thumbsup:
Looking at the web server log (yes I can see you!) it looks like only a couple of people will have seen her. A few others saw a few images, but they will have missed most of it.
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nice set up tim.
I am waiting for her to come on screen walking on two legs and smoking a pipe.
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Like this? (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LY-9PTRzghw/SE-rO1q6_LI/AAAAAAAACVo/5XsCetP3Yfo/s400/standing_cows.jpg)
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... and it'll work on my Kindle, so I can check on her whilst on my commute! ;D
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KindleCatCam_320.jpg)
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I can see a cat. Cool. Good work TimO :thumbsup:
Edit:
In case it matters - it was eating (I presume) from each of the three bowls on the left and then ran across the room and out of shot.
The top bowl (at the moment) is water, the next one was what was almost all eaten from breakfast, then one that was freshly filled before I left (and still has some food in it), and the final one is cat milk, and looks to be approaching empty, but not quite clear yet.
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I don't know whether this is highly impressive or deeply strange!
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I don't know whether this is highly impressive or deeply strange!
It could also be highly strange or deeply impressive?!
I've got things arranged so that I can remotely disable and enable the CatCam (and you'll get a "CatCam is off the air." message. At the moment, with a little bit of effort you could still see the image, but I'll stop that shortly! (Me, paranoid?)
When it's off the air, the page will reload a lot less frequently, so when it comes back up, once a reload occurs (probably after a minute), it'll return to it's normal five second frequency. If you left it running all day like that, you'd use up around 60M of download allowance. In normal operation, it'll absorb close to a gigabyte of download a day, so if you pay for your access (mobile etc), or have a stringent allowance, you may not want to leave it running in your browser.
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Like this? (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LY-9PTRzghw/SE-rO1q6_LI/AAAAAAAACVo/5XsCetP3Yfo/s400/standing_cows.jpg)
Thanks for that. I've seen it many times before but not for a while - cracks me up ;D
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Zev seems to be OK this morning, although she's in a bit of a "jump on anything that moves" mood. ;D
She's got what looks like a bit of litter stuck to her back paw, and has since yesterday. I think it's got damp, and stuck to her fur, so it's obviously a bit painful if I try and pull it off. I'll see if it naturally goes in a day or two, and if not I'll probably have to cut a little bit of fur away to remove it. It doesn't seem to effect her walking, running, or skidding (yes, she can skid, with enough speed, on carpet!)
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Buggeration. camE which I've been using to get images from the webcam to the webserver, seems to totally bugger up any other cameras being accessed. Whilst camE is talking to /dev/video1, anything talking to /dev/video2 seems to hang, waiting for V4L to get back to it. :-\
(If you were wondering where /dev/video0 is, it's the camera built into the laptop, and the cover is closed, so that's not much use!)
I'll probably have to resort to some other software to grab the shot and then transfer it to the webserver with a simple script driven scp. Why is life never easy!
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When does the training begin?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXtrSF8_H_k
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Yay ! Zev & Tim on camera :thumbsup:
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When does the training begin?
Have you got a small child I can borrow for this purpose? ;D
She wasn't eating the Beef and Turkey Heart kitten food which she wolfed down yesterday. She's also sneezing a bit more, so possibly she is having a snuffly day, and her sense of smell is a bit compromised, so I've just given her some Tuna Steak which I microwaved first, to enhance it's smellyness.
That seems to be working, she's gobbling it down. :thumbsup:
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Yay ! Zev & Tim on camera :thumbsup:
At some point I may have to put up "Cat Cam if offline for maintenance and buggering about purposes", since I may replace camE with a simple streamer and scp batch routine. To check that out, I'll have to kick camE out of the system, since it interferes with other cameras.
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I just saw her washing herself before settling down for a nap. It's hard work, being a yacf kitty!
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Since she's sleeping on camera, which is a rare occurrence, I don't want to disturb her, or mangle about fettling the software!
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AWWW! :thumbsup:
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Sqeeee..... she's curled up on the pillow :D
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She seems to have eaten about half of the tuna I put down, which is good. It was quite a generous portion, so I didn't expect her to finish it.
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Right, after some buggering about with camE, and eventually replacing it with streamer from xawtv, I'm uploading two images onto the server.
Since one camera is at an odd angle, and the image needs to be rotated by 56°, which takes significant processing (on a not very powerful machine), it's taking around ten seconds to upload the images onto the webserver. Consequently, I've slowed down the page update rate slightly to 10 seconds.
If I can reorientate the camera so that only a 90° rotation is required, then things are likely to get a bit faster.
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Sqeeee..... she's curled up on the pillow :D
Still on the pillow, but I just saw her turn her head!
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I just saw some human feet, followed by Kai! :thumbsup:
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She's playing with the Shoelace of Doom ! ;D It's like a feline version of Big Brother....
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Yes, I managed to grab her, and popped her into the carrier (which is on the bed, so no easy direct face to face contact).
I brought Kai in, but he just wanted to leave asap. I closed the door, and after a bit of a scrabble, and realising that he couldn't get out, he calmed down a lot, and started to have a nose around and sniff everything.
It even got to the point that he was thinking about eating Zev's food, so I let him out then, and he's gone back and curled up on the bed again (where he's been for >95% of the day!)
Zev didn't seem particularly worried, and was soon playing with the shoelace of doom.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Zev_2011-08-20T17:20:07Z.jpg)
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She's playing with the Shoelace of Doom ! ;D It's like a feline version of Big Brother....
Damn! Missed the pillow and the Shoelace of Doom, but she's having a nom now...
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I brought Kai in, but he just wanted to leave asap. I closed the door, and after a bit of a scrabble, and realising that he couldn't get out, he calmed down a lot, and started to have a nose around and sniff everything.
He must be feeling quite odd at the moment, with his hormones settling, chance of environment etc etc. As he looks remarkably un-shredded for a tom who was entire for so long it may be that he's a flight not fight type of cat, so finding another unknown cat-quantity in his new domain must be a worry.
Sounds as if it's going ok so far...
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... As he looks remarkably un-shredded for a tom who was entire for so long it may be that he's a fight not flight type of cat, so finding another unknown cat-quantity in his new domain must be a worry.
I wondered about that. He isn't a big cat (although he's getting bigger with a good diet), and does seem relatively undamaged, there's no obvious scars anywhere on him (face, ears etc), so it is possible that he's always taken the non-combative approach to other cats. On the other hand, loafheads did say that Kai got on OK with his cat, so he's obviously not averse to socialising with other cats.
As you say, lots of things changing, and he may rather not have yet another thing to worry about, so I can understand that. I'm worried that I'm pushing him a bit hard, but on the other hand, I'm also equally worried that I'm not pushing him hard enough! It would be nice if they were getting on, before I start to let him out of the house. I'd hate to have everything sorted, and then find that he initially hates the kitten enough to drive him off. This way he doesn't really have any choice! I'm hoping that once they meet properly, they will learn to live with one another eventually.
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Just for that statistics freaks out there, 133 distinct IPs have viewed the CatCam pages, but only about 50 or 60 have stayed and watched it for more than a reload or two. ;D
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Agree it would be good if they were getting on before he starts going out, though from the sounds of things he seems to be adapting fairly well to being indoors for the time being, so there's no rush. It sounds as if he'll be ok with Zev as he got on well with other cats before, but suppose it's just a different scenario from bumping into other cats around a 'hood that you know.
Could you try feeding him in Zev's room, so he associates smells etc with good experiences?
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Could you try feeding him in Zev's room, so he associates smells etc with good experiences?
That's a good idea.
I put an extension cable onto one of the cameras, and whilst I was buggering around restarting stuff (V4L seems to randomly assign /dev/videoX to each camera on boot), it looks like Zev booped the "kitten eye view" camera so that it was pretty much just pointing at the carpet! If she does that too often, I'll have to raise it up a bit, so it's out of paws reach.
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You need to add a motion controlled motor onto Camera 2, so that it follows her around! Or move a bit to the right so that we can see her.
All that's showing is your knee and occasionally a bit of her tail.
Still, it's better than the TV.
Edit - You're OK now - back on Camera 1.
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I've just seen some hot
pussy cat action on both cams. They'll still chase string when they're in their teens.
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It's rather amusing with the continual patter of tiny paws from the room directly above me, and yet in the camera she's sitting on the cushion, and then it refreshes, and she's sitting a few inches to the side, when I know she's probably just run the entire length of the bedroom and back!
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You need to add a motion controlled motor onto Camera 2, so that it follows her around! Or move a bit to the right so that we can see her.
All that's showing is your knee and occasionally a bit of her tail.
Just for Adam:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Zev_2011-08-20T20:09:38Z.jpg)
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when he was here he liked other cats. he would follow our cat around the back yard wanting to play. He liked our neighbor's cat who is a female. The only cat he didn't like and had long stare and howling matches with was another full male stray. this one is a tough and battle worn tom. He might be his dad because they look alike. He is way older and his head is huge with lots of cuts and bits of ears missing. we were never able to get close to him and he never ate any food or treats offered. he might be deaf too.
Kai is very social cat. here there were 5 cats between the adjacent back gardens. He would come and be part of the pack. I bet he will be glad there is another cat in the house. Most likely he will hiss at her at first but then after a few minutes they will get along.
When I introduced my kitten to the older male I did it right when I got her home. Supervised the encounter. It was a similar situation. After we lost our old cat, 19, we got an 8 month old boy and a 12 weeks girl. the girl came 2 weeks after the male. The male just sniffed around and pinned her down and cleaned her ears. that was about it.
I bet he didn't like being in a new room with the door closed. he probably hates closed doors now.
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We introduced a few cats to each other while i was growing up and generally just put the cats together in the same room immediately. We did make sure there was supervision there if it got nasty.
It seemed that the older cat would usually growl, hiss and look angry while the younger cat generally cowered in a corner for a bit, but I think this was just them establishing the pecking order. After a few minutes they tended to get on fine.
The only problem we ever had was when we adopted a kitten and her mother. We introduced the new kitten to our resident cat immediately but the mother had to stay at the shelter for a few days before she could come home. The problems came when she started disciplining her kitten, and our other cat stepped in to defend the kitten which she had adopted in the interim. The mother was an angry, aggressive cat anyway so never got on too well with us or the other cats. Eventually she moved out into the woods near our house and only came back every now and again for food, usually in the winter
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I had CatCam on Zev overnight, so this morning I could see that the moment I started moving about the house, and making noise, she was sat by the bedroom door waiting for me. :)
Like Kai, she had a bowl which was a slightly random mixture of a bit of the beef and turkey heart, which she started off eating yesterday, some tuna steak, which she definitely seems to like, both of those were then microwaved to warm it up and enhance the smell, in case her nose is still snotty. I added a few prawns to that as well, but after the microwave, since they don't really do microwaving too well.
She ate some of it, but has now resorted to dashing around the room like a mad thing (from the sound of tiny paws upstairs!) It's quite a large bowl of food for her, so she'll probably slowly demolish it.
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She ate some of it, but has now resorted to dashing around the room like a mad thing (from the sound of tiny paws upstairs!) It's quite a large bowl of food for her, so she'll probably slowly demolish it.
We had a guinea pig who lived indoors over winter, and when let out of her hutch, she used to do laps of the room, from under the bed, to under the dressing table, to under the chest of drawers. Sounded hilarious from downstairs, and so loud, like she had boots on!
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Meh i want to see kitty
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WANT TO SEE KITTY
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Seen kitty now.
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Yay, we've seen Kitty too!
She sat and then she ran onto the other camera and then back again.
Exciting stuff!
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Kitty just did Spontaneous Vanishing.
Kitty back on other camera now....
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We just spotted her being very cute, dashing around her red cushion and pouncing on something!
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The cuteness continues... she's been pouncing on that shoelace for over ten minutes!
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Tim, with the responses you're getting on here you might want to talk to a TV production company :)
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Yeah, who needs Big Brother. Half a dozen kittens in some linked rooms, and cameras, and you'll get nice high ratings. ;D
No prized to pay out either, other than a few cans of Tuna!
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Best big brother ever, was a Danish one. Loads of mice in a Barbie house, one got voted out every day and fed to the cat. The winner got the whole house for itself and not a trip to see the inside of a cat.
Are we going to see live kills on this show are you going to hook up camera to the cats when they get to go out and roam ? You gotta think about the ratings and how to expand your kitty cam empire.
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I spy a lesser-spotted-TimO!
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I spy a lesser-spotted-TimO!
Guilty. I just had a visit to Sainsburys for cat litter, and fishy flavoured cat food (and a smattering of food for me, but I was definitely in the minority for purchases!).
I had a quick play with Zev, and fluffed Kai, who has now wandered downstairs to winge at me!
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Currently, I can just see the very tip of one ear. I think she's having a nap.
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The door's open - has she developed opposable thumbs and opened the door and escaped, or has Tim got burglars??
Or has he simply let her out. ;D
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Now I'm a bit confused. I'm sure that you lot kept talking about a little fluffy thing. I only see a big thing that takes up must of the view. Oh ... hang on it is TimO
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Nope, she was in the carrier whilst I was vacuuming, and I was going to do an introduction session, but Kai has legged it, presumably in response to the
kitteh eating machine vacuum. I have no idea where he has hidden himself away. He'll reappear at some point! I've let he back out to wander about as normal.
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Either there's a significant lag between sampling the two cameras, or Zev has mastered the feline art of quantum tunnelling: Just spotted her in two different places at the same time :D
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Either there's a significant lag between sampling the two cameras, or Zev has mastered the feline art of quantum tunnelling: Just spotted her in two different places at the same time :D
The images are taken very briefly apart, but the scp to the server takes longer, so very occasionally you'll see one Cam One updated before Cam Two (the scp for Cam Two is underway). To ensure that you don't get half an image, the scp is followed by a mv command sent over ssh directly.
If you check the time stamp on the image, that's applied immediately after the images are taken, and is the same time value for each image (strictly speaking they're not quite taken at the same time, but it's close enough), you'll likely see that they differ.
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Yeah, the timestamps were identical. I think she was just moving fast.
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A very quick experiment suggests it takes around 0.45 seconds on average (ranging between 0.3 and 0.6 seconds) to complete the image grabbing process (using streamer), so it's entirely possible that if she was moving fast enough, she'd be in both shots!
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Blimey, I just got a little dizzy! ;)
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Kittencam time vortex!
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Either she's sitting very still, or one cam has jammed.
In the other, the world seems to have fallen over...
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It was spinning earlier. I'll go out on a limb and guess a disk is full.
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LOL, I unplugged the cameras. It tries to refind them, but the loop continues, and the image rotation repeats, so it repeatedly rotates the same image! There's no point leaving the cameras on at night, they aren't sensitive enough to show anything but noise.
I could probably improve the fault detection. ;D
I've set the Off The Air flag now, so you'll just get that holding page.
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She's asleep, on an old cushion, immediately in front of Camera Two at the moment!
Everyone who hasn't seen her on the camera yet, go and look!
Very cute little snoozing kitten. ;D
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I just spied her jump up onto the bed! I think she's caught an insect or other.
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More interesting than daytime TV.
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More interesting than daytime TV.
There was, for a while, a leftpondian animal rescue place with a live video feed on a pen containing maybe three litters of kittens around Zev's age. It was utterly compulsive viewing as even when they were all tired out there was usually something going on, if only a bit of half-arsed tail-nibbling and retaliatory swatting.
I reckon, given the quality of some of the stuff that appears to be viable to dedicate a minor satellite TV channel to, it would be totally worth having one devote to cats and kittens doing cute stuff. There must be enough geeks and animal lovers out there to justify some advertising revenue...
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I just spied her jump up onto the bed! I think she's caught an insect or other.
She can certainly manage to get flies, I've seen her get a few, although I think these are particularly stupid, or worn out flies!
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She's also effective against low-altitude spiders and moths that are a bit past their sell-by date.
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She's currently giving the mouse a good battering... :thumbsup:
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She's currently giving the mouse a good battering... :thumbsup:
... and Kai gives his version a good battering from time to time. Should they ever team up, the wildlife is going to regret it!
Zev does occasionally see a bird flying past the window (she can't really see into the garden from her perspective!), and sits there for a couple of minutes waiting for it to go past again!
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Shhhhh everyone shes asleep
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I'm amazed that you lot can get that much entertainment out of a sleeping cat. Yes I admit I have watched it a few times and it is better than Big Brother. I never got this level of excitement I see from you watching a dog sleeping, well unless it was dreaming, a bit like this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8XgJ3JebE
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Okay, just spotted these guys, who must be Zev's family:
(apologies for the poor photography, naff lens at max zoom in poor light)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3102.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3103.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3106.sized.jpg)
One adult, two juniors. They appear to have the same markings as Zev.
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3110.sized.jpg)
This is one of the younger ones. Is clearly much bigger than Zev, and has fully-developed jumping skills (easily made it up the wall in the background, and climbed into the skip). I'd guestimate a minimum of 4 months old.
On the basis that they're still hanging around with mum, it seems likely that the young ones are an earlier litter from this summer (and therefore not really old enough to be Zev's parents themselves). Which would explain why Zev wasn't getting as much parental attention as she needed.
Barakta's left some chicken out for them to find under the skip (which is in my peripheral vision as I sit at my computer). They did a runner when a couple of students walked past. I don't rate our chances of catching any of them without blood loss and special equipment, and they're not going to be enthusiastic about humans anyway. They do at least look reasonably healthy.
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<cat cam>
Oooh! Kitty's having noms!
And I can see a manly knee.
<reload>
And Kai!
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Kai gone.
Kitty still nomming.
Knee still there.
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Woah! Blurry Hooman!
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Okay, just spotted these guys, who must be Zev's family:
Barakta's left some chicken out for them to find under the skip (which is in my peripheral vision as I sit at my computer). They did a runner when a couple of students walked past. I don't rate our chances of catching any of them without blood loss and special equipment, and they're not going to be enthusiastic about humans anyway. They do at least look reasonably healthy.
I know they're inundated at the moment...but Cats' Protection will usually try to trap strays/ferals and tame them down or in some cases, neuter and re-release on farms etc. There's a list of Birmingham/Midlands cat charities here: http://www.catchat.org/adoption/mids.html if you feel inclined to try going down that route.
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that was exciting.
;D
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;D
Tim, when you bend over to look under the bed, cam one gets a great view of your bottom....
This all reminds me of one of the Church Mouse books, when the mice are kidnapped to be put in a mad scientists moon shot capsule. Instead of launching, the rest of the mice steal the capsule, and take it back to the church, and when the scientists turn the camera on expecting images of the moon, they get choirboys' bottoms, and the church cat licking himself...
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Someone want to re-post the link? I'm getting bored wandering aroud this thread looking for it. :-\
http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/catcam1.php
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Someone want to re-post the link? I'm getting bored wandering aroud this thread looking for it. :-\
It's in every one of Tim's posts - in his signiature.
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LOL, I'm clearly not posting enough!
Should I rename it to bumcam ? ;D
I was trying a replication of when Kai actually got within inches of Zev, because she was concentrating so much on noming that she couldn't be bothered with chasing Kai, but instead Kai decided to try and creep up on her for a change, and then started playing with one of the toys, so all you could see was a long white paw! Eventually Zev got bored with waiting for him to come out, and went under the bed after him!
He isn't too happy, but didn't get chased quite as much as he has on other occasions, so isn't as unhappy as he has been on other occasions.
It was interesting to see some of Zev's siblings. You do wonder if she's either the runt of the litter, or the only survivor of a later litter?
There was a bulb blowing, and having to search for the trip and new bulb issue as well, which was why the camera stayed dark longer than usual.
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For anyone who missed it, here's Kai's paw,playing with the toy!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Zev1_2011-08-24T20:17:52Z_Highlight.jpg)
I'm surprised he got under there. There's plenty of room for a kitten, but for an adult cat it must be a bit of a squeeze, so he'd be open to being chased, since Zev can probably move faster under there. Normally he just goes around the edge of the bed.
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Zev seems quite active now.
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It was interesting to see some of Zev's siblings. You do wonder if she's either the runt of the litter, or the only survivor of a later litter?
I'm firmly on the 'later litter' theory. The young ones I saw outside earlier were much less fluffy-kitten-looking and more developmentally advanced in terms of coordination and strength (they confidently jumped on and off the skip), even if you disregard the significant size difference.
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Oi we demand kitten cam.
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Man in bib shorts ahhhhhh bring back kitten.
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Either Zevs been nailed to the floor or the camera's not updating
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Hmm, I can't get through to the laptop. It's possible that I forgot to turn the power on after I plugged it in, in which case the battery would have died after an hour or so (at most, it wasn't fully charged). That might explain it. :-\
There's bugger all I can do from this far away. It'll just have to wait until this evening.
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Hmm, I can't get through to the laptop. It's possible that I forgot to turn the power on after I plugged it in, in which case the battery would have died after an hour or so (at most, it wasn't fully charged). That might explain it. :-\
There's bugger all I can do from this far away. It'll just have to wait until this evening.
I'm sorry Tim, that's not good enough. In this modern customer focussed age, you should be promising to go round and fix it straightaway with an hour time slot agreed upon by the entire forum by means of pressing option one on our phones.
(And then not turn up for three weeks ;))
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Can't you log into the national Grid and reverse the polarity which will power up the laptop, you are a geek aren't you ?
If they can in Hollywood why can't our in house rocket science.
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Oi thats my afternoon entertainment. I'm going to complain.
Actually train zev to do it.
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Oi thats my afternoon entertainment. I'm going to complain.
Actually train zev to do it.
I should probably train Kai to do it. I reckon it's only a matter of time before he works out that if he leans hard enough against the door, it'll open anyway! Since he's definitely getting heavier and more muscled, eventually I reckon this'll happen by accident.
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Get him to hurry up.....actually I'm trying to influence him to open the door, make a cup of coffee a small cheese and pickle sandwich then turn kitten cam back on and also befriend kitten.
What are my chances.
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And another! Better light, so better photos:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3111.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3115.sized.jpg)
This one has more obvious white patches.
The clingfilm box between the two cones in the first photo is where barakta put some food out last night. It was gone this morning. This one walked purposefully up to it and sniffed around looking for more.
By my maths, a litter before Zev's would be about 5-7 months old now...
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That cat looks quite lanky, but still young, so plausibly around the age you suggest. I was trying to decide on size, but the variation in the dimensions of skips and cones make it hard! Does around half as big as Zev again seem about right?
If they're that sort of age, they are pretty much going to be permanent ferals, although you can domesticate feral cats, it's much harder than it is with a kitten like Zev.
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I'm imagining someone (looks at Kim) setting up a laptop in a window, set to show catcam, and feral kittehs watching with mawkish tears in their eyes, followed by grand reunion, and TimO having to spend life savings on cat food....
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That cat looks quite lanky, but still young, so plausibly around the age you suggest. I was trying to decide on size, but the variation in the dimensions of skips and cones make it hard! Does around half as big as Zev again seem about right?
Linearly, yeah. Seeing them move I'd guess maybe 2-2.5kg, depending on how much cat there actually is under the fur.
This one looks hungry, but not unhealthy. Unlike Zev they're obviously grooming themselves properly, and I got a decent look at this one's face while I had my glasses on, and its eyes look clear.
I'm pondering putting small amounts of food out for them at regular times, to see if they can be encouraged to appear in a predictable way, with a view to helping the local cats protection people catch and neuter (if not re-home) them...
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... Unlike Zev they're obviously grooming themselves properly, ...
Interestingly Zev cleans herself fine now. I've checked her over carefully, but she's doing a better job of cleaning herself than Kai is! I haven't found it necessary to clean her at all, even though I was prepared to have to be surrogate Mum, and wipe her bum if necessary! (Who'd want to be a cat, and have to do that with your tounge. :-\ :o ;D).
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Interestingly Zev cleans herself fine now. I've checked her over carefully, but she's doing a better job of cleaning herself than Kai is! I haven't found it necessary to clean her at all, even though I was prepared to have to be surrogate Mum, and wipe her bum if necessary! (Who'd want to be a cat, and have to do that with your tounge. :-\ :o ;D).
She started grooming herself after a few days with us. I strongly suspect she just lacked the energy to do it when we caught her, but after a few meals started to wash her paws a bit after eating. She really started to get the hang of it once she was happy to sit and snooze on my lap, and I slowly worked through her knotted fur with damp tissue, finishing the job to her own satisfaction once I'd done the tricky bits.
She eventually started to wash her face and ears herself after I'd been doing them for her for a few days (there was quite a lot of eye grot and dried ointment to deal with at the time, and grooming was an excellent ruse for getting ointment into her eyes without her becoming distressed). She really did seem to enjoy me washing her ears for her, judging by the intensity of purring it evoked.
So there's little surprise that she decided I was mummy cat, complete with tail-up instant purr response whenever I approached her. Unless she got distracted by the shoelace of doom, of course.
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Hmm, I can't get through to the laptop. It's possible that I forgot to turn the power on after I plugged it in, in which case the battery would have died after an hour or so (at most, it wasn't fully charged). ...
I was correct, it was plugged in, but turned off. There must be some way to get the power status in the script, so then it can beep to warn me of a lack of power.
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... There must be some way to get the power status in the script, so then it can beep to warn me of a lack of power.
Aha, /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AC0/state contains the line "state: on-line". I bet if I unplug it, that'll change, so I can just check that every time around the loop, and sound a warning if it's not as expected. :thumbsup:
The /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state info looks a little less useful, but I could possibly also interrogate that for another "Awooga Awooga" alarm.
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Up close and personal with Zev. ;D
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Zev2_2011-08-25T19:53:47Z.jpg)
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Using mplayer to play this wav (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/4913__NoiseCollector__cat1.wav) through the laptop speakers, makes her wake up and look around. ;D
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I gave her the third dose of worming paste this evening, and she was not amused! I didn't get quite as badly scratched as the first time (yesterday I escaped entirely unscathed) but only a little scratched, which I can live with.
Once she had a mouthful of the stuff, she looked totally disgusted, but did resort to eating the rest of her supper, and drinking some milk to get the taste out of her mouth!
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Aw, poor thing.
(Have renamed thread for clarity.)
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She had her second (and final for this year) vaccination today, and was pretty well behaved about it. She did meow a little on the journey, which suggests she really wasn't enjoying it, since she doesn't really meow at all yet (fairly common with kittens as I understand it, they'll only really meow when distressed).
She's about 1.65kg now, which is quite a bit up on the 1.1kg she was three weeks ago! Kim said she was bigger, but I hadn't appreciated by how much!
I may have to start treating her for fleas, since it's likely that both Kai and myself may bring them in, and it's better to control them before they get out of hand. I believe that I can use the same dose that Kai's getting on her, since she's big enough, and he's relatively small, so on a pretty low dose (that's what the nurse thought anyway). I'll check the instructions fairly carefully, and if it looks OK, I'll start treating her as well as Kai (he's almost due for his second treatment, he's been here that long now!)
Even though she's still snuffling and sneezing, the nurse said that's OK, so long as she's active and still eating. If that changes, then I'll take her straight back to the vet.
The next planned visit to the vet for her will probably be around early December, when she'll need to be spayed, so that she can go outside, with little risk of me ending up with even more kitties!
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Paging TimO, TimO to the emergency courtesy phone...
Your kitties appear to have built a large hadron collider in the spare room. I'm seeing a black hole!
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Paging TimO, TimO to the emergency courtesy phone...
Your kitties appear to have built a large hadron collider in the spare room. I'm seeing a black hole!
I was a bit concerned about that! I thought they'd put a late 70s C&A carrier bag over the camera so that they can commit mischief :o.
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Paging TimO, TimO to the emergency courtesy phone...
Your kitties appear to have built a large hadron collider in the spare room. I'm seeing a black hole!
thats what the cameras show when there is insufficient light. implies Tim is not there to turn the bedroom light on.
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Sorry, yes, I forgot to leave the lights on when I left this morning. Since I've let Kai out (and the back door is open so he can get back in), I can't let Zev wander about the house, so her door is closed currently (and I forgot to go and turn her light on).
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Ah, I wondered if that was it. Cam 2 seemed to be just dark, but Cam 1 did seem to be showing a black hole, or something....
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The two cameras are completely different brands and eras. One seems to have quite uniform noise, and the other has noise whose profile is largely circularly symmetric. The image enhancement code I run (to try and equalise the image brightness a bit) enhances that noise, creating some odd effects!
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... and it appeared to have died sometime last night, for a random reason (I think it's if the WiFi fails briefly, the NFS mount gets confused, and one of the programs hangs when it can't access a file). I should probably put some code in to restart the script once an hour, that way it doesn't really matter if we get the occasional failure.
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... and it appeared to have died sometime last night, for a random reason (I think it's if the WiFi fails briefly, the NFS mount gets confused, and one of the programs hangs when it can't access a file). I should probably put some code in to restart the script once an hour, that way it doesn't really matter if we get the occasional failure.
<whisper>
Tim, you do know, it doesn't really matter at all?
</heresy>
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Of course it matters. No CatCam ! :o
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Of course it matters. No CatCam ! :o
Exactly!
Most important that CatCam works, otherwise I shall be forced to turn up on TimO's doorstep demanding my kitten fix of the day!
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It seems to have failed multiple times today. I think I'll put a watchdog element in the loop, and if that isn't updated periodically, another spawned off task will kill the main one, and restart it. That should solve the crashing issues, in a somewhat brute force approach!
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Of course it matters. No CatCam ! :o
Exactly!
Most important that CatCam works, otherwise I shall be forced to turn up on TimO's doorstep demanding my kitten fix of the day!
Well, if it refreshes every 10 seconds, Tim should be able to accommodate ten or so people at a time, taking turns to grab a 1 second peer through the window.
Of course, if the room is on an upper floor, getting everyone up and down the ladder is going to be interesting logistically....
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Its too upsetting losing a loved family pet.
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Zev appears to have grown some more...
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Zev's getting more clever by the day - just clicked on TimO's link to Kitten Cam and got 'Space and atmospheric physics group'.
World domination next week, I reckon!
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Some quality Zev vs unidentified cat toy action on the catcam right now...
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Someone had better page Tim
A pillow has fallen across her food dishes :(
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It didn't fall, someone exceptionally stupid must have grabbed it, and pulled it down.
Someone is going to get a bit hungry until I get home!
Luckily for her, I'm leaving relatively early today, since I need to go and buy some cat food for Kai. I've got stacks of kitten food at the moment, but little adult stuff, because someone keeps on eating it!
Even one of my colleagues commented on how big she's gotten. She does seem to be putting on mass, and length, surprisingly fast (although she's likely to loose a little mass today!)
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So kitten cam.......can we have a best of edited together from the days highlights.
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Or a speeded-up video.
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It looks like the motor on the feeder managed to force it's way past the pillow, and Zev's done likewise, to get to it (and eat it all!)
Whether she's managed to get the pillow to soak up both the milk and water I can't tell from here, but I suspect it'll need to go into the washing machine tonight.
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Could she suck the milk out of the pillow, like Roosta's towel?
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She appears to have found an insect to play with...
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She appears to have found an insect to play with...
Or a light snack.
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She appears to have found an insect to play with...
or is it the insect that is playing with her ...?
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She appears to have found an insect to play with...
or is it the insect that is playing with her ...?
Oy, who are you calling an insect!
Anyway, fluffed, fed, remilked, Kai-reannoyed, and put to bed.
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She appears to have found an insect to play with...
or is it the insect that is playing with her ...?
Oy, who are you calling an insect!
Anyway, fluffed, fed, remilked, Kai-reannoyed, and put to bed.
remilked just sounds wrong.
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remilked just sounds wrong.
It's a bugger milking a kitten, much harder than a cow. ;D
She's got a nice big mat to put the food bowls on now, although I'm sure she'll manage to spill milk on the carpet anyway.
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The server currently has almost 20½ GBytes of images from the webcam stored on it!
I need to find some way to run a script over it, and throw away all the images that look almost exactly the same as the next image!
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Isn't that called MPEG compression...? ;D
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Sorted, I just compressed and turned 20GB into this little movie :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLcLH97eRw
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Yep, that's pretty much these two.
I did get them to both sleep on the bed today, although that did require grabbing Zev and petting her until she relaxed enough to snooze. Kai even turned around after a while, and was sleeping without having to have one eye open and continuously watching her!
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Thanks Woolly, that's now bookmarked ;D
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That nominal 120 cans will probably last her somewhere between 2 and 2½ months.
So, I was wrong, she's almost eaten all of that lot, and some other stuff which I ordered from elsewhere. :o
She'll eat one of the 200g Animonda cans in a day, normally with a smaller can of something else for variety, along with a bottle of cat milk (and sometimes some dry cat food, which I normally leave out as a "just in case" option).
I've put another order into Zooplus, for enough food to possibly last her another 1½ months alone, although I've got some other food for her to eat over that period of time, so it should last longer than that.
She should be going into the Vets around that time to be spayed, after which she'll be allowed to wander around and use the cat flap, so I'll probably start feeding them together, and possibly largely using the same cat food. It's probably going to be difficult to stop Kai scoffing her food if she's foolish enough to leave any, since he'll do that now, given a chance!
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Has this been invented already?:
Auto cat feeder with electronic tag detection. Opens for correct cat, but closes again when wrong cat comes near. Correct cat might have to wait sometime until wrong cat gets bored and stays away, but will get fed eventually.
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Has this been invented already?:
Auto cat feeder with electronic tag detection. Opens for correct cat, but closes again when wrong cat comes near. Correct cat might have to wait sometime until wrong cat gets bored and stays away, but will get fed eventually.
Yeah and how long till cat learns that if it stands nearby and waits.
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Wrong cat will never get the food no matter how long he waits nearby. The problem could be correct cat never getting fed if wrong cat is too mean or stupid.
But has anyone actually tested this? Is there such an invention already?
One of my two cats was always more greedy and bullied the other. I thought of the idea back then before suitable micro technology was easy to get.
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Telling the cat off doesn't work, no matter how stern the voice.
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The machine wouldn't tell the cat off. It would just close the lid until wrong cat has retreated.
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Has this been invented already?:
Auto cat feeder with electronic tag detection. Opens for correct cat, but closes again when wrong cat comes near. Correct cat might have to wait sometime until wrong cat gets bored and stays away, but will get fed eventually.
I've never seen one commercially available, and doubt it would work as simply as you describe, since the smart cat would just wait for it to open for the other cat, and then sneak in and eat from the side. Now, you can make RFID readers which will read multiple tags simultaneously, but I suspect you'd still get a cunning cat working out where it could get to the food without the detector picking it up.
There's also the issue of slamming the door fast, to avoid sneaky cat getting in, but injuring a cat in that process.
People do use boxes with RFID cat flaps on them, so that only the allowed cat can get into it's food, but that's a relatively expensive option, and does require a cat which understands cat flaps.
An interesting idea, that was mentioned in another thread, was a box with a hole in it, scaled to suit the allowed cat. This automatically limits eating, since if the cat eats too much, and gets too fat, it can no longer get into the box because the hole is too small!
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I'd come up with a safe way of closing the lid quickly.
Watch out for me on Dragons' Den. ;)
I'll be pitching my grape peeling machine as well.
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Telling the cat off doesn't work, no matter how stern the voice.
Well if you are my mum it does. Cat never took a mouse inside after my mum had a "talk" with the cat about the mouse in the kitchen. The cat lined the headless mice in a line outside after that.
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You can certainly get horse contraptions that only open for the right horse at the right time (eg they're allowed X feeds during the day but only spaced apart by Y hours). Never seen one here, but they're becoming popular in Sweden. The door to the food are of the feeding station simply shuts if a horse that's already had its ration comes into the feeding station. By making it enclosed so they have to walk in with only space enough for one horse at a time, they keep it from becoming a bullying situation.
It's a fab idea with horses that biologically must eat little and often, especially over winter months when there's little/no grass! :) Not seen one for smaller animals though, but I imagine it would be possible to implement with some thought.
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Now, I saw a thing on telly about something similar for pigs I think. Pigs wore collars that activated feeders, but only at intervals for each pig. I can't remember clearly, but I think some of the pigs learned that they could get the collars off other pigs and then they could 'borrow' them, and take them to the feeder in their mouths, and get double rations.
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That's brilliant. But cats are not as clever as pigs.
Now where did I put my sausage?
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Now where did I put my sausage?
I'm not sure we want to know the answer!
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... and for anyone watching the Kitten Cam, the server it runs on has fallen over, and I really can't be buggered to cycle into town and back, just to reboot it!
I'll be in town tomorrow, so I'll restart it then.
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If you haven't already seen them, there are three new photos of Zev over in the Gratuitous cat pics thread, here (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1074171#msg1074171) and here (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1074805#msg1074805).
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Images of Zev today, and one of the earlier Kitten Cam ones from mid-August.
Mid November (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/catcam1_20111114_1452ish.jpg)
Mid August (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/OldZevCatCam_20110816_095458.jpg)
She's definitely getting bigger!
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For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664_320.JPG) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/P1030664.JPG)
<recycling hippy hat>
What a shocking example of over-packaging. I hope you can recycle cardboard round your way
</hat>
I've just removed the packaging from 61 cans (some kitten, some adult) and the cardboard weighs around 400g (on my not very accurate kitchen scales).
I've got something like another 100+ cans of adult cat food in the process of delivery, so that will probably be well over a kg of cardboard pretty much utterly unnecessarily, since most of what's on the cardboard is also on the metal cans (which are also recycled).
<parsimonious student hat>
Looks classy, 45p a can on average you say? Serve with rice, or pasta?
</hat>
Some of it is served with rice! Mostly it's something fishy with other stuff (other fish, beef, rice, mango! etc) because Kai seems to favour fishy foods. Zev's less fussy, which is lucky because Schesir kitten food only seems to come in Tuna with Aloe and Chicken with Aloe flavours, whereas I've got well over a dozen different flavours for Kai.
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You spoil them! My two get Whiskas or Felix. If they don't like it, they know where the door is. ;)
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Aww growing HUGEO Zevkitteh!
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I've got little faith in the value of cheap supermarket cat food. Most of it has a lot of junk in it which isn't meat, like vegetable carbohydrates etc. Cats are obligatory carnivores and the vast majority of their diet is meat, so that's what these two are getting! Things like Tuna with Mango is a very occasional anomaly, because some variety is probably good for them, and they do have a certain amount of vegetables in their natural diet.
My view is that well fed healthy cats are going to cost me less in medical care, and also leave me with healthier and happier mogs, which is also a good idea.
If I just wanted to keep cats as cheaply as possible, then I could do that, but I don't think they'd necessarily be all that happy, or healthy. Whilst my expenditure on cat food, vet bills, and various other odds and sods is not trivial, it's still relatively small change compared to the mortgage, utilities and my food bills!
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I must say Zev and Kai are both looking superb and definitely selling the idea of decent catfood as a really good investment. If/when we are able to be catslaves we intend on treating them as well as we can afford because they are to an extent family and I wouldn't feed my family on suboptimal crap if I could afford to feed them better.
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I may be over feeding her a bit, but on the other hand, it may just be "puppy fat". ;D
She'll need to see the vet / nurse shortly, when I see if she old enough to be spayed, so I can ask their opinion on slightly tubby kittens then!
I suspect I should cut back on her nosh a bit, although she seems quite capable of getting through quite a lot of food much more rapidly than she did a few months ago.
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Young cats / largish kittens seem to be surprisingly springy! Zev just jumped up onto my lap from a distance away that I wouldn't expect a cat to achieve, but seemed to do it somewhat effortlessly!
She did land with four paw drive fully engaged however, so then immediately bounced off me in response of my cries of pain!
She's been going around the house at some speed, and is starting to drive Kai up the wall, so I may put her back into her room with a bowl of lunch to give him some peace!
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I may be over feeding her a bit, but on the other hand, it may just be "puppy fat". ;D
She'll need to see the vet / nurse shortly, when I see if she old enough to be spayed, so I can ask their opinion on slightly tubby kittens then!
I suspect I should cut back on her nosh a bit, although she seems quite capable of getting through quite a lot of food much more rapidly than she did a few months ago.
Once she's out and about she'll burn more calories.
(FWIW, our two get whichever dried kibble is on special offer in the local pet shop. Usually IAMS or Wellbeloved, with the occasional Royal Canin or Hills Science, interspersed with the odd Whiska's pouch or dedd pigeon. Ethel, being toothless, finds it easier to pick up dried kibble with her gums than slippery soft food.)
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I've just realised - the timestamp on the catcam page is still in BST. :)
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All our cats have done well on standard cat food (Go-Cat in the morning and Sainsbury's tinned stuff in the afternoon, supplemented with whatever rodents they manage to catch). OK, Josh only made it to 14 but that's still average and what finished him (cardiiomyopathy) is unexplained and usually occurs in cats of half the age. His twin sister is still shredding Bedfordshire and looks like a much younger cat.
The really, really cheap food sold in the USA apparently contains a lot of stuff you wouldn't want to feed them, like euthanised pets :sick:
I would very strongly recommend dry food for one meal, as none of our cats ever had dental problems.
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I've just realised - the timestamp on the catcam page is still in BST. :)
I don't think cats care about daylight saving. They jump on your face while you're asleep at any time, surely.
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I've just realised - the timestamp on the catcam page is still in BST. :)
I don't think cats care about daylight saving. They jump on your face while you're asleep at any time, surely.
The stamp on the images themselves were always UTC, but I've tweaked the page to go back to UTC now, I only modded it to BST, because people don't understand ISO times, and that the Z at the end tells you it's UTC+0.
... and of course, as you say, the cats don't give a monkeys, and want feeding now regardless of the time. ;D
UK (and I'm guessing European in general) pet food regulations seem to be a bit tighter than the USA regulations are (or possible were). I still prefer to give them something which actually looks like meat, rather than pink pap. I suspect the improved texture and being closer to a real cat diet of some premium brands, doesn't do any harm when it comes to good dental conditions, although it may also simply be that domesticated cats live so much longer than their wild relatives, that they are much more likely to be prone to dental issues simply because they live so much longer,.
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Thing with young kittens is they haven't really learned about the off switch yet. If there's an audience (human, feline or canine), they'll be perky and playful or groomy or just plain *pestery* even when they don't really have the energy left. This can easily annoy an adult cat, even if they're absolutely fine with each other territorially. Put them in a room by themselves and they'll happily curl up and sleep, though, so keeping them apart at least some of the day will probably be a good idea until she's a bit older.
That was so right! At weekends, when I'm often in all day (and have been mostly this weekend), I have to put her back in her room during the day (i) because Kai will eat her food given half a chance! (ii) because Kai does become progressively more pissed off with being attacked.
Zev is getting better at this though, I'm finding them sitting together, not rolling around on the floor fighting, more and more now. :thumbsup:
... Either this one is going to go through a growth spurt, or I'm going to end up with two small cats (Kai is not a big cat). ...
I wasn't very accurate about this, Kai is now a medium to large cat, having put a fair amount of weight on, and his fur is in much better condition, and well, furrier, so he looks a lot bigger. This is true of most cats however, so I have to attribute him looking a bit smaller simply to his fur not being in terrible good condition.
She's also an awful lot bigger than she was, but I'm not sure how big for her age she is. I don't think she's going to be a small cat, I've seen adult cats smaller than her now, and she's only 6 months old.
She weighs about 1.1kg now, so not that far off twice the weight that she was when Kim and barakta caught her. :o
She's about 1.65kg now, which is quite a bit up on the 1.1kg she was three weeks ago! Kim said she was bigger, but I hadn't appreciated by how much!
I did my best to weigh her this evening, but a kitchen scale doesn't work very well with a kitten whose not that keen on staying stationary! She's definitely over 3kg now, which is quite an increase in weight!
This is a plot of those dates and her weight, and it's pretty linear. There's a slight decrease in the slope, but the 3.25kg I put in for today was at the bottom of the possible weight, I think she was probably heavier.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevWeightGraph2.png)
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Yay graphs!
I also think it's really interesting to see what good food and stuff has done for Kai :thumbsup:
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I can't remember what weight Kim got from the vet when she took Zev there the first time. It doesn't seem to be in the thread, can either of you remember what she was?
I've extended the polynomial fit backwards to the date that you found her on, and that comes up with a figure of 0.65kg, although it's probably not reasonable to do that, since continuing it back to 0kg comes up with a conception date of 10th July, which doesn't seem correct ie mass of kittens does not increase linearly from conception to six months old, hardly surprisingly!
(The gestation period for cats is about two months, based on the age that my vet suggested, she would have been born mid to late May, so conceived in March).
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I managed to persuade her that licking a knob of butter off my precision scales was a good idea. She appears to weigh ~640g. The interwebs are surprisingly non forthcoming with a decent kitten weight chart, but it looks like that's on the low side for 8 weeks, and she could well be a scrawny 10 weeks or more, given how prominent her ribs are.
I don't see it in the thread, but IRC logs and a PM sent to TimO a bit later say the vet weighed her at ~700g on the afternoon of the 2nd of August. The difference would be accounted for by another half-pouch of food (she was visibly expanding with every meal at that point).
...which makes that polynomial fit freakishly accurate, though for the wrong reasons (kittens wouldn't normally be scrawny and dehydrated).
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... a PM sent to TimO ...
Doh, I didn't think to check PMs!
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Tim, have you tried weighing her on human scales? (weigh yourself and then weigh yourself while holding her).
I suspect you'll get bollocked by the vet if she's much heavier than that come neutering time.... ;)
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Or stick her in a box and weigh that. Some cats are more than willing to cooperate if they get to sit in a box...
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Tim, have you tried weighing her on human scales? (weigh yourself and then weigh yourself while holding her).
I suspect you'll get bollocked by the vet if she's much heavier than that come neutering time.... ;)
She looks a little tubby, so I think she is eating a little too much, but as said earlier, she'll probably burn that off once she's allowed to go outside, and move about a bit more.
I can't exactly stick her on a crash diet, since that's the only way she'd drop significant weight at this point, she's going into the vets on Thursday, to check her over for spaying.
She is a lot bigger than she was originally. It's also possible that they underestimated her age, and her development has caught up with her calendar age, so she may be older than 6 months now.
I haven't got any human scales, so I can't use that approach. Possibly putting her in a box may work, but unless she stands stock still it's difficult to see the dial on the scales and keep the box balanced on them. The vets will almost certainly weigh her on Thursday, so I'll see what they say. Their scales work a lot better for this sort of thing, being big enough for an entire cat to stand on easily.
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At the vets yesterday, she was weighed and came in at only 3.06kg on the vets scale, which is a bit lower than I thought.
The vet didn't seem to be concerned about her weight, and was quite happy to go ahead with spaying her.
So, that's booked in for next Thursday, and hopefully it will all go according to plan.
Once she's healthy enough to be allowed out to play, she can start investigating the great outdoors. I'm guessing I'll have to keep her in her room for a few days, to stop Kai annoying her (and she'll likely be feeling a bit rough anyway) and then it looks like ten days to a couple of weeks before I let her do too much, so she won't be going outside before then.
(I may also need to go to the USA about a week after her operation, but I don't see any reason why the cattery would be any worse for her physically than her bedroom, although she may get stressed for other reasons).
Here's an updated graph:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevWeightGraph3.png)
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Right, one slightly upset kitten delivered to the vets. She didn't start complaining in the carrier until I was over half way to the vets, so she's getting more used to that! She was happy enough when I got there, and was fairly keen to get out of the carrier and have a wander about!
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... and she's back. She's got a big bald patch on her side, and a few stitches, and a small bald patch on one leg, which presumably was for a drip and / or injections, blood tests etc.
Whilst I'm keeping her away from Kai for a day or two, and she's meant to be staying calm and relaxed, she is of course clambering all over things, and jumping up and down, like she shouldn't. Short of gaffer taping her down, I don't see how I can stop that, so I'll just have to hope she doesn't do anything to the stitches.
This is an operation which is commonly done on kittens, and kittens tend to run around and jump up and down things, so I guess it'll probably be fine, but I'll keep an eye on her.
Photos to follow, when I've had some supper. Kai has already scoffed his, and I've given Zev a small amount, under instructions of several small portions, rather than one big one.
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Aww kitteh!
When we had our boy cat neutered he was exhausted and stoned for the day and horribly confused and sort of dragged himself around a bit complaining a lot. The girl cat was BOUNCY! and didn't seem to be in any pain or affected by anaesthesia.
I am sure she will be fine, hope she isn't naughty with her stitches as cones of shame are evil!
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I think it's much easier when they are kittens. When my first cat was neutered she was already fully grown, but she was a stray so we didn't exactly know how old.
She was not impressed. Spent all night lying on her other side on a cushion, getting up, realising she coudn't lie on the scar side, giving us the look of death and then lying down again.
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Kai was also fine and completely active after he was done, although admittedly for the males, it's probably a much faster operation.
Possibly general anaesthetic technology for small animals has improved. I know when I had a general recently, I came around almost instantly, from zonked out to totally awake in only a few seconds, no bleary eyed confusion. I wish I could wake up like that normally! I presume they actually gave me something to reverse the effect of the anaesthetic.
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But presumably she was actually 'done' some hours before you picked her up too...
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I know when I had a general recently, I came around almost instantly, from zonked out to totally awake in only a few seconds, no bleary eyed confusion. I wish I could wake up like that normally! I presume they actually gave me something to reverse the effect of the anaesthetic.
In my experience that's a function of whatever sedatives and painkillers they decide to give you in addition to the anaesthetic. I have a policy of being extremely clear to anaesthetists that I'm compliant, sensible[1] and not prone to panic in the face of medical stuff (including drips, wires, oxygen masks, pain and so on), so plz not to be giving me teh silly drugz. Makes the recovery much quicker.
[1] This is a bit subjective. Ask barakta about the pulseox.
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Likewise on the "no silly drugz including premeds kthx" to anaesthetists and I have discovered As An Adult telling them I've had 47 general anaesthetics so "pls to be doing as I say and NO sodding venous needles kthx" actually works and usually gets them showing me off as a proper survivor. :)
I can do ridiculous bounceback, after my grommets in my left ear I was out of the hospital within 1 hour of returning to the ward and it had been 20-30 mins of anaesthesia cos my ENT bod had gone for a quick explore of my middle/inner ear while I was under (as agreed!). "I'm dressed, as coherent as I get I've drank, eaten, pissed and shat, can I go now pls?" tends to make them realise you're of the medically aware persuasion! :) And while they wouldn't give me painkillers cos none had been written up, we went to a late night pharmacy and bought our own ;)
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But presumably she was actually 'done' some hours before you picked her up too...
Yes, both of them were done before lunch, so I rang up after lunch to check they were OK, and left early evening, so I could get there and pick them up without too much rushing, and to give them plenty of time to recover totally, to the vets satisfaction.
£110 for Zev mind you, but that was for the op, and microchipping.
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You can see how big the patch is, compared to her. You can also see how she's relaxing and not at all doing stuff that she shouldn't. :facepalm:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatchesScratchingPost_thumb640.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatchesScratchingPost.jpg)
A closer look at the patch.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch1_thumb640.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch1.jpg)
... and an even close look at the stitching.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch1_detail_thumb640.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch1_detail.jpg)
Another look at the patch.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch2_thumb640.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPatch2.jpg)
The small patch on her paw.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPawPatch_thumb640.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevPawPatch.jpg)
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Oh, looking at that has just reminded me how much I love the feel of that short shaved fur. :)
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Well this morning she seems fine, she's bouncing around and jumping up and down, probably exactly like she shouldn't. ;D
I've just given her the first dose of Metacam, which is an oral pain killer and anti-inflammatory, which you add to food. She started wolfing her breakfast down, so I don't think she's put off by the taste. She'll have this for the next three days.
At the moment she's in isolation, and I'm not letting her out. At some point at the weekend, I'll let her and Kai interact again, but I'll have to keep an eye on her, to make sure she doesn't get overly exuberant.
Now she's been chipped, she also needs to be programmed into the cat flap, which is going to involve hitting the right button combination, and shoving her through it. I'll probably leave that until I get back from the US, since strictly speaking I'm not going to be letting her wander around outside until then.
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Her recovery seems to be continuing OK. I've yet to notice her behaving in any way to indicate that side is uncomfortable. She's lying on it, she's fallen off the bed onto both sides, with no sign of any pain, and she's happily jumping and down. If I touch around there, she shows no particularly evidence of any irritation.
Her skin does feel quite warm, but I'm guessing that's just my perception of it, as compared to the more normal hairier kitten. Since fur is a good insulator, it simply doesn't feel as warm. Near the stitching the skin appears slightly distended, but I'm assuming that it's natural to have a small amount of swelling around a not insignificant operation.
So that's all good. The nurse said to let her and Kai back into contact until she's done with the Metacam, and she's only getting that for three days, tomorrow being the last day, so I think I'll let Kai in to see her tomorrow, after breakfast (which is when she gets the Metacam).
I think he does actually miss having her about. He's generally waiting outside her door when I come out, and I don't think it's just because he wants a go at finishing off any food she doesn't fancy! He has definitely been a bit more clingy the last couple of days, staying near me a lot more, and he seems to be on my bed most of the night (generally he disappears quite a lot).
Since they'll be in the cattery together on Thursday, I need to get them back being used to each other again. The woman who runs the cattery knows that they aren't used to spending all day together, but she thinks it may be a good thing. She's also familiar enough with cats and kittens that I'm sure she'll know if there's a problem with her stitches etc, and the cattery is quite literally next door to my vet, so it's dead easy to have her looked at by the vet if necessary.
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There was something odd happening with the Kitten Cam, which meant that it was only uploading an image every few minutes, rather than every few seconds as it should (since the app was sort of crashing, the system that watches for that was continuously restarting it, but it takes several minutes for a crash to be recognised).
I think I've solved that problem, and it's running at a more normal rate, but make the best of it, because Zev will be going into a cattery on Thursday, and when she comes back, I'll probably start letting her out. Even if she doesn't start going out at that point, they go back to another cattery for Christmas, and after that she almost certainly will start routinely going in and out, and will no longer be constrained to the back bedroom, so will be even rarer on the kitten cam (and I'll remove the kit from that room anyway).
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I've just watched two of what we assume to be Zev's older siblings catting a bin across the road. I'd not seen any of them for ages, not helped by their enormous territory and black cats being fairly stealthy in dark conditions.
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Well Zev hasn't had a chance to do anything to a bin. Both of them have been forced to stay in, much to Kai's chagrin, and when they get back from their holidays (!) I'll prop the cat flap open and let Zev wander in and out, so I can start Cat Flaps 101. I'll also have to program her RFID chip into the cat flap.
At the moment, since they both have free access to the entire house, I'm finding myself limited in movement at night, with Kai at the foot of the bed on my left, and Zev at the top on the right. I broadly get the middle!
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She's a bit mad this evening, it's almost as though she's worked out that she'll be stuck in a cattery for another week as of tomorrow, and is making the best of it!
Kai is slumped in the hallway, just outside the kitchen, having been filled up with catfood, but Zev has been bouncing in and out of the living room, jamming herself into assorted tight corners that shouldn't be able to fit a small cat, and variously noising in, and attacking everything else!
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She's having a mad hour - sounds like a perfectly normal cat in my experience :)
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True enough, but since she's a kitten, it's even madder than usual!
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And thanks to relativistic time dilation, liable to last a lot longer than an hour.
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Today we are doing Cat Flaps 101.
First I had to grab her, and she's in a "run away at the slightest provocation" mood!
After about ten minutes, and I had kitten in hand, I held down the appropriate buttons on the cat flap, at which point I had 30 seconds to program her in. Knowing she'd be difficult, I just went outside and waved her under the cat flap porch, where the reader is, until it beeped. Then I went back inside and shoved her through the door to demonstrate how it worked. She then showed an understanding of how coming back in works, by immediately re-entering!
I've propped the flap open, and left the door wide open now. She's taking a few tentative steps outside, through the door, but the slightest thing makes her dash back indoors. I've yet to get a photo of her outside, because just stepping near the door is enough to make her dash back in.
Kai was sat outside the back door, waiting for her to come out (I think in a friendly way, not so he could attack her!) but he's gotten board now, and wandered off to check out what has changed around here since he's been locked up for the last few weeks (he already made a cursory check and came back to see what the fuss was!)
On the plus side, I know there's little chance of Zev buggering off permanently, since more than a couple of paw steps away from the back door seems to be barely tolerable!
Luckily I've got no more plans to leave the house today, so I can leave the back door open, and likewise the cat flap. I'll probably block it when I go to bed, to avoid the slight risk of her getting out through it, but then not being able to work out how to get back in.
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I'd like to nominate this thread as thread of the year.
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevOnEasyNWebcam_cropped.jpg)
An image in IR vision of Zev peering at the new catcam camera, which I temporarily dumped on the floor downstairs, and which was scanning back and forth, so attracted Zev's curiosity.
Her eyes are so bright because she's looking directly into the IR illuminators, but her own vision doesn't respond to these frequencies, so her irises are wide open, and reflect a lot of the light right back at the camera (the room is otherwise almost entirely dark to human vision).
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She's definitely going in and out using the Cat Flap, although it's propped open, so not too difficult at the moment.
At some point I'll have to start lowering it down when she's out, and see if she'll still come in pushing past it. Hopefully she'll just continue to shove her way in then, when it's totally closed.
She has been spending quite a bit of time outside yesterday and today, so obviously well past the "I'm not placing a paw outside" stage. That shouldn't be too surprising, since she was obviously spending a lot of her life outside when Kim and Barakta captured her. She may have forgotten much of that, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't hovering around somewhere deep in her feline psyche.
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I love the IR catcam image and it's lovely to hear of her early adventures outside.
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I've barely managed to see her outside. Once when I've gone out to try and find her, so I could feed them both (if I put her food down with Kai's, "someone" would eat all of it!), she did eventually bound through the weeds into the kitchen, but otherwise so far, she's mostly come in when I've been upstairs and somewhat silently(ish) through the open cat flap.
She's obviously not too scared of the outside world now, given the times she's spent outside (although a lot of today she's been sleeping in the living room where I am), but she hasn't quite worked out what the outside world is for entirely yet, since she's still using the litter trays. :)
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She's been mostly sleeping on my lap this afternoon and evening, which is unusual simply because she hasn't really had much chance to do this previously. She's a really noisy sleeper, there have been various grunts and buzzes from her, every breath, depending on how she's lying!
Earlier on, I fell asleep for a short while, and she ended up hanging between my legs a bit, but didn't seem particularly perturbed that her bed wasn't staying where it should!
I've got a handful of photos, taken with my phone. I'll upload them later, when I haven't got a small snoring cat pinning me to the chair. ;D
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A photo from yesterday, which is the only proof I have that she's been outside. She bolted back in again, almost as this photo was taken, when she heard me moving!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevsFirstStepOutside_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevsFirstStepOutside.jpg)
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A couple of the least bad photos of Zev asleep(ish) on my lap. They're taken with my phone, so the quality is a bit indifferent.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevOnLap1_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevOnLap1.jpg)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevOnLap2_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevOnLap2.jpg)
The bald patch on her side, where the spaying operation was done, looks worse on these photos than it does in real life. The fur is noticeably thick on most of that area now, the only mostly bald bit being where the actual incision was made. I guess once the rest of the fur has grown back fully, that small patch, even if it stays fur free, will be unnoticeable.
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Some more IR cam images. I left the camera trained on the cat flap today, had yet to see anyone on it, and was about to leave for home, when Kai wandered into view.
What was interesting, was that Zev followed him down. Whilst he shoved his way outside, she didn't quite know what to make of it, and eventually sat there waiting for a few minutes before wandering off. She's reappeared a couple of times and briefly inspected the cat flap, but has not tried to go out. Indeed, she doesn't seem to understand it, she's peered down the side of the wall, I think looking for Kai!
I left the cat flap open today because it was so dull outside, the night detection circuitry thought it was night, and insisted on locking the flap even though it was several hours after sunrise. I thought she probably wouldn't be able to work out how it worked, and I was right!
Kai leaving.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/20120103_1_crop.jpg)
Zev wondering where he's gone.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/20120103_7_crop.jpg)
Zev giving up waiting.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/20120103_9_crop.jpg)
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Awww kitteh! I hope she works out the catflap soon so she can keep up with Kai.
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When it was propped open on New Years Eve, she was definitely using it.
Yesterday, when it was also propped open all day, as far as I can tell she didn't go out at all (and Kai didn't much either, it was cold and wet!).
Today Kai has definitely been a couple of times, once this morning (because he reappeared wet), and this evening, as seen above, when spotted on IR Cat Cam, but as far as I know Zev hasn't yet tried to follow him.
I suspect at some point it'll click, and she'll follow him out. Hopefully she'll also follow him back in!
I'll keep on propping the door open, so she gets the idea about it being the route to the outside world.
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Tim, you'll have to get the cats more interactive with all the followers you have.
How about getting them to tweet updates (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2082058/Kitty-Twitty-lets-stay-touch-cat-Twitter.html)?
;D
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He's using an Ethernet Shield with a bog standard Arduino board (probably), and you'd be better off using a Arduino Ethernet (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=50_74&products_id=811), which has the Ethernet integrated into the controller board.
Personally that looks a bit old hat, I'd use a Teensy (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/index.html) with an XBee adapter (http://www.pjrc.com/store/xbee_adaptor.html) and WiFi Module (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=25_65&products_id=829), so with the addition of a battery it could be entirely wire free.
I do have some RFID readers, which I'll probably wire up, so I can tell whether Zev and Kai are in or out, and it's relatively easy to Tweet that. Libraries exist (http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/TwitterLibrary) to do the hard work for you, so the code you need to write is only a handful of lines.
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Amusingly, I've got the video feed from the camera going directly into VLC now, and it includes the audio from the microphone, so I've been able to listen to the sound of Zev digging away at the litter tray, and the clunk of Kai going through the cat flap!
I've yet to find any mechanism for sending audio to the speaker, so I can't make meow sounds at them, or play back recordings of bird sounds (which I used to do with the laptop and the old cameras!). It looks suspiciously like the only way to do this is to reverse engineer the ocx file, but I'm not sure I've got the time, knowledge, or inclination to undertake this. I've found reference to a number of functions; waveOutClose, waveOutUnprepareHeader, waveOutWrite, waveOutReset, waveOutPrepareHeader, waveOutSetVolume, waveOutGetVolume, waveOutOpen, StopAudio, PlayAudio and many other, which look plausibly useful, but I haven't got a clue about using them, or even trying to work out what parameters each should take.
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Paging Kim. Will Kim come to the white courtesy terminal window, please. ;D
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I've reinstated a job to grab images from the newer IR PTZ camera, and place them onto the CatCam webpage, so if you're very lucky you may see Kai wandering in and out, and Zev following him, as far as the catflap, and then looking confused. :-\
You may also see Zev using the loo, but she's more likely to use the upstairs litter tray.
The colour is a bit washed out at the moment, but I think that's because very little natural light is getting in through the window (it's a bit dull out), and the IR illuminator won't provide any colour.
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I saw a black and white furry face peering in the cat flap earlier on, and wondered why Kai didn't come in, but I've since realised, that there are a couple of fairly big black and white cats in the road opposite, and it could have been one of them speculatively having a look see.
Next time I shall have to check out the face more carefully.
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You'll have to install face recognition cameras. ;D
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Didn't the facial recognition element of Apple's photography software under OSX (I forget the name) turn out to work as well with cats as it did with humans?
Edit: Ah yes, it was (is?) iPhoto 09 (http://gizmodo.com/5140703/iphotos-facial-recognition-feature-works-on-cats). ;D
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Just watched Kai followed by Zev on the catcam. She obviously hasn't got the hang of the catflap yet.
Kai looks really good in IR, for some reason.
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Even today, with the cat flap wide open, she's not using. Then again, neither is Kai!
She has been up to it several time, and sat down and looked through and thought about it, but in the end decided not to risk the great outdoors, yet.
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Ooooh! Oooooh! She's either just gone out of the catflap or she's learned how to dematerialise!
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Ooooh! Oooooh! She's either just gone out of the catflap or she's learned how to dematerialise!
In the 15 seconds between frames, she might have decided to turn round and just walk out of view of the camera, IN to the room.
She's sitting and contemplating the catflap at the mo. Something will click eventually.
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Zev's trying to work it out now on catcam
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So far, she's sat by the catflap trying to decide whether to go out, or not, at least six times without actually going!
She's currently doing it for the seventh time, and may yet decide to go out!
If she doesn't this time, I'll leave a trail of munchies out through the cat flap. Following (and eating!) those, and just stepping out into daylight may be enough to give her the confidence to stay out.
Kai hasn't been out today. I was kind of hoping he would, and she would follow him, because I've seen her do that in the past, but then get confused by the flap itself.
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... I'll leave a trail of munchies out through the cat flap. Following (and eating!) those, and just stepping out into daylight may be enough to give her the confidence to stay out. ...
Right, that didn't quite work as I expected, all I managed to do was tempt Kai back in, eating them in reverse order!
I did shove him towards the door a couple of times, but she didn't take the hint. He's gone out of his own accord now, but she's still not quite got the nerve up to go out.
I wouldn't mind, but I'm avoiding the kitchen, so I don't distract her, and give her an excuse to not go out in favour of trying to get some food out of me!
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She appears to be on the outside, looking in!
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Indeed, she was briefly. She only stayed outside for a minute or two, before hammering back in!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/camera/catcam_2012-01-07T12%3A26%3A06Z.jpg)
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/camera/catcam_2012-01-07T12%3A26%3A06Z.jpg)
"How the hell does he expect me to get back in when he blocks the flap with the fabric softener bottle, eh? Tchah!! Hoomans..."
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Zev or Kai seems to be channeling my old cat.
Kitty litter kicked all over the floor ;D
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"How the hell does he expect me to get back in when he blocks the flap with the fabric softener bottle, eh? Tchah!! Hoomans..."
The reason the bottle is there, is because that's what's keeping the flap open! Zev has yet to work out that she has to push it open to go through, so just looks confused when Kai uses that to go in or out. When it's propped open, she'll wander in and out, but during the week, when I'm mostly at work, or asleep, I'm afraid she's yet to work out how to get out (or in).
The cat litter kicked all over the place is Zev. Kai has reverted to the normal cat approach of using my next door neighbours gardens. ;D
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I watched Zev attempting to barricade the catflap with the softener bottle a little while ago. :D
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Yes, I noticed it had been knocked over, but hadn't noticed anyone doing it.
I forgot to clear it away, but it hasn't stopped Kai at any point!
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We're doing CF-101 again. The cat flap is propped open, and both of them are wandering in and out. Kai has, predictably, confidentially wandered off and back a few times. Zev went out for five to ten minutes, which was surprising considering it is a bit brisk out there. My thermometer says 3°C, and Biggin Hill says 2.3°C. Some of the weeds in the back garden are still white with frost, where the sun hasn't hit yet.
She's come back in to check I was still here, and is now sitting by the cat flap, I think trying to get up the nerve to go out again!
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Tim, if your script archives images, look for one of what appears to be a fox peering through the catflap at 22:01ish! The page relaoded before I could save it...
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Wow, good catch!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/catcam_2012-01-14T22:01:11Z.JPG)
I do archive them, but currently just into one directory, so not easy to browse! I need to rehack the code slightly.
This does justify me closing the cat flap after dark, mainly so Zev doesn't wander around when she could have problems with cars, but I wondered about foxes, although assumed they'd avoid getting close to the house because I was around. I would have either been in the kitchen or living room when that happened.
Zev's asleep behind me on one of the teetering piles of crap, and Kai's asleep upstairs on the bed. I suspect either of them would have had something to say about that visitor!
I've heard foxes yowling outside for the last couple of nights, which is common this time of year, although I heard it more when I lived in Streatham than I do in Croydon. I know there are foxes around, I've seen them in the back garden occasionally, and when there's snow down, there are clear fox tracks up the side return and through the back garden (when most domestic cats are staying indoors!)
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Urban foxes are pretty confident around here (Wimbledon) when are security light comes on they just carry on with maybe a brief glance to say "thanks that makes it easier to see" and quite often they wander around in daytime quietly going about their business.
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Well, I didn't help the foxes with any light, the kitchen was dark (although probably still enough indirect scattered light for the cats to see well by). The camera has a number of IR illuminators, which work quite well (you can see that it's thrown a bit of a beam).
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Oink, oink. It looks more like a pig than a fox to me!
The "cat flap" looks huge, too (probably because I'm not getting a correct sense of scale).
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I'm pretty sure it's not a pig, since one would have a hard time either squirming under the gate, or jumping over it!
Here's an industry standard bottle of Bombardier beer in front of the cat flap for scale (on reflection I probably shouldn't have used a clear bottle). The top of the bottle is pretty much in line with the top of the cat flap hole (as delineated by the bright background).
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/CatflapAndBottle.jpg)
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Thanks Tim. You've given me a perfect excuse to buy a bottle of Bombardier beer! :)
On a second look, it does look more like a fox than a pig, really. Having a pig on the loose would have been more fun, though.
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If a full sized adult pig tried to jump over my garden gate, I doubt the gate would have survived. I doubt one would fit through the cat flap either, and since it's in a wall rather than the more traditional door, it would probably stand up to even a fully grown pig attempting to get through. ;D
A pig on the loose would have been interesting. My parents had an escaped adult bull in their driveway once. It had escaped from the cattle market on the other side of Exeter (probably more than five miles away), and they'd been chasing it across town before somehow they managed to chase it up the drive, which luckily had brick walls on all sides, excepting the wooden doors on the garages, which quite possibly wouldn't have stood up to it trying to get through them, if it had tried. They managed to get a livestock lorry up to the drive and get the bull into it then. An adult pig wouldn't possibly have been quite so bad, but probably still a challenge!
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There is an increasing number of pigs in ordinary gardens due to people being conned into buying "micro pigs", that actually were just ordinary piglets! They become too large to keep inside.
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Wow, good catch!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/catcam_2012-01-14T22:01:11Z.JPG)
No, I'm sure that's not Wow. Not enough beard.
Careful. That fox is just casing the joint. He'll be back next week with a jemmy and bag marked swag.
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That was interesting.
So far Zev's been quite a quiet kitten, she's only meowed (and in a fairly insistent way) either when I've accidentally knocked or stood on her (thankfully fairly rarely), or wanted to be let down when being handled. Even then, she'll often just do a silent mouthing a meow thing, which is a little amusing, or do the little oinking/grunting sounds, which she seems to favour.
Kai, on the other hand, has a good loud, conventional "Meooow" when he needs your attention, most often heard at meal time, in increasing volume as food gets nearer and nearer to hand (or strictly speaking, feline mouth).
This morning, just as I was about to put their two bowls down, Kai's full of Schesir adult cat good, and Zev's of Animonda Carny kitten, at the last moment, as I was just about to put the bowls down, and as Kai was really ramping up the volume, there was a small squeaky, thin, and a bit experimental, meow from Zev as well!
I was quite surprised given the volume of Kai that she hasn't copied him before, but she's obviously decided to give it a try. :)
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... and again. A couple of little meows from Zev when I put lunch down, and another one when I was feeling generous, and gave them a bowl of milk to share for Sunday Lunch dessert. I can get away with one bowl for that, because Kai isn't than enthusiastic about it, and will get bored before Zev does, so she still gets a good sized portion of it (probably the lions share). It's quite amusing to see both heads butted together with each licking away like mad in a corner of the bowl. :)
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I've just been watching Zev and Kai scrap a bit, and interestingly she's definitely the more aggressive of the two.
Mostly Kai is just trying to pin her down, probably like Mum would if she was being to troublesome, but she'll often squirm out of it and just attack him again (he'll just be sitting there, with various degrees of "Oh for peats sake" on his face, insofar as cats can have an expression).
Watching them scrap, whilst it's relatively benign, that's more down to Kai than Zev. He almost exclusively just uses his mouth and front paws, whereas she'll starting hammering away at his head with her back paws, which he virtually never uses.
I'm guessing that both of them are mostly retracting their claws, otherwise the house would be awash with cat blood.
I imagine (hope!) a lot of it is just kitten practice fighting, and Kai unfortunately is the only available target. Presumably she'll grow out of it a bit.
In this sort of a mood, both of them will take a swipe at me, hanging through the banisters on the stair with their paws. I'll occasionally "play" with them like this, but you have to watch it, because if they do catch you with their paws, it'll often draw blood!
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Zev is today mostly getting damp.
Kai came in earlier, very slightly damp, and had obviously had enough, and retired to a cat bed.
Zev's been going in and out, and each times comes in slightly damp, so has to spend a while washing herself (which perversely, does dry her out), and then eventually goes out again!
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I don't know if I missed you saying about it before, but your cat flap cam isn't working atm.
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I don't know if I missed you saying about it before, but your cat flap cam isn't working atm.
Oops, my bad.
The server that the job runs on which transfers the file, is very rarely rebooted, so I just restart the task as necessary. I had to reboot it on Friday evening, to replace a failed RAID disc, but I forgot to rerun the script. I just did that, so images should be visible now.
You probably won't see much, Zev did the wandering in and out thing earlier, but seems to have given that up now, obviously having got as much amusement as she could get out of getting wet.
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Silleh Zev Kitteh! :facepalm:
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/interloper_20120314-221759.jpg)
An interloper from yesterday evening, when the cat flap was propped open for Zev, but they didn't do a terribly good job of keeping this chap (or chapette) out.
I heard some hissing followed by some very rapid cat movement. I think the hissing was Zev, but Kai made sure that the visitor left rather rapidly, and wasn't caught on camera due to the speed of exit! The detergent bottle prop was thwacked out of the way by one of either Kai or the neighbouring cat, although it's not a cat I recognise, so it could have come from further afield.
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Zev seems to have cracked how the cat flap works on the way out, but not on the way back in again! When I got in today, Kai was waiting expectantly, but of Zev there was nary a sign.
Since I half expected that, I opened the back door and Zev appeared within seconds.
Luckily the weather is pretty mild, and dry, so she doesn't seem to have suffered from her involuntary exile, but doesn't seem keen to leave the house currently!
Tomorrow I'll have a hunt through the catflapcam and see when she went out (and whether she managed to get back in at all).
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Zev managed to get herself stuck outside some time last night!
Interestingly Kai came and got me, which he never does in the mornings. This was also earlier than I'd normally get up. For all that she tends to drive him up the wall, he does seem to do things to help her.
Hopefully at some point she'll work out how cat flaps work inwards. At least at this time of year it's not too cold and wet if she gets caught outside, unlike a few months ago.
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Awww, that's very cute that Kai came to get you! Cats are funny beasts once the household is established as they'll "not seem to socialise" with another cat but will defend them and miss them if they're not around.
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This is her going out, just after 6am, and Kai came and got me around 0635, so she'd only been out for half an hour or so.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevExiting_20120320-060745.jpg)
You can see she's pushing the door open with her paw, which she seems to do before she squirms under, as low to the ground as possible!
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Gosh, when did she get that big?
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LOL, I guess I hadn't noticed, but looking back through the thread, the earlier shots with her eating showed me how much bigger she is now, since she's using the same bowls!
When I first took her to the vet in mid-August, he reckoned she was around three months old, which would have had her born around May, so that would make her about ten months old now. I'm assuming she won't get that much bigger in a couple of months (if I remember correctly cats generally reach full adult size at around one year old), so I don't think she's ever going to be a big cat. She's probably 3.5kg or so at the moment, so Kai at nearer 5kg dwarfs her, although a lot of Kai's apparent size is his much fluffier and longer fur.
She's not as big as Talisker was, and he wasn't a terribly large cat, her weight isn't dissimilar to him, but he had problems as he was getting older, and with his hyperthyroidism, so I reckon she on the small to medium sized side of a medium sized cat. Her head still seems quite small though.
Interestingly, day to day she'll avoid walking too close to Kai, which I tend to think means that cat's personal space is rather larger than our own, as a proportion of body size. If he's sitting in a doorway, she can't really go past him without getting too close, so she'll either just not go through or occasionally will jump over him entirely, probably clearing him by a clear foot or so!
On the other hand, if she's feeling active, she'll launch herself at him, far more aggressively than he ever will. She seems to be the one who tends to initiate fights, although eventually he'll get annoyed enough that he'll fight back, and usually win, by sheer size, and skill (she's not very good, and has bugger all patience). To be fair, their fights seem relatively good natured, and I don't think they ever draw blood (I've never found an injury on either of them).
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/EnteringViaCatFlap_catcam_20120325-094918.jpg)
Aha, proof positive that she can get in via the cat flap if she feels so inclined. I thought she was in the house on Sunday at some point, when I was sure I'd seen her go out earlier.
You can see the cat flap is pushed inwards slightly at this point, so we know it has to be Zev or Kai, since they're the only cats that have their RFID chips programmed into it, and that isn't Kai, because it's too black, you'd see more of Kai's white fur (his paws are white, and the bottom half of his head).
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I've noticed that she's been in the house every day when I've come home recently, when a week or so back, on a handful of occasions, I had a plaintive cat outside the back door asking to be let in. I hypothesised that she had sussed the cat flap out properly, but I had no proof.
This morning, she decided to go out, through the cat flap, just before I left. She did it quite fast, so confidently, unlike a week or two back, when she tended to push it open with her paw quite nervously before squirming under.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/CatFlapRoutine20120330.jpg)
I just found these two shots, which show her inspecting the cat flap and then entering, so proof positive that she's using it when I'm not there, and there's little reason to rush in, because the weather is quite benign, and I'm not around to give her any food. They are nine seconds apart, so I'm not sure she's rushing through, but I think she's reasonably happily got the hang of things (I sometimes miss Kai on camera, because he's through and into the house between two shots).
Clearly she's sorted out how cat flaps work, and is happily using it to go in and out now. :thumbsup:
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I wonder if this is the same cat that I caught coming in earlier (see upthread images).
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/Interloper_catcam_20120402-092820.jpg)
It looks like it could be the same, they're clearly both tabby cats.
Looking at some other shots (which show him/her less clearly), it looks like Zev is coming in, and then sitting there watching through the cat flap, so I suspect she's evading some unwanted attention (in an aggressive manner, any other sort unwanted attention is unlikely to occur in her spayed state).
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Just spotted a Zev clone purposefully doing the rounds of the local bins:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3571.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3573.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_3574.sized.jpg)
Being a cat, they were faster than the camera when I got a proper view as they crossed the road. Same markings as Zev, and similar stocky build, including the squarish face.
Sadly they weren't enough pixels wide to trip the motion-detection on the camera watching our front door (and the neighbours' bins), otherwise there'd be grainy video of them attacking the bin bag.
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The body shape does look like Zev, not terribly long legs (unlike Kai), and the colouring obviously! It's hard to estimate the size, but I think that's a bigger cat than Zev, but I think she's going to be a relatively small cat, so maybe she's the runt of the litter, which is why she ended up where she was, having been kicked out by bigger and more assertive siblings.
That doesn't look like a skinny cat either, so probably not doing too badly!
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I think that's the one I met round the corner while riding my bike two weeks ago - *very* Zev-shaped and reasonably adult sized, extremely nervous of humans. Could be the father rather than a sibling - the juniors and presumed mother I've seen around are pointier and had more white patches.
Thanks to the student population and the council's attitude to refuse collection, there's easy pickings (and no doubt an abundance of small squeaky things) during term time, so I'm not surprised they're doing well. I watched that one purposefully do the rounds of 5 sets of bins, pausing only to hide from passing pedestrians. Zev was unfortunate to be weaned in August, when there's a lot less to scavenge.
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That was informative. I had an overnight guest, a friend who desperately needed some overnight crash space, so had
Zev's the spare bedroom. Kai fairly rapidly warmed up, and allowed himself to be scratched and generally petted, whilst he sat and looked cute, and apparently even slept on the bed for a short while, but Zev didn't get very close at all.
She actually became very nervous, not even letting me get near her. Even now (after the visitor has departed), she's clearly a little bit edgy. This didn't stop her from appearing and wolfing down breakfast though! She's always very nervous of other people, even just a postman at the door with a parcel is enough to make her sprint for the kitchen and watch things from afar, so I shouldn't be surprised. It was interesting to see how confident Kai was after a while, but I guess Zev is in effect a nervous spotty faced teenager, so hopefully she'll get more used to people and not be quite such a scaredy-cat in future!
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I just temporarily dismantled Zev Towers (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1084921#msg1084921).
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevTowersDismantled_Thumb420.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevTowersDismantled.jpg)
It was in the spare room (Zev's room when she was under house arrest!), and as part of the ongoing house tidying process, I'm clearing that of junk, so visitors can use it. I'm going to reassemble bits of the climbing frame elsewhere, so the cats can still use it (they do still have fights inside it!). That bin is full of over 70 of the rods which it's put together with, and innumerable corner pieces.
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Zev demonstrated this morning, that she's not much of a carnivore. I foolishly left a packet of Eccles Cakes open. She liberated one, and ate most of it.
She didn't eat the base, or about half of the inside, but she ate a lot of pastry, making a lot of crumbs. I'm guessing it's mainly the fat in the pastry that attracted her, but pastries have now been added to the list of things which on no circumstances should be left unattended. ;D
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You should have our two! NOTHING is safe. they hang around, dog like, whilst we are eating dinner, ready to catch any falling crumbs. Once we have finished and left the table they are straight on the table checking for any stray food.
No wonder they are growing so quickly.
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This weekend I found exactly how much she doesn't like strangers. Someone knocked at the door when I was holding her, so I foolishly thought that I could answer the door like that (not that she's terribly comfortable with being held at the best of times).
She struggled a little, but I though I could hold onto her, but when I opened the door she exploded into claws and cat everywhere, so I've got two lovely deep cuts on one arm, and another on the back of my hand.
She really doesn't like strangers. Even after the visitor had left, she was nervous and suspicious about the house, until she was certain there was no one else around.
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Zev just demonstrated that the Eccles cake incident wasn't unique. I had the bit of paper that a sponge cake sits on, dumped in a bowl, so I could take it all out to the kitchen, and chuck that bit of paper in the bin.
She had a sniff in the bowl, and careful lifted the bit of paper out, unfolded it, and proceeded to lick and eat every speck of cake off of it, until it was clean. There wasn't a vast amount of cake on there originally, and it was a little stale (hence me not bothering to eat it myself), but she very efficiently cleaned it all off.
I definitely have a cyclist's cat, she too, is powered by cake. ;D :thumbsup:
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Just to add to the slightly odd list of things which she'll eat, she also appears to quite like bread rolls.
I just had some toasted bread rolls with cheese on. The bread rolls were a bit stale, but fine to toast. I didn't quite eat all of them, and Zev wandered in to have a nose at what I was eating. I thought that if she was really that curious, there was no reason not to let her try it.
I expected her to pick the cheese off of them, and leave the rest, but no, she actually ate the bread first, and scoffed all of the crumbs on the plate as well. ???
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Zev seems a bit ill this evening. Not emergency, get to the vets asap ill, but clearly not a well cat.
For the last day or two, she seems to have gone off her food a bit, and has been eating it much more slowly than normal. I thought she may be suffering from a hairball, so I gave her some Katalax this morning (she's had some before, accidentally, when nicking Kai's food!).
This evening, she seem quite ill. Normally she gets up, and comes and annoys me, when I come in, for food. Today she's just staying in the cat bed, and seems to have no interest in any food, or even getting up.
She's got a bit of discharge from one eye, and doesn't seem to want to open her eyes much.
I haven't tried checking her out for any injuries, but she seems more to just be feeling ill, and doesn't want to get up.
Come the morning, if she hasn't miraculously recovered, I think it's a trip to the vet for her. Hopefully it's nothing too serious, but it's a bit difficult when she can't tell me what's wrong. She doesn't seem to be in pain, more just very lurgied. :(
She'll start to purr a bit if I pet her, but I realise that doesn't really mean anything, I've managed to get her to purr in the past just by looking at her.
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I've just left Zev at the vets.
The vet reckons that she almost certainly has a Retrobulbar Abscess (an infection behind her eye), which is causing her eye, and the face on that side to swell up. I hadn't really noticed it until he pointed it out, but it's difficult to get a cat to sit still so you can check things out that carefully.
She'll need to be put under so that it can be drained, and I think then treated with antibiotics etc. The vet seems quite confident that it should be treatable with no problems, given her age and otherwise good health, although there's obviously the risk of problems as there is with any operation.
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Fingers crossed she'll come through ok. And I hear you on the whole 'getting them to sit still' thing, having wrestled with Cam to remove a tick while she wriggled for dear life...
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She was sort of curled up, obviously feeling hard done upon by life, so not obviously symmetrical, and I hadn't realised how badly it was swollen. Stood on the vets nice clear table, it was really obvious how badly infected it was.
This also explains why she was going off her food, apparently the swelling can make it uncomfortable or painful to move the jaw, so eating can hurt, which makes sense in retrospect.
I'm awaiting a phone call from the vet to say how things have gone, and then I may have to sprint across town to pick her up if necessary (although I suspect that recovery after the anaesthetic, and so forth, may mean I pick her up tomorrow - and there's a risk of the cone of shame!)
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Meep, poor Zev, that sounds horrid. I hope she comes through the surgery ok and isn't coned with shame for too long!
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I just picked her up, which was a bit of a sprint, because the vet rang me up at 5pm, and they close at 6-30. I takes me around an hour to get home, and I then had to get the trailer out, attach it, and then cycle the two miles to the vet. I think I got there about 6-25!
Anyway, Zev is back and is already clearly feeling a lot better. She's wandering around, and starts purring the moment you start to pet her (which is normal), unlike this morning, when you got brief bits of purring after petting her for a few minutes.
I've got a heap of drugs to give her. A weeks worth of anitbiotics, as a pill, which I have to give her twice a day. That's going to cost me some blood. Some Metacam, which is trivially dosed, since you add it to the food, and it disappears with that (ie at speed!). I've also got some eye drops, and I recall Kim and Barakta having to double team up to administer those in the past, so I think I'm going to have to play "wrap the cat" with a towel. I'll probably still loose some blood that way, but possibly less than by other methods.
She's obviously a lot happier than she was, and has made some very pointed looks at the empty bowl. ;D
I've got to keep her in for a couple of days, and then take her back to the vets on Thursday for a checkup. This is going to annoy Kai, because I'll have to put the catflap on "Vet" mode, which means it allows identified cats in, but no one out. So, if he comes in, he'll be stuck until I come home!
(Of course it's possible he may bugger off again, but he came in for breakfast this morning, once as I was leaving for the vets, and again when I was back after dropping Zev off. He was also here earlier, when I grabbed the trailer in passing, but that was very much a case of "Hi Kai", pat him, and leave!)
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Yeah she is, unfortunately, wise to eye drops. It did take her most of the week-long course to realise what was going on (even when I did the second eye) and object to it, poor thing. Fortunately at that point she was still small and had a very effective standby mode.
Glad she's feeling better, and not enconed! :D
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Yes, she's wise to such moves now. Trying to pick her up, and force anything into her mouth will result in the loss of blood, and will normally fail to get anything into her. This happened yesterday when I tried to give her some Katalax using the technique that worked on Kai, of wiping it on the tongue. Even ill, she took a good chunk out of my hand, and blood was running freely enough that I had to put a plaster on it for a few hours (which I rarely do).
I think it's good evidence that she was pretty much a stray from a very young age. One of the reasons most cats don't mind being picked up, is because they were socialised to this very young, since most people will pick up kittens and do lots of "itchy cotchy cute kitten" things. I don't think this every really happened with her, because she really doesn't do being picked up at all, and certainly doesn't do being picked up and having stuff put near her face.
Having tried wrapping cats in the past, with Talisker, it's an acquired skill, and they can get their front paws out, and start doing things with "the sharp end", as the vet referred to it today, when I got to hold that end as he measured her temperature, at the other end. It may take me some practice, but it needs to be done, so things don't reoccur.
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Pippin never liked being picked up, but i persevered. After a while she tolerated it and these days she quite likes a cuddle! Prolly about 10 yrs later than I'd hoped but better late than never!
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Glad you have got her home and she's feeling much better already. Wishing you much luck with the medicating and feline sharp bits!
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Glad to hear she's feeling better.
With respect to the "picking-up" - one of ours is incredibly opposed to being picked up (or touched below the collar). Eventually we worked out it was because she hated the "trapped" feeling of a cuddle. The solution is to pick her up with one hand across her sternum, so that she dangles like a rag doll. Tickle her behind the ear and she purrs and kneads the air, and she can be half tucked under one arm and carried for a long while, happy because her feet and bottom are free.
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Interesting that Zev still doesn't like being picked up. As substitute mummy cat she'd let me do it, in that wriggly sort of way that kittens do when they're not entirely sure they trust you to support them, but everyone else who tried got instant sharp bits. I'd have thought she'd have got a bit more happy about it over time, but I suppose like being touched on the underside or tail some cats simply don't like it, even when they're otherwise happy to sit on your lap and be petted and stuff.
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The only way she'll really tolerate being picked up, is if you let her almost stand on your arm. If I pick her up, and place her in the crock of my arm, if she's standing with all four paws mostly on my arm, or possibly her rear "sitting" and her front paws upright, she's more or less OK with that, for a short while.
She wont allow me to do anything like hold her on her back, which is what I've done with Talisker in the past, and Kai now, to give them pills or Katalax (which following Feline's advice I tend to give to Kai by wiping a blob onto his tongue!). I've tried this with Zev, and it absolutely does not work, you will loose blood attempting this!
I did manage to wrap her in a towel, a short while ago, long enough to administer a drop, although I'm not sure how good a job I'm doing at the moment. Once released she was relatively happy, and went back to sleep fairly rapidly, with only some minor tail swishing.
The instruction for the drops are from a human perspective, lots of "tilt your head back and look down", which is never going to work with a cat! I also really need three hands, one to hold cat and towel, one to hold the tube, and a third to pull her eye slightly open whilst I administer the drop to her eye.
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Poor thing, I hope she's lots better soon!
Time to trot this out again, I think:
http://www.nanceestar.com/CatPill.html
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Time to trot this out again, I think:
http://www.nanceestar.com/CatPill.html
That one misses out the second part:
How to give a dog a pill
1. Wrap it in bacon.
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I managed to just get the first antibiotic pill into her, and a drop cleanly onto her eye. The towel wrapping works, but you have to get it tightly wrapped around the top end, so she can't get a paw out. The rest can just flap around, and help to catch the claws of her back paws before they can do anything too nasty to me!
She was basically completely and utterly furious, yowling and hissing at me, but calmed down a lot, once I plonked the whole lot on the floor, and untangled her from it! I'm going to have to do this over a dozen times more, what are the chances of her not drawing blood at some point. ;D
She's quite active this morning, and obviously wants to go out. She scoffed her breakfast almost as fast as normal, but I guess her mouth and jaw are still causing some annoyance, so not quite at her normal "barely touches the sides on the way done" approach, but a lot faster than a couple of days ago (I believe they basically go through the roof of the mouth to drain the abscess, so presumably that's caused some damage and pain. I'm not even going to attempt to see if she's got any stitches there!)
She's digging at the mat inside the cat flap, and looks desperate to be let out, but that's not going to happen for a couple of days. She is massively more active than yesterday morning, and quite a bit more than she was a couple of days ago. It's odd how I didn't realise how quiet she was, obviously under the weather, and not creating trouble or rushing about as much as normal.
I think the swelling has gone down on her face, although her eye is still somewhat inflamed. Presumably the drops are intended to help that.
Viscotears contains carbomer, a synthetic polymer that forms a viscous eye gel to create a transparent, lubricating and moistening film on the surface of the eye.
It seems to be intended as a moistening agent for dry eyes, presumably to help keep the eyelid and eye moving, and not gunged up with gunk.
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Glad she's feeling better, sharp bits and all!
Viscotears contains carbomer, a synthetic polymer that forms a viscous eye gel to create a transparent, lubricating and moistening film on the surface of the eye.
It seems to be intended as a moistening agent for dry eyes, presumably to help keep the eyelid and eye moving, and not gunged up with gunk.
Sounds like something barakta would benefit from, actually (her eyes don't produce tears properly)...
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I just took Zev into the vets, for a checkup after the abscess was drained on Tuesday. She's still running a bit of a temperature, so she had an antibiotic injection, and I've got another pill to give her once a day (along with the other antibiotic, twice a day, drops three times a day, and Metacam anti-inflamatory once a day).
The swelling has gone down a bit, but it's certainly not gone altogether, and obviously it risks causing damage to her eye, so she must continue with the drugs. Obviously if she takes a turn for the worst at any point, I'll get right back to the vets, but at the moment she seems as active as ever, and is happily eating food, so I think she's largely doing OK.
She's booked in for another checkup on Monday, and in the meantime I'm not going to let her out, which she is not likely to appreciate. Kai isn't likely to appreciate it much either, since he got stuck in the house sometime today, and sprinted out the front door when I opened it this evening!
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Poor Zev, only just caught up with this saga.
The joint between upper and lower jaw is very very close to the eye in cats so an abscess there causes pain whenever their mouth is opened:
(http://www.mypetsdentist.com/sites/site-2442/images/Felines/6ba4a917-7f00-0001-0648-50e3210d6394.JPG)
This won't be making the tablet giving any easier!
If it gets really hard then you could ask your vet for a 2 week lasting antibiotic injection (Convenia), and/or some capsules that can be opened up and their contents hidden in tuna (Antirobe).
Hope she recovers fast, pain behind an eye must be pretty miserable :(
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It's obviously hard to say how much pain she is feeling, but I think it's significantly less than it was.
A couple of days before I took her to the vets, she was eating very slowly, and I noticed she changed the way she was eating, insofar as she was taking food out of the bowl and eating it off of the floor (on reflection this was possibly to change the angle her head was at when she chewed, presumably it was less painful that way).
Since the abscess was drained on Tuesday, she's been eating pretty much normally, only not quite as fast as she generally does (but not far off it). I think this suggests that she's mostly OK with jaw movement, but presumably with the best will in the world, there will still be some residual pain.
I think the pill issues are just her approach to me holding her on her back, as I have to, and putting my hands near her face, things she's never liked. I've been trying to minimise how much I put pressure on her face, but I don't think it's hurting her, because I know from handling other cats when they've been injured, that if you twist or put pressure on an injury, painfully, the entire body will likely jerk in response (feel free to correct me, if I'm wrong on this), pretty much the same as with humans, if you poke somewhere that's already painful.
Aside from the vet saying her temperature is a bit elevated, she seems fine in herself. Quite active, and clearly annoyed that I won't let her out, far happier than she was on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, before I took her to the vets.
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I wonder if I can let her out now?
After I brought her back from the vets on Tuesday, she was still recovering from the general anaesthetic, so it was appropriate to keep her in for 48 hours.
Currently, her face and eye clearly aren't back to normal, but she's really keen to be let out. For a cat who took almost three months to work out the cat flap in the first place, this is quite amusing. :)
I feel I ought to keep her in, because she could start getting ill again, and I don't want her to go and hide away somewhere feeling ill, as Talisker did sometimes. On the other hand, she's obviously frustrated at being kept in, and if Kai get's caught by the cat diode that the cat-flap currently acts as, he gets rather annoyed! (He shot out the front door the moment it was opened yesterday afternoon).
I didn't ask the vet yesterday whether I could let her out or not, and he didn't explicitly say one way or the other. ???
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cat diode
Love it.
Maybe Kai should try reversing the polarity, and walk through it backwards? That always works on Star Trek.
It's a bit rubbish that the catflap doesn't allow cat TRIAC functionality to selectively rectify specific cats for this sort of thing.
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cat diode
Maybe Kai should try reversing the polarity, and walk through it backwards? That always works on Star Trek.
It's a bit rubbish that the catflap doesn't allow cat TRIAC functionality to selectively rectify specific cats for this sort of thing.
To be fair, it's a selective diode, it'll only allow a Zev, Kai, or Talisker to pass in one direction, and nothing in the other.
I have got some RFID readers that I need to experiment with, but having the normal vast amounts of spare time, I have yet to get a round tuit. I should be able to replace the existing circuitry with something that would allow me to control ingress and egress selectively, which would sort out this sort of problem altogether. I could obviously also wire it up to the internet, so would know what the current cat containment level was.
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If you do invent anything like that I would be very interested in buying a prototype. I made sure there is an Ethernet port near my flap for just such an eventuality!
If it was me I would let her go out if she wants to. She seems to be a mostly home loving timid cat so there's no reason to worry unduly about her not coming back if she felt worse.
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Also, isn't she most likely to go out, discover the rain, and then turn around and come back in again?
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Looking at her, I have a nasty suspicion that the abscess is getting worse again. Her eye is almost closed, and I think the swelling is getting worse, not better. She's still eating OK, but she was eating pretty well last time, until she suddenly got dramatically bad. She also doesn't seem to be quite as active, she was slow coming from upstairs when I came in, much slower than she normally is.
Since the vet is open tomorrow morning, but then closed until Monday, I think I'm going to ring them up first thing, and see if I can take her in for them to look at.
I don't really want to leave it until Monday, and the emergency vet is a good ten miles away.
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To be fair, it's a selective diode, it'll only allow a Zev, Kai, or Talisker to pass in one direction, and nothing in the other.
You could sit by the cat flap 24/7, like one of Maxwell's demons.
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Well, I've just taken her to the vets (sans Breakfast) and he's had a look at her, and thinks that at the moment we should just wait and see what happens. She's still booked in for another checkup on Monday evening.
Her temperature is slightly down on what it was on Thursday, but still elevated, and not yet back to normal.
If she does start to become entirely inactive, or stops eating, then I'll be straight back on the phone to them (which is what I've been told to do).
She's now filled up with Breakfast (and Kai with Brunch, he was waiting for us!) and I think she is a lot happier about that. :)
I should continue to give her all her drugs, two lots of antibiotics, Metacam anti-inflammatory, and Viscotears Eye Drops.
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Fingers crossed, then. Or at least kept well away from the sharp bits.
Viscotears! There's a package here that should contain some, amongst other stuff... Fortunately barakta is trained to administer her own medication, and only really has two sharp ends. ;D
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She seems a bit more active today than she was yesterday evening, and overnight. Possibly the second antibiotic, which I only started giving her yesterday evening, is starting to have an impact, and is a bit stronger or less easily shrugged off by the lurgy than the other one.
She's clearly back to being keen to go out, and in the meantime will have a dig at things and generally wander around doing her best to be an annoyance. ;D
It's good to see her a bit more active. Last night she slept in the same location where she curled up to feel ill on Monday evening and night, whereas she normally spends quite a lot of the night asleep on my bed, which is often annoying for me, but worrying when she doesn't do it!
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Poor old Zev, hope that the new antibiotics kick her infections to the kerb.
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She's currently killing a an old cat toy, which I found the other day, lost down the back of somewhere. She's giving it a good going over, so definitely feeling more her slightly insane self. She was also getting quite annoyed that I wouldn't let her out earlier, so she most definitely isn't quietly mopping in a corner, which cats can do when they're feeling ill.
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She's currently killing a an old cat toy, which I found the other day, lost down the back of somewhere. She's giving it a good going over, so definitely feeling more her slightly insane self. She was also getting quite annoyed that I wouldn't let her out earlier, so she most definitely isn't quietly mopping in a corner, which cats can do when they're feeling ill.
If she starts mopping, send her to me on one of the days I do the cleaning at work, I could do with the help. ;)
I read a document about the running of the York pop-up charity shop which said that the shop would be moped, hovered and swept daily. Moping and sweeping I can do, but I'm crap at hovering....
GWS Zev.
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If she starts mopping, send her to me on one of the days I do the cleaning at work, I could do with the help. ;)
Bah, how am I supposed to know how many p's there are. It's not as though I do it very often, and I spell it even less!
She's gone for a snooze now, but she's alert enough that her head keeps on popping up whenever the door knocker makes a very slight knock, as it's just catching the wind in the wrong way. It's been doing it all day, but she still doesn't seem to have gotten used to it!
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye1_Thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye1.jpg)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye2_Thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye2.jpg)
Click images for uncropped bigness
These images show how she's favouring the left eye, and the right eye is partially closed in a bit of a squint.
These actually aren't too bad, because her eye isn't really weeping, and sometimes (especially after I've just put the drops in!) she can almost look like she's been crying. You can probably make out that the right hand side of her face is a bit swollen as well, but it's only really easy to see this looking down on her head from above, and I couldn't easily get that perspective.
She's actually looking much better in these shots than she has been.
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Poor little Zev. Hope she's soon back to 100%!
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I do wonder how it effects her vision. He right eye is noticeably further forward than her left one, and you can't help thinking that must make for some odd viewing. On the other hand, cats always seem to have useless close up vision anyway, and that would be more effected than looking further afield, and our brains (so presumably cat's ones, which aren't that different) can adapt quite rapidly to changes in our visual field, even things as extreme as inverting our entire visual field.
She hasn't been noticeably tripping over her paws, so presumably she's not having too much of an issue with it. She did have a few stumbly paws incidents on Tuesday evening, but I attributed that to being some slight after effects of the general anaesthetic.
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The shot shows how her face is swollen, and that it's pushed her right eye out a bit. I've tried to align the ears and nose, so that her eyes should be horizontal, but you can see the right eye is pushed forward (on the left of the image, slightly confusingly).
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye3_rotate_Thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/ZevEye3.jpg)
Click for original with bigness and not rotated.
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Poor thing. Heal well!
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I think she's getting better. She is a lot more active, and winging to be let out. Kai and her were fighting a little, to the extent that I've let Kai out, but not let him back in (he can wander around the back and let himself in, if he wishes to!), to avoid the slight risk of her injuring her barely recovered eye!
The eyeball is clearly not back to where it should be, but I imagine it'll take a fair while for the body to clear away the excess material.
She seems as active as I'd expect, is eating at full speed, and the eye looks clearer, and she does sometimes open both eyes fully, although there's still a tendency to squint out of the right one.
I thought that perhaps she was over washing that side of her face, but I've just watched her, and she swapped paws over and washed the other side as much, before switching to cleaning other locations, so just being thorough I guess.
Of course, I will continue with the entire course of antibiotics, and I won't stop any of the other drugs unless the vet tells me to, tomorrow, when she goes in for another checkup.
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I was dreaming about Zev last night. She caught a mouse but didn't quite manage to kill it.
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Awww Zev pics. I'm glad she's much more definitely on the mend, sounds like quite a nasty thing she had there.
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I'm still not letting her out, but you can tell she's feeling OK, and wants to go out, because if she realises I'm going to the kitchen she'll trot out with me, all the way to the cat flap, and very pointedly wait for me to unlock it (which I don't!)
Even assuming that the infection is going (or gone), I'm not sure how long it will take for the body to remove the excess buildup behind her eye. Based on the last couple of days, I suspect quite a while, since it hasn't really noticeably changed. Her increased activity and eating habits, suggest that she's feeling OK, so presumably the pressure has dropped off, and her body isn't having to fight an infection, but the swelling hasn't clearly reduced. It hasn't got any worse, but I don't think visibly it's looking any better.
On the plus side, none of it seems to be affecting her vision, so she doesn't look like Clarence from Daktari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daktari). ;D
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If the swelling is an abscess then it will have a capsule of fibrous stuff surrounding it that can wall it off from the rest of the body. This can be an advantage in that it lets her feel well, but a disadvantage in that it's really hard for antibiotics to penetrate the abscess and kill the last bits of infection because by their very nature abscesses have poor blood supplies. This is where the drainage comes in, but in a location like this your vet won't be mad keen to to keep repeating drainage (it's a risky place to be sticking something sharp!).
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I understand that they don't want to keep on poking around there, since obviously the general anaesthetic also has it's risks, and ask you say, it's near the optic nerve, so she could suffer damage or even total loss of vision in that eye.
She doesn't seem to be uncomfortable with it, so if it's just a matter of waiting for the body to remove it, then I guess so be it. Your description does worry me slightly though, insofar as it sounds like the infection could come back, even after she's been treated with the antibiotics and apparently recovered from it. :-\ ???
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I understand that they don't want to keep on poking around there, since obviously the general anaesthetic also has it's risks, and ask you say, it's near the optic nerve, so she could suffer damage or even total loss of vision in that eye.
She doesn't seem to be uncomfortable with it, so if it's just a matter of waiting for the body to remove it, then I guess so be it. Your description does worry me slightly though, insofar as it sounds like the infection could come back, even after she's been treated with the antibiotics and apparently recovered from it. :-\ ???
Well potentially yes, but at least you will know when it has gone down completely because her eye will move back into it's normal position and stay there. She could need treatment for a while though to make sure it's completely gone.
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Ho hum. Oh well, I'll have to see what the Vet says tomorrow, when I take her back for a further checkup. I guess her temperature will help tell us whether she has properly fought off the infection.
I think she's doing as well as I can expect, so if I have to keep on feeding her drugs, then that's what we'll do, and she'll just have to get used to it!
Thanks for the information, more knowledge is always useful, so I know what questions to ask.
She is insured, so aside from the excess, I should get all of this back, eventually.
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Here's hoping she's better soon.
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We have a beautiful all black kitten, last of a litter of four, male, eight weeks old, toilet trained, free to a good home. We are in central Scotland.
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Well, the vet was happy enough with her condition, but we continue with all the drugs, and she still doesn't get to go out. She seems healthy and active, and the swelling has maybe gone down a little.
Back to the vets again on Thursday, for the next check-up.
That'll be six visits to the vets in nine days, and she's clocking up the mileage, that's sixteen miles on the trailer for her so far!
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Glad she's doing okay.
That'll be six visits to the vets in nine days, and she's clocking up the mileage, that's sixteen miles on the trailer for her so far!
Could be an exciting new Audax category there... ;D
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I've yet to do an Audax, and I'm not about to do one with a heavy framed cheap Decathlon single-speed bicycle towing a cat (or two) on a trailer!
I hope things are all resolved asap, so she doesn't need to be taken to the vets every few days, which I don't think she's a big fan of, and so I don't loose too much more time from work! She's also not overly keen on the towel wrapping and accompanying drug administration, or the lack of external access.
Kai seems to be accommodating the cat diode cat-flap by only rarely making an appearance, which was situation normal for him beforehand anyway!
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Well, she had another checkup today, and the vets quite happy with her. I didn't think her eye had changed much, but he reckons that it is going down, and will probably continue to, so things are on the mend. It's probably because I see her every day, that it doesn't look a lot different to me, but he's sure that it's going down, which is good.
We still continue with the antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, and eye drops, which isn't going to particularly please Zev, but she doesn't know this.
She also remains in the house, and is not allowed out to play, which I think annoys her more than anything else. She's been digging away at the mat inside the cat flap, which is fine as far as I'm concerned, since it's pretty rugged, and I have spares. :)
Interestingly, when the vet weighed her a visit or two ago, she was around 3.7 kg, which is quite an increase over her original weight, of less than 1 kg, last year, when Kim and Barakta first caught her! Once she's nearing the end of all this treatment, I'll ask the vet how near to an appropriate weight she is. I suspect, that like many domestic cats, she's a bit heavier than she ought to be, and I could do with restricting her diet a bit.
Another visit on Monday, when I imagine it'll just continue with more of the same.
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Good news Tim. Thank Bog for pet insurance! I remember the bill when Bassey (welsh, black cat) broke her leg & needed it pinning!
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Actually this hasn't been too expensive. The initial general anaesthetic and the operation to drain the abscess was around £200, but since then it's been £10 to £25 a visit, depending on how many antibiotics I've ended up with. The total bill so far is probably less than £300, and may not exceed that amount, which isn't trivial, but it could easily have been a lot more.
Talisker cost me that about two or three times a year with blood tests and hyperthyroidism pills (which was picked up, before he was insured).
This year's insurance for her has probably been paid for with this event though, so definitely worth having.
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I took Zev to the vets tonight (again ... !), and he was happy with her progress. The eye looks normal now, she's not squinting at all, is eating and as bouncy as she ever is. :)
I've got another four days of antibiotics to give her (Synulox and Baytril) and then we're done. I can stop the anti-inflammatory and the eye drops, and as long as she continues as she is, she doesn't need to go back to the vets for a further checkup.
The eye is still a little pushed out, but it's far far better than it was, and almost back to being totally normal. It should be fully back to normal within a few days. :thumbsup:
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I took Zev to the vets tonight (again ... !), and he was happy with her progress. The eye looks normal now, she's not squinting at all, is eating and as bouncy as she ever is. :)
I've got another four days of antibiotics to give her (Synulox and Baytril) and then we're done. I can stop the anti-inflammatory and the eye drops, and as long as she continues as she is, she doesn't need to go back to the vets for a further checkup.
The eye is still a little pushed out, but it's far far better than it was, and almost back to being totally normal. It should be fully back to normal within a few days. :thumbsup:
:thumbsup:
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I let her out last night, for the first time in a couple of weeks, and she seems to be happy to be able to go out again. She wasn't on my bed first thing, but outside wandering around the garden (or possibly asleep outside, it was relatively mild last night).
This also has the benefit that Kai can now go in and out, and not risk getting caught. Since he only got caught once in those two weeks, you can see how often he comes into the house, unattracted by food, at the moment!
This will mean that I have to empty the litter tray a lot less. Obviously when she was originally locked in, she had to use it, but generally she only uses it a little now, at night and when it's colder and wetter, and she doesn't want to go out. ;D
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OK, it was a mistake to let her out. She may not be in pain, but I think the eye is still irritating her. She's found something outside to rub her head on, and a small patch above her eye, on which the fur was a bit thin, she's almost rubbed clear of fur, and it's even a little scabby, where's she probably drawn a little blood.
So, the cat flap is blocked again, and I'm going to have to keep a close eye on the eye, and wheel her back into the vets if necessary. I don't think I should let her out again for at least a week, and only if the eye is looking pretty much entirely back to normal.
This of course is annoying her immensely. :(
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Hmm, it looks even worse this evening. I guess the trouble is, that once they start rubbing it, it gets even more irritating, and they rub it more and more. A viscous circle.
I think I'm going to have to take her to the vets tomorrow, and see what they think. I have my suspicions that assuming it is simply her rubbing it, she may find herself with a cone of shame.
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Poor Zev :(
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Well she's booked into the vets after lunch. On the plus side that means she got breakfast. If I get an early appointment I don't give her breakfast, just in case. It worked the first time I took her in for this condition, since she hadn't had any food for well over 12 hours, so could be put under straight away.
I don't think this is a problem of that scale, but then again I didn't think the previous problem was as bad as it was, so I'll leave it to the professionals to say what needs doing.
Since it's a lunchtime appointment, I felt it was unnecessarily paranoid to not give her anything for breakfast. I'll probably give her an early lunch as well, to make sure it's gone through her mostly, to minimise the risk of a minor cat explosion from either end during the trip there (not that she has previously, but there's no need to tempt fate!)
Aside from this bald, slightly scabby patch, she seems happy and healthy. I don't even get a response if I lightly touch it, or around it, but cats seem to be absolute buggers for not exhibiting signs of pain or irritation.
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Hope it turns out ok Tim.
Feline, what causes this condition?
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Well, the vet I saw (not the one I've mostly seen with Zev recently) thought that it probably wasn't related to the original abscess, but it could be. For the time being we'll see if the drugs I've been given to treat her are enough.
I've got another load of the Synulox antibiotics, to continue giving to her (rather than stopping tonight, which was the original plan), as well as some more Metacam (which I stopped on Monday), and an anti-inflammatory steroid (Fuciderm Gel) to put on the patch.
Hopefully the Matecam and Fuciderm should stop it being irritating, so she shouldn't rub it to the extent she has been.
Obviously she's going to have to stay in for the immediate future.
Back in to be checked over, again, on Tuesday ...
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Poor thing.
Hope things improve as quickly as possible.
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Hope it turns out ok Tim.
Feline, what causes this condition?
Well, the original thing was a retrobulbar abscess which is caused by infection or a foreign body getting in the tissue behind the eye. The infection could get in around the eye, via the blood stream or via the mouth behind the last upper molar. It is usually impossible to tell how it got there by the time it is diagnosed, unless you find a stonking great grass seed in there and then it is safe to assume that got in via the eye socket.
The new facial rubbing thing might have a different cause, or be related to discomfort remaining that can't be seen from the outside.
GWS Zev :-*
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The vet just looked at her forehead, and he's happy that it's scabbed over OK, and otherwise looks fine.
He checked her eye, and the abscess seems to have almost entirely gone, her eye being pretty much back to where it should be. She's eating and as active as normal, which he's obviously fine with.
So, I've given her the last antibiotic, a last dose of metacam, and that's it for the drugs, hopefully. Assuming things don't change, and she doesn't find some way to make her forehead worse, we shouldn't be going back to the vets for a while. :thumbsup:
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That's really good news. I hope she stays well now and you don't have to do medicating Zev fights for a long long while!
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Definitely, although I do now know that I can give her pills, eye drops, and smear steroid on her forehead, even when she's in full four paw drive slashing everything in sight mode. The wonders of the towel.
I now sass that hoppy Zev, a frood who really knows where her towel is (and avoids me, if I've got it!). ;D
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A few days ago she lost her first collar, which she's had on for over nine months, and which had the relatively expensive name and details tag on it. I put a spare collar on her, and now she's lost that one as well.
Either she's become an expert at loosing collars, or just been lucky. I'll try another one and see how long that lasts.
Between her and Kai, the collar turn over rate at the moment is rather high, but I think I've still got several for each of them, available in my back-stock.
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"Other Owner" removing collars?
Happened to us once.
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Not with Zev, she's probably too nervous to visit other humans. When I've had visitors, she's at most stuck her head around the corner very warily. Even with a friend of a my brother and sister-in-law, who was using my spare room whilst volunteering for the Olympics and Paralympics, she just about learnt to tolerate her, but that was because she fed her sometimes, when I wasn't around. I doubt she would have let her handle her. Even with me, she can be touchy about that!
She never goes that far from the house, and since I've had her, she's only missed one meal, because she didn't respond to clanking the food bowls together (presumably because she was out of hearing), so I don't think she's a great wanderer, although that's more usual with female cats, who naturally don't roam as much as males (ie Kai, and his disappearing for days!)
Both cats are chipped, and registered to me with up to date details, so should anyone care to argue, I can prove that I own them, or as much as any human owns a cat, anyway!
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For the sake of completeness, the same shots that I've just posted into the Gratuitous cat pics thread. These were taken a couple of days ago, she's now without her collar. I think she lost it this morning, whilst tussling with Kai. That means it may well be within the house, but I've yet to find it. I'm out of spare collars, so I need to buy some more.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevYawn_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevYawn.jpg)
Zev yawning.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevChairback_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevChairback.jpg)
Zev sitting on the top of the settee back.
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She was taken to the vets today, for her 10000 mile service, and is apparently in fine health. :thumbsup:
Somewhat surprisingly, she weighs 4.5kg, which is only 300g lighter than Kai! Since she's short haired, and not as big as Kai (he's longer than her, has longer legs, and bigger paws), so she doesn't look like she weighs almost as much as him. :)
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Zev's and Kai's new cat tree, not that I've managed to convince either of them to try it out yet.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/CatTreeAtlas_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/CatTreeAtlas.jpg)
Click for bigness.
Currently I've also got a bookcase in the middle of the living room, where I put the cat tree together, and where it'll sit until I can work out how to get it upstairs!
The cat tree isn't going to live where it currently is long term, but it'll do as a location until I can move everything else about.
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Oh my. I feel inadequate as a cat owner! That is quite awesome.
We have a single trunk cat tree. Chilli sits in the little hammock thing all day. Bear has never even looked at climbing anything above the back of the sofa.
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I want a barakta-tree now! :D
That is ace.
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It's OK Tim but I think a stack of cardboard boxes would have made a better toy ;)
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"What this then?"
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeInvestigate_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeInvestigate.jpg)
"Oh, there's a good view from up here."
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeTopSurface_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeTopSurface.jpg)
"Comfy. Time to get some snoozing in."
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeTopBed_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/ZevCatTreeTopBed.jpg)
She's definitely got into it now. She wandered down earlier in response to potential cat feeding opportunity sounds, and then returned relatively rapidly.
Amusingly, she hasn't eaten all of the cat nibbles which I scattered around on it! She'll notice them eventually.
You can also see, that with the delivery of cat food and cat tree, I also had a heap of cat collars, one of which she is now demonstrating, much to her chagrin.
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Zev looks very plush on those photos :thumbsup:
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You have Futurama boxed set.
So do I :-[
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You have Futurama boxed set.
No, I have all the Futurama box sets. :-[
Zev walked behind them, now having easy access to the top of the bookshelves. After she walked past them, and then realised that she had to reverse out, and couldn't, I've rearranged them in a more cat proof structure. ;D
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Overall this is proving to be a big hit. When I'm downstairs, she's preferentially choosing to sleep on the topmost bed bit, over pretty much anywhere else. She has been hurtling up and down it, and using a lot of the sections as cat scratching posts (as they're obviously intended to be used, being covered in sisal), which is good, because the dedicated stand-alone scratching post has almost been demolished by her and Kai, after surviving several years of use by Talisker!
The only downside from my perspective, is that it lets her venture onto the top of the shelf units near to it, and I'd forgotten that I'd put a lot of the spare cat toys there. She fell of at one point, because she was attempting to get from the top of the unit, onto the topmost shelf, where she'd spotted the toys, and failed. I only got one bad scratch from a mildly panicing cat dropping onto me!
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She's really used to it now. She'll go up a lot of it like a tree (which makes sense), paws around the verticals, and propel herself up with her back paws. She can be into the upper cat bed, six foot above the floor, in less than a second, although nosing around on there, and experimenting, I've seen her make mistakes and find herself hanging in a rather ungainly manner, or have to jump several feet down before she falls!
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She's a bit ill today. Overnight she's thrown up, what looks like yesterday's not very well digested supper.
Even though she appeared keen to be fed her breakfast, after I'd had mine when I went back into the kitchen, she hadn't eaten much of hers.
She was eating some of it, but just not tucking in with her usual gusto, which probably makes sense if she's got an upset stomach. Otherwise she seems reasonably active, not insanely so, but definitely not in "ill cat hunkered down looking unhappy with the universe" mode.
I'm guessing she probably just eaten someone who doesn't agree with her digestion, or has got the cat equivalent of a mild lurgy. I'll see what she's like this evening, but currently she is definitely nowhere near needing to visit the vets.
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Aww, hope she perks up soon.
I've been spotting the Zev-shaped (they have a distinctive stockiness) cat around a lot more recently. Last seen across the road yesterday having a serious go at one of the heaps of uncollected binbags that have been lying around since the snow. Looks reasonably healthy, though it's hard to get close on foot as they're very wary of humans - you can get a lot closer on a bike, albeit for a shorter period.
We're supposedly getting wheeliebins next month. Can't imagine that'll be good news for the feral cat population...
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Poor Zevcat, hope she's betterer soon and gnashing away at food like usual.
I have seen both the huge Zevfamilycat and the thinner younger one around lately. I suspect they'll learn how to get into wheeliebins or the bins will still overflow during termtime.
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Fair point. Bins are only rodentproof (I was thinking prey rather than cats scavenging directly) if they're not overflowing. Doesn't seem likely for most of the year.
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Well, this Zev shaped cat seems to be back to her full, troublesome, poking her nose into things state.
She scoffed her supper relatively fast, and it seems to have stayed down, so I guess she's over whatever (or whoever) upset her digestive system.
She's happily going outside, into the drizzle, and then coming back in, and dripping on me. :)
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Well, this Zev shaped cat seems to be back to her full, troublesome, poking her nose into things state.
She scoffed her supper relatively fast, and it seems to have stayed down, so I guess she's over whatever (or whoever) upset her digestive system.
She's happily going outside, into the drizzle, and then coming back in, and dripping on me. :)
That's good news and if Zev is anything like Princess:
Meow! Meow! Meow! It's really wet outside! Meow! I'm wet Meow! Meow!
10mins later, another excursion
Meow! Meow! Meow! It's really wet outside! Meow! I'm wet Meow! Meow!
;D
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Meow! Meow! Meow! It's really wet outside! Meow! I'm wet Meow! Meow!
10mins later, another excursion
Meow! Meow! Meow! It's really wet outside! Meow! I'm wet Meow! Meow!
That's pretty much it, only without the "Meow!", she's not a great talker. The soggy cat gets the message across theough. ;D
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Zev outdid herself last night. Near time for bed (and she tends to go to bed at the same time as me!), she turned up, it turned out with a toy, of the small rodent running about variety. I realised this when she started hurtling around the living room, and incessantly trying to get under things which she wouldn't normally care about.
Having failed to rescue it (it seemed to disappear, and neither I nor Zev seemed to be able to find it), I gave up, and hearing her depart out through the cat flap (it beeps when it reads her RFID chip on the way out), I assumed she'd found it, and was off outside to do whatever it is that cats like to do with rodents.
Of course I was wrong, as demonstrated at 4am, when she started jumping around on the bed. When I woke up and turned the light on, she was trying to get at something in the folds of the duvet, and stupidly when I moved it back, it turned out to be the aforementioned rodent, who promptly shot away. Again I attempted to find it, with various degrees of help from Zev, and failed. After an hour of this, I gave up and went back to bed, Zev having left the bedroom suggesting it may have scarpered out that way. Some hours later when I got up, she was still patrolling the bedroom, on the hunt, and indeed when I went downstairs, which is the not very subtle hint to her that I'm about to serve up her breakfast, she pretty much ignored me, and stayed in the bedroom hunting.
After I'd had my bath, she was in the bedroom going somewhat nuts, which basically meant she'd cornered it, but couldn't actually get to it. Moving the obstructing rucksack out of the way, the rodent instantly shot across and under another bag. Being ready(ish) for this, I got a suitable container and this time managed to get it over the mouse before it could move, when I picked that bag up.
A couple of minutes later, and the rodent was released into the back garden, whilst Zev happily tucked into her breakfast, having noticed that I'd dished it up for her. Food seemed to utterly distract her from the mouse, she immediately lost all interest in it!
It was quite a large mouse, compared to the tiny ones she's previously brought in. It seemed OK when I let it go, albeit not moving terribly fast, presumably due to a night spent trying to avoid Zev. It had disappeared by the time Zev had finished her breakfast, so hopefully did move a bit more rapidly to somewhere less exposed to feline hunters.
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Zev has now learnt a few interesting behaviours.
For some odd reason, she's decided that she likes the bath. This seems to be a much larger version of the cats in sinks meme! In the morning, if she's on my bed when I get up, she'll follow me to the bathroom. In the past she would just wander around the bathroom, and shove her nose into things, but now she'll also jump into the bath, and inspect that. She does tend to leave rather rapidly if I run water into it. ;D
What has particularly impressed me, is that when I come in from work on my bike, she waits at the end of the corridor until I get in, and rest the bike against the wall. Then she'll wander up to say hello. In the past she'd come straight up to me, and generally get in the way of the bike, but she's obviously worked out that it's not terribly sensible.
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Awww!
Clever kitteh is learning.
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You should clicker train her! ;)
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To do what though? I've seen people clicker train cats to go into carriers.
Maybe I should take her for walkies. :)
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She was taken to the vets today, for her 10000 mile service, and is apparently in fine health. :thumbsup:
Somewhat surprisingly, she weighs 4.5kg ...
She just had her annual checkover, and has the requisite number of paws etc.
She's now 4.75 kg, which is a bit heavier, but not enough to worry too much over yet.
I can't compare her to Kai, since I've yet to reacquire him. The downside of that, as far as Zev is concerned, is that I'll have to leave the cat flap on "Vet Mode", so she won't be able to go out, and will have to use the litter tray, when she's crossed her paws for as long as she's willing to tolerate it (it was a couple of days for Talisker!)
I did just let her out, since she was complaining to be allowed out, before I had to put her in the carrier to take to the vets. She stayed outside for all of 30 seconds, presumably not having clicked that she wasn't going to be allowed out again for a while (I'm off to work now).
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She seemed a bit ill last night, and after a brief sniff turned her nose up at her supper. Unusually, she hadn't appeared immediately on me entering the house, but took over five minutes to emerge from wherever she'd been snoozing. When I was getting and eating my tea, she curled up on the sofa, near me, but not looking terribly happy or comfortable.
Later on, she did go to the kitchen, scoffed the previously untouched supper, and then returned to the sofa, but curled up in a more normal relaxed cat fashion.
I'm not sure what the problem was. Possibly she was a bit stressed out from the visit to the Vets, and then being locked in all day, although none of that's really novel. She spent as long in her bedroom as a kitten (before she was allowed out the cat flap), and has visited the vets and cattery (next door to the vet) quite a few times previously.
Ah well, she seemed perfectly happy this morning, ate her breakfast, and disappeared out the cat flap. I had to open the cat flap for her, I'm still using it as a cat diode in an attempt to reacquire Kai.
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Shame it doesn't allow diode functionality on a per-cat basis...
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More a cat zener diode, possibly...
A large enough moggie barreling towards it fast enough may be able to overcome the reverse breakdown!
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Shame it doesn't allow diode functionality on a per-cat basis...
The newer Pet Porte design has supposedly been going to release a selective exit option for as long as I can remember (probably more than a year). You can mount two doors in a sequence to achieve this approach, but it's an expensive way of doing it, and you'd need to train the cat to go through two doors!
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The latest cat food delivery, unpacked and added to the dwindling stock. There are around 400 85g cans there, in 21 different flavours, which should keep Zev occupied for a while (and theoretically Kai, but he rarely appears for a wet cat food meal, preferring to stick to the dry food).
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Random/CatFoodDec2013_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Random/CatFoodDec2013.jpg)
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I just put a couple of photos of Zev up in the Gratuitous cat pics (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1640558#msg1640558) thread.
Zev's collar has becoming progressively more ratty, with bits of the retroreflective material falling or rubbing off, and she lost the bell a while back. I grabbed her and put on a new collar this evening, which she wasn't impressed by, as I had to fiddle with the adjustment to make sure it's tight, but not too tight.
It's unusual to actually replace a collar due to wear, I don't remember doing that before! Normally they lose them far before they're worn out!
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There's a new shot of her on the Gratuitous cat pics (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1709052#msg1709052) thread.
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The students have mostly left, and the Zev-shaped cats are prowling again. There's one that does a regular patrol of the opposite side of our road, who I watched playing an extended game of cat chess with another small cat (either black and white, or tortoiseshell and white - hard to tell under sodium light) the other night. Both look reasonably healthy from a distance, but are very wary of humans.
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Zev is still very wary of humans, other than me. If someone knocks at the door, she'll be out the cat flap in a shot! If anyone comes into the house, she'll be nowhere to be seen until well after they've left.
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Our three were probably five or six years old before they stopped the 'eek a stranger, get out of here' behaviour.
Now the two toms really like meeting people (if the big black and white can be bothered to wake up, that is).
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Just stuck my head out the window to watch the ISS pass over, and got distracted by the Zev cat followed by three smaller Zev cats fanning out across the road. I'd guess an early litter this year, by their size.
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Since we haven't had any photos for a while, here's a plethora of Zev pictures.
She's found that she likes sitting on my jeans, on the ironing board. I guess it's a nice high perch, to watch me from.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/small.php?file=IMG_20141220_043319.jpg&size=640)
Recently she has become much more the lap cat, and will often jump up onto my lap when I'm sitting down. This of course does mean that eventually I have to turf her off, since she becomes comfortable enough to spend the entire day there!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/small.php?file=IMG_20141226_164713.jpg&size=640)
Today I decieded that it was time she had a new collar, so dug one out, and put it on her, much to her chagrin. These are a few shots of her modelling it, whilst right on the very top of the remodeled Zev towers, now in the utility room looking out into the back jungle garden.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/small.php?file=IMG_20141227_103637.jpg&size=640)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/small.php?file=IMG_20141227_104732.jpg&size=640)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/small.php?file=IMG_20141227_105044.jpg&size=640)
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Zevpix! Thank you for sharing. She's HUGE and looking like she's chilling out as she leaves youth behind.
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... She's HUGE and looking like she's chilling out as she leaves youth behind.
Yes, at about 3½ years old, she's an adult cat now, no longer a young cat, and certainly not a kitten. ;D
Kim weighed her at about 640g (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=50285.msg1011316#msg1011316) when you first rescued her. She's probably close to ten times that now, she was just under 5kg last year, for her checkup.
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You have the same windows in your utility room as I have in the spare bedroom of Larrington Towers.
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevAtVets20150107_Thumb500.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevAtVets20150107.jpg)
Zev, in the waiting room at the vet, prior to her annual checkup and vaccination boosters. She's also now got a heap of flea and worm treatments, to be administered shortly.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevDrinkMilk20150107_Thumb500.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Zev/ZevDrinkMilk20150107_Thumb500.jpg)
An action shot of her, drinking cat milk on her return, in a vague, and probably vain attempt to associate a visit to the vets with being given something nice and pleasant. ;D
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I think we've got a repeat of the Retrobulbar Abscess (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=50285.msg1249376#msg1249376) incident. :(
Her eye has been weeping for a few days, she's avoiding opening it fully, and it looks like it's being pushed forward a little bit. She hasn't got to the stage that pain during eating is putting her off her food, or indeed any signs that she's not feeling happy, although which a cat, it's always hard to tell.
So, first thing tomorrow morning I'll ring up the vet, and take her straight in if possible. Hopefully we can avoid the general anaesthetic and draining this time, and just move straight onto antibiotics, drops etc.
I need to check where the cat wrapping towel is!
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The vet made a very close inspection of her, and ultimately is unsure. It could be another abscess. but it could just be bad conjunctivitis. She isn't showing any signs of a temperature or dehydration, but the eye is definitely swollen and has something wrong.
So, it's a waiting game. I've got eye drops and antibiotics to give her, and she's booked into the vet again, on Thursday, to see whether things are getting better or worse. The towel is ready, and I know that it's going to be 'fun' to administer treatment to her!
In the meantime, she's under house-arrest, so the cat flap is closed, and the litter tray has come back into full time use.
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I should probably move this thread to the "Where The Completely and Utterly Livid Things Are", since a towel wrapped Zev on my lap produces a very very unhappy cat! She's becoming more and more suspicious of me, whenever I go anywhere near her, but with some rooms closed off, she's got few places to escape to, and it only takes me a few minutes to grab her and administer drugs.
So far the scratch count is only at two, one longish but shallow one on my arm, and a deep but short one on the back of my hand.
Her eye isn't weeping much now (if at all), and she's still as active, and happily tucking into food, so I'm hoping this means it's just conjunctivitis, and no operation will be required. Nevertheless, since we're off to the vet shortly, I've had to refrain from giving her any breakfast today, just in case.
Even if the vet decides that is the case, I've still got drugs through to Saturday, so the aggravation continues!
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Poor Zev. Poor Tim.
Hope news today at vets is good.
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The vet was happy that it is 'just' conjunctivitis, although I noticed in the waiting room, and she agreed with me, that the other eye is now in worse condition. The conjunctivitis has jumped to that one too!
So, the antibiotic pills continue until the weekend, and the drops go into both eyes until I take her back, hopefully for a final check, next Tuesday.
She's just wolfed down her late breakfast, and I'm going to unblock the cat flap, and let her out. I'm allowed to let her wander about, since weeping eyes aside, she's otherwise hale and hearty.
That cost a mere £80 or so, which is just under the insurance excess, unlike the retrobulbar abscess, which went well over the excess at the first visit (£200 or so, for the operation to drain the abscess, plus later pills and drops).
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Sounds like best possible news really. Hope the drops continue to work and she doesn't hate you too much for the administering them process.
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Unblocking the cat flap was a mistake. It may have been the nice thing to do, but it made it far too easy for her to evade me, when treatment is due!
So, house arrest is back on.
She did make a very relaxed exit out the cat flap, when I arrived home. She knew she had plenty of time to easily stay out of my clutches. What she hadn't worked out, was that the cat flap can be switched into cat diode mode. It was slightly amusing, if a little sad, to see her gingerly come in, and then immediately try to go back out, bashing her head a little in the process!
So, she's had pills and eye drops again. The right eye now looks completely fine, and the left eye is a little better, but definitely not back to normal yet.
She's got two doses of oral antibiotics tomorrow, and then the pills are over, but I'll continue to do the eye drops until Tuesday, which is not going to please her, because she really really hates those. :(
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This was her, earlier this week, when her right eye was the problem. You can see that she's avoiding opening it as much as the left eye.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=512&file=IMG_20150302_150555.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150302_150555.jpg)
This was her yesterday morning, after we got back from the vets, and she got to have her breakfast (a general anaesthetic not being needed, luckily). Her left eye weeped some horrible green muck, shortly after I'd put drops in both of her eyes.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=512&file=IMG_20150305_093419.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150305_093419.jpg)
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Too many traumatic eye drops at a formative age, no doubt. :-\
Glad she's on the mend.
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Zev, prepared for pills and eye drops, wrapped in a towel!
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=512&file=IMG_20150307_100606.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150307_100606.jpg)
... and where she is now!
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=1024&file=IMG_20150307_103419_cropped.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150307_103419.jpg)
Both eyes are definitely looking a lot better today. She's favouring the right eye slightly over the left eye, but neither eye looks particularly bad. The three eye drops a day seem to be the main solution, since the second eye went bad midway through the pill treatment, but she really doesn't like drops. It can take me three goes to get one in an eye, because she'll jerk very aggressively, just as one drops.
It's the second time I've had to give her drops, and understandably she is not very keen on them. Unfortunately, since you need to drop them on the edge of the open eye, she can see them coming, so it's surprisingly hard to hold her still enough that I'm certain they're going in OK!
She's still got another three days of eye drops, but she has the last oral antibiotic dose this evening, which will makes things slightly easier for both of us. I won't have to swap things around, whilst holding her in the towel, so it'll all be over faster.
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It's a little amusing, I went back through this thread, and found this photo of Zev on Barakta's legs.
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/kitten/IMG_2965.sized.jpg)
I've got a chair, almost identical to that, and it's where she's most likely to make herself comfy on my legs! Unfortunately I don't have a photo from that perspective, since my arms aren't long enough for a selfie like that! A few posts back, you can see her on that chair, with my Megatokyo Sad Girl In Snow, blue and white blanket.
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I note the tube of eye ointment's on the arm of the chair, too. Not sure if that's a 'before' or 'after' photo.
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I note the tube of eye ointment's on the arm of the chair, too. Not sure if that's a 'before' or 'after' photo.
I didn't notice that! I don't use that chair when I'm doing her eye drops now, it's easier in a more upright chair, and she'll often sleep in the Ikea chair, so it would also be more involved. Slightly spooky synchronicity though. :)
The drops were done this morning, with only minimal aggravation. She only made a half hearted attempt to escape me, I don't think her heart was really in it, since I've blocked off any route she can use to avoid it!
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Zev was absolutely furiously livid this morning, when I gave her the eye drops. I had to pin her body down with my right arm and hold her head as firmly as I dared with my left hand, and it still took me two drops for one eye, and three for the other, before I was confident that I'd got the drops in, since she was so aggressive as she saw the drops coming!
This photo was taken before I'd started trying to do the drops, so she's merely very angry. ;D
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=512&file=IMG_20150310_074555.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150310_074555.jpg)
She's sat in the window, watching the world go by in the back garden now, but isn't very happy with me, even having scoffed down a bowl of cat milk that I gave her as a peace offering!
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=512&file=IMG_20150310_081750.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20150310_081750.jpg)
We're off to the vet in a while, and hopefully she'll be taken off the drops then, and feline life can return to normality. :)
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Want to come to Edinburgh and help me with Pete's for the rest of the week?
Seven more doses to go...
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The vet was happy with Zev, but recommended a couple more days of drops before I stop, so Zev is still stuck indoors until Thursday morning. Assuming that things are still OK then, I'll let her out and discontinue with the drops. :thumbsup:
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I think us vets tend to underestimate the trauma (to owners and cats!) of asking people to do long courses of eye drops and things like that that cats are singularly unimpressed with. Good news she's on the mend :)
(P.S. The green stuff coming out of her eye on that pic before was fluorescein dye the vet would have used to check for corneal ulceration).
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(P.S. The green stuff coming out of her eye on that pic before was fluorescein dye the vet would have used to check for corneal ulceration).
Pete had that yesterday. He looked like Steve Strange. ;D
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I think us vets tend to underestimate the trauma (to owners and cats!) of asking people to do long courses of eye drops and things like that that cats are singularly unimpressed with. ...
Whilst she's clearly not a big enthusiast, I normally give her the drops before she eats, or has some cat milk, so I think that ameliorates the overall level of of discomfort. She has the memory of a distracted goldfish, so I don't think she'll continue to be annoyed for very long, once the cat flap is open, and she's free to roam again.
... (P.S. The green stuff coming out of her eye on that pic before was fluorescein dye the vet would have used to check for corneal ulceration).
Ah, that makes sense, it was immediately after I came back from the vets, and did look rather luminously unnerving!
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For the first time ever, to my knowledge, Zev has used the heated cat bed!
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=640&file=IMG_20160310_132854.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160310_132854.jpg)
I'm not entirely sure when I got it, but it was well over five years ago, and it was very occasionally used by Talisker. Kai slept in it (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KaiInCatBed.jpg), quite a lot, when I put it in the bathroom for him, when he first arrived and hadn't been neutered. It wasn't plugged in then, no sockets in the bathroom, so Kai just used it as a comfy bed.
Zev has never seemed to be inclined to use it, preferring other locations. I just replaced a double socket in the kitchen, that was faulty, and that allowed me to plug the heated bed in, near the window, which is Zev's favourite location to be. She's up high, can look out the windows, and keep watch over the cat-flap, so it meets most of the important cat criteria!
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Aww warm kitten.
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(P.S. The green stuff coming out of her eye on that pic before was fluorescein dye the vet would have used to check for corneal ulceration).
Pete had that yesterday. He looked like Steve Strange. ;D
As long as he doesn't fade to grey.
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She's been alternating between the heated bed, and the slightly higher spot on her small climbing frame, which also has opportunities for poking your paw through a hole, and attacking dangly ball things.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=640&file=IMG_20160310_215545_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160310_215545_adj.jpg)
Possibly she'd use the heated bed more, if the weather was colder.
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Zev's a bit off colour today. She left a little bit of her supper last night, and basically didn't touch her breakfast at all this morning. :( She's also not really very active, just lying on the bed, looking a bit hard done by, although she was going outside yesterday evening.
She did drink some water, so hopefully isn't becoming too dehydrated.
I'll see what she's like tonight, and if her appetite hasn't come back, she'll be off to the vet on Tuesday morning.
I'm guessing it's either the cat equivalent of an upset stomach, or hair ball problems.
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Zev's a bit off colour today. She left a little bit of her supper last night, and basically didn't touch her breakfast at all this morning. :( She's also not really very active, just lying on the bed, looking a bit hard done by, although she was going outside yesterday evening.
She did drink some water, so hopefully isn't becoming too dehydrated.
I'll see what she's like tonight, and if her appetite hasn't come back, she'll be off to the vet on Tuesday morning.
I'm guessing it's either the cat equivalent of an upset stomach, or hair ball problems.
Milly was like this on Saturday. Then yesterday she did some rather stinky poos, then threw up twice and slept all day on the third step down from the top of the stairs. Then hey presto, today she's back to her self - she even shouted at me for not filling her food dish quickly enough.
I hope Zev gets well soon.
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Oddly enough, she'll quite happily scarf down a load of cat milk, and has eaten some food during the day, although not as much as she typically would.
I do remember a while back, she had a Retrobulbar Abscess (an abscess in the rear of the eye), which basically made it difficult for her to eat, because moving her jaw caused pain. I wonder if something similar, or a dental problem, is causing her discomfort when she's moving her jaw, rather than a lack of appetite.
Since those are things which are likely to be more easily treated, the earlier they're dealt with, she's going into the vet shortly
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Poor Zevcat, hope the vet doesn't get too gnashed in the process and is able to work out what's wrong.
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The vet went over her fairly carefully and couldn't find anything obviously wrong. She's running a slight temperature and is a little lighter than she was, but nothing to cause real concern. I opted for some blood tests, just to check up on anything else, but it may simply be that she's got a mild lurgy.
Interestingly, after barely taking a mouthful of the dried cat food that I put down for her earlier, she ate all of it when we got back home. That does lend credibility to the "slight temperature making her feel ill" theory, since the cycle trip will probably have cooled her down in the airflow.
I'll get the results of the blood tests in a couple of hours, and hopefully then it'll just be a matter of waiting things out.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=IMG_20160912_170659.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160912_170659.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=IMG_20160912_170811.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160912_170811.jpg)
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Awww Zevcat. Hope it is just mild lurg and she feels better soon.
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The vet just rang up and said that the blood tests were all fine, and from them, nothing whatsoever appears to be a problem.
It would appear it's just some sort of mild cat bug, and she'll probably back to normality in short order. :thumbsup:
Still, it's better to be safe than sorry.
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She's not entirely back to normal, but I think she's getting better.
I think she's worked out that it's more comfortable outside, where it's cooler, so very unusually wasn't asleep on my bed this morning.
She did appear for her breakfast, and ate about 2/3rds of it, which is a lot better than yesterday, when she almost immediately turned her nose up at it. She's disappeared off outside again.
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Good to read that she's feeling better.
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Good signs! :thumbsup:
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Her recovery has been intermittent, and I suddenly realised what the probable cause is; mothballs.
There's zero risk that she's actually ingested or even touched them, but I've had several packets stored in the kitchen, and just moving them is enough to cause a strong odour to be released. They are apparently very toxic to cats, not that the packet makes even the slightest reference to that, even more so than dogs and humans.
Some of the symptoms; lethargy, loss of appetite, excessive drinking, are exactly what Zev is showing. I've moved them well away from the kitchen, prior to disposing of them, and I'm waiting for the vets to open, so I can ring them up, and ask what should be done, aside from physical removal. Looking online, the description of treatment is beyond what I can understand, so I need veterinary advice, although I suspect that in this sort of case (ie not ingestion) removal of the toxin is the main thing.
Like with any poison, I was aware that handling it myself, or ingestion could be dangerous, but it never occurred to me that the vapours alone would be problematic for mammals. I also assumed that the smell would repel her from going anywhere close to them, but it didn't occur to me that the vapours alone could be an issue.
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The vet still isn't sure of the cause, but given that she's eaten poorly over the last couple of days, less than one can of cat food, when she'd normally eat two with gusto, and is showing signs of gas, she's been admitted, so she can be put on a drip and treated for indigestion.
It may simply be that, whatever the cause, she's now feeling ill, so is off her food, so feels more unwell, so doesn't eat, so feels even worse ...
Typical ill cat behaviour. :(
It could be the mothballs that caused it, or could be something that's she's eaten (mouse, frog ...)
She's probably at the vet until tomorrow, so the costs are going to roll over into the realms of a pet insurance claim (up to £200 for this treatment).
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Erk! Hope the vets can work out what's wrong or keep her going till she gets better like magic cos Cat.
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Aw, hope she's better soon.
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(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=500&file=P9130701_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9130701_crop_adj.jpg)
That was her on Tuesday evening, curled up in a slightly odd location in the back garden. When I opened the windows and took that photograph, she just looked at me, and made no attempt to get up and come inside, which is what she would almost always do.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=IMG_20160914_085634_crop.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160914_085634_crop.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=IMG_20160914_084424_adj_crop.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160914_084424_adj_crop.jpg)
... and waiting in the vet, yesterday morning. She wasn't particularly happy, even though she was the only pet in the waiting room for most of the time. She's nervous and dislikes disturbance more than any other cat I've known.
The vet rang up last night, and she was doing OK, but hadn't eaten much. That may have just been nervousness over the environment and people (nursing staff) who she doesn't know. Hopefully she's eaten something overnight, when she's been left to herself.
I'm waiting for the vet to ring me up, and tell me how she is now, and whether she'll have to stay in longer.
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Get well soon Zev.
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The nursing staff say that she ate overnight, but is not really eating today. That may just be because she's still unhappy about where she is. They're going to keep her in for another night, and if she's eaten some more, then they'll let her home.
I guess it's best to be on the safe side, rather than go over the whole process again, if she comes home too early.
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*nods* hard to know with cats what is physiological and what is psychological.
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Zev is a bit neurotic about people who are not me. She'll often sprint out the cat flap in response to the postman putting letters through the letterbox. She wil not hang about if I open the front door to someone, or even worse, if someone actually comes into the house.
I made the mistake once, of holding her when I opened the front door. I lost blood and got a few claw marks when she made it very clear that she did now want to be there.
She'll more or less tolerate the vet, but she's in a closed room with no easy escape. I also know she was feeling better on Wednesday than Monday, because it took both of us to hold her still when the vet took her temperature, which is somewhat understandable, I don't think I'd appreciate my Doctor doing that. :o ;D
I guess being in a cage, with lots of people she does not recognise, and other animals with their associated sounds and smells, must be more than a bit stressful for her.
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It took our Ginge about twenty-four hours to calm down after his recent trip to the vet and he was only there for about eight hours, not overnight.
It must be very strange and frightening for them.
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Since she's been in That London, she has only previously spent time in the vets, without me, when she was "done", and she would have been unconscious or recovering from the anaesthetic, for some of that time. :(
She has also spent some time in the cattery, although not for a couple of years, and mostly that was with Kai, so they could have spend the time glaring at each other. :)
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Not very good news from the vet, I don't think she ate yesterday during the day, which isn't unusual for a nervous cat, but she doesn't appear to have had much overnight, either.
She's suffering from diarrhoea too, so she's still on a drip.
That was just from the nursing staff, the vet should ring me up later, and give me a more detailed idea of what's happening.
Obviously, she's not coming home today.
:(
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:( Hope they work out what's wrong with her. Poor ZevCat.
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I hope she's better soon
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...
Obviously, she's not coming home today. ...
Well, I was wrong about that. She's still suffering from diarrhoea, but the vet thinks that as long as I don't mind having to potentially deal with that, she may be better off at home, where she'll be less stressed.
They do open for a few hours over the weekend, and I'll have other contact details for them, so should it be necessary I can get further advice.
:)
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Fingers crossed she feels better at home, and doesn't shit somewhere you don't notice for days.
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Oh poor Zev. Have they no idea what's up?
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She's generally a very clean cat, like most cats, so will got out of her way to only use the litter trays.
They don't really know what the problem was/is. It may simply be something that she ate, and which has upset her stomach, with the consequent positive feedback of repeated lack of appetite and increasing illness.
I put a little chicken cat food down for her, which she licked and ate a little of, before retiring to sleep.
I'm supposed to take a bandage off her leg, where the drip was, but they put it on so well, I can't find the end to unwrap it! I may have to use a pair of scissors to carefully cut it off. It's inadvisable to hold and tightly squeeze a cat, who is prone to "explosive diarrhoea", to quote the veterinary nurse! :o ;D
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Poor Zev, hope she is happier at home and soon starts to feel better and start eating food again.
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Did they not suggest you feed her on boiled chicken? That's what we were advised to do with runny bums (can't be bothered trying to spell the 'd' word). Usually works pretty well at solidifying Pumpkin after a day or two. We poach it and then whiz it up into small chunks in the food processor.
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Yes, cooked chicken and white fish are best, because they're mild foods and protein works best with the d-word. :) Carbohydrates and fats are best avoided, so no dry cat food or cat milk. I've also got some beef flavoured paste to feed her, Pro-Kolin+, which should either solve this immediate problem by Monday, or she needs to go back to the vets.
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She's been very quiet since I brought her home, not very active at all. Up to about ten minutes ago, she hadn't eaten or drunk anything significant, but I cooked some cod in the oven, and when put right in front of her, it went down a treat ! She immediately ate the small portion I gave her, and then the second, and then the third. ;D
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=400&file=IMG_20160917_140911.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20160917_140911.jpg)
I've got a little left, in the fridge (I'll warm if up before I give it to her again), but I'm going to buy some more. Cod steak probably costs about twice as much as the most expensive premium cat food, but given I've paid out almost £300 in vet bills so far, it's a minor addition, and if it works. :thumbsup:
Hopefully this means the Pro-Kolin+ is having a positive effect on her digestion. She has been using the litter trays a lot, but that's either instinct or irritation, because I don't think much is coming out, solid or liquid. The next dose is due in a few hours, and I'll be happy when she starts becoming difficult to treat. :)
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=400&file=P9170720.JPG) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9170720.JPG)
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Aww kitteh!
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Unfortunately, aside from that one bout of relatively enthusiastic eating, she has had very little to eat.
She has eaten maybe a quarter of a tin of chicken cat food (about 15g) yesterday late evening, and about the same amount of ocean fish cat food this morning. She was clearly licking up all the juice in the cat food today, but wasn't interested in any water when put near here.
It's more difficult to give her the Pro-Kolin+, and this morning she actually managed to bite the nozzle to the extent that the cap would not fit back on, until I straightened the tube out. :)
Having said that, she is not very active, aside from walking upstairs sometimes to use the cat litter tray in the bathroom, and then she seems to prefer to stay there, rather than walk back downstairs. She even curled up in the litter tray, which was a reversion to her early life with Kim and Barakta. :)
Unless something dramatic happens, I'm going to have to take her back to the vets tomorrow morning. :(
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I am not a vet but it seems she craves the fish juice; could you make her some sort of fish soup?
Hope she improves!
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When I do the boiled chicken I put a bit of the cooking liquor in when I whizz the chicken up to make it a bit moister.
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Sending healing vibes Zev's way
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I am not a vet but it seems she craves the fish juice; could you make her some sort of fish soup?
Actually, that isn't a bad idea, although I need to make a soup with essentially nothing else added, aside from fish and water. ;D
I think I can probably boil the fish, in a strainer, and then mix with some of that water. I may slightly over cook it, to make it as easy for her to eat as possible. That should produce something which has a relatively high liquid content, and which is quite smelly.
They didn't have any cod in the supermarket yesterday, but they did have Basa, and that's frequently used in the same sorts of ways as cod, with the benefit of being cheaper!
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Suspect any plain white fish is fine. Good idea re overcooking it and making it as wet as possible. Might help rehydrate her. Biting the pro-kolin might also be a slightly good sign. Keeping fingers crossed. Poor Zevcat.
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She wasn't really interested in the cooked fish at all. She has been drinking some water, so hopefully she's not too dehydrated. Mostly she's been sleeping all day, so no real difference from normality, but when she does get up, she is not moving very fast.
I had to wrap her this evening, to give her a dose of the Pro-Kolin+, which certainly means that she's not entirely without energy.
The diarrhoea hasn't noticeably stopped, but I may as well keep on giving her the Pro-Kolin+ because I've got nothing else to do at the moment. I'll ring up the vets when they open at 8am, and I'm sure they're going to want to see her, and decide what else can be done.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=350&file=P9180741_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9180741_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=350&file=P9180739_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9180739_adj.jpg)
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Aw, poor toot :(
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Poor little lumpkin.
Coley/pollock is a cheap alternative to cod - you can buy bags of "frozen white fish" from the supermarket and this is usually what is in it. I used to take a lump out and nuke it up to temperature when Emmie was terminal and would only eat fish.
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I just gave her the last of the Pro-Kolin+, and tried her on the Basa that I cooked earlier, and which she wasn't interested in. She promptly scoffed all of it down ! The first half she ate and licked the bowl clean, with the second half she wasn't interested in eating every little speck, but that's about as much as she'd normally eat in one meal, so I'm not complaining if she felt full.
I think she still needs to go to the vet tomorrow morning, but that's definitely a good sign.
I'm not sure I want to make a habit of feeding her at midnight. ;D
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I woke up at about 6-20am and she promptly decided to have a "normal" wash, not just cleaning her rear end (which she's been doing, probably due to irritation from loose stool). That's a very early morning Zev thing to do, so I wondered how enthusiastic she was about eating. I gave her half a can of chicken cat food, and that disappeared in short order. She almost ate all of the remainder of the tin, so about 45-50g in total (vs 70g of contents).
That's the first time she's eaten two reasonably sized meals, a sensible time apart, probably in almost a week! It was still breakfast in bed, she didn't follow me downstairs in search of food, I quite literally had to put it right in front of her.
Hopefully that means her digestive system is working more normally, and she's on the road back to recovery. ;D
I'm probably still going to take her into the vets, and let them check her over, and see what they think.
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Good news that they is an improvement.
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I talked to the receptionists at the surgery, and she said that she would pass the information onto one of the vets, and see what they thought, but it was likely that if she was eating OK, they wouldn't need to see her, and it was probably better for her stress levels to not travel, which is very true. :)
I just cooked some more basa for her, and she ate almost all of it, in a few minutes.
Before : (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=250&file=P9190780_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9190780_adj.jpg) After : (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=250&file=P9190793_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9190793_adj.jpg)
Video : (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=250&file=P9190785_crop_adj.jpg) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STmv5ICe6DM)
She seems a bit more active and comfortable now, even to the extent of being annoyed by things she sees in the back garden !
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=350&file=P9190753_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9190753_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=350&file=P9190797.JPG) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9190797.JPG)
She's had a meal at midnight, for breakfast and lunch, as well as a brief afternoon snack (about 1/3rd of a can of fish cat food).
Clearly she is feeling a lot better, which is not to say that I'm about to let her outside, yet !
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Aw, I'm glad she's on the mend.
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Yay for getting-better-Zev! Hope she continues to improve. Do cats like salmon oil? We give it to Tilley and she wolfs down anything slathered in it. It's really good for her, too.
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\0/ \0/. Great news.
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I've been catching up on the saga of Zev due to being in ABROAD, but good to hear she's on the mend.
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Baggins and Alfie send their regards! (and according to Baggins, the ghost of Squidget, who lives halfway up the stairs.) This last bit freaks me out, as I am utterly sure there are no such thing as ghosts, but Baggins, who desperately missed Squidget when he died at least 10 years ago, persistently looks for him in his usual resting spot halfway up the stairs, and seems to hold a conversation with him. So, that's best wishes from 3 cats, apparently, so Zev had better complete his recovery, or I've got some explaining to do.
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... Do cats like salmon oil? We give it to Tilley and she wolfs down anything slathered in it. It's really good for her, too.
I'm not sure how good it is for cats. Dogs are much more omnivorous than cats, who are definitely obligatory carnivores. Generally most of a cat's diet should be protein, and to help her digestive system I actively avoided fat and carbohydrates. She certainly had some oil, because when I cooked the chicken and dish in the oven, I used a little on it.
I'm sure she would eat it, because cats generally like fatty and oily items, it seems to be their equivalent of "sweet and bad for you". ;D
(Which is why they like cheese, cream, milk, and dairy spreads, even though some cats will get ill from the lactose content).
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Bad Cat will eat any unattended poppadoms. Thieving little shit. They'll drink the juice from tinned salmon or tuna with great relish. Both cats will do anything for tinned tuna (oddly, they're not nearly so interested in fresh tuna, or fresh fish in general) especially Bad Cat who can hear me open a can no matter where we she lurking. She's nonplussed when it turns out to be a tin of sweetcorn. Because I cover the remains the juice with cling film so they don't slurp it all in go, she also goes mental when I get out the film dispenser. I'm wrapping half an onion, you furry little doofus.
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... especially Bad Cat who can hear me open a can no matter where we she lurking. ...
Talisker's Hamdar could hear the fridge door being opened, so I could make sandwiches (generally with ham, corned beef or cheese), at a thousand paces. ;D
Zev followed me down to the kitchen this morning, and waited for me to serve up her breakfast, which she then ate 95% of. She hasn't done that for almost a week, so I think she's well on the way back to normality.
I'll probably wait a couple of days before unblocking the cat flap, just to make sure everything is working exactly as it is expected to.
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The Dog can hear me pulling the plastic lid off a pot of yoghurt from the other end of the house.
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Pete, who sleeps through fireworks, can hear me open the cupboard when he's in my neighbour's flat.
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Bad Cat will eat any unattended poppadoms. Thieving little shit.
One of my parents' cats did that. Well, the thieving part anyway. She'd drag them off behind some item of furniture and lick them until they were thoroughly floppy, and then wander off. Similar policy applied to bacon.
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Pete, who sleeps through fireworks, can hear me open the cupboard when he's in my neighbour's flat.
As someone who sleeps through emergency vehicles' sirens, car alarms, shouty drunk people and many forms of builder noise, but wakes instantly at the sound of computer fans spinning down, that seems entirely reasonable.
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Bad Cat will eat any unattended poppadoms. Thieving little shit.
One of my parents' cats did that. Well, the thieving part anyway. She'd drag them off behind some item of furniture and lick them until they were thoroughly floppy, and then wander off. Similar policy applied to bacon.
She'll grab them and run off, trying (and failing to) dispose of the evidence of her crime as she goes. No good for hiding, as I can follow the trail of broken poppadom to wherever she's trying to complete her dire deed. Plus the crunching loudly announces her malfeasance. Not sure why she's so mad on poppadoms, she not very good at eating them, but gets points for trying. Top 10 foods seem to be
1. Tuna
2. Tuna
3. Tuna
4. Tuna
5. Tuna
6. Tuna
7. Tuna
8. Tuna
9. Rannock's Smoked Chicken Breast
10. Poppadoms
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I suppose it's the fat in the poppadoms that makes them attractive to cats.
Theoretically cats dislike citrus, and generally Zev will wrinkle her nose at any citrus smell, like orange juice. Once I dropped the greasy piece of paper off of the bottom of a lemon sponge cake, and Zev licked it absolutely clean of any cake crumbs. I presume the greasiness won out over the lemon-ness !
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I suppose it's the fat in the poppadoms that makes them attractive to cats.
I'm fairly sure that's how they work for humans, too, given how sensitive poppadoms are to oil quality and cooking temperature.
(True story: Friend's well-meaning parent once cooked some in old chip oil in a deep fat fryer. :sick:)
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She doesn't seem so keen on onion bhajis though. Leastways, she's never nicked one. Opportunity is the great seductress so I keep my bhajis under close scrutiny.
I omitted cheese from my list, both Bad Cat and Little Monster Cat do like cheese though eating it involves a diabolical symphony of disgusting noises as they try and get it off the top of their mouths (especially LMC as she has no teeth). I have to be careful, unattended blocks of cheese tend to get licked. As I – like any cat owner – knows too well where else their tongues have been, this is never a good development.
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I have to eject Ninkasi from the kitchen before grating cheese.
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She doesn't seem so keen on onion bhajis though. Leastways, she's never nicked one. Opportunity is the great seductress so I keep my bhajis under close scrutiny. ...
... and considering that onions are poisonous to cats, I'd make damn sure that she doesn't manage to eat one.
... I omitted cheese from my list, both Bad Cat and Little Monster Cat do like cheese ...
I've yet to find a cat that doesn't like cheese. Certainly Talisker, Zev and Kai have shown a keen interest. I used to get squirty cheese for Talisker, he'd get five licks of a squirt off of each fingers, because then I had to go and wash that hand. :)
I lost quite a bit of a chunk of cheddar to Zev and Kai on one occasion. I briefly left it on the worktop, and came back to find it on the kitchen floor, substantially smaller than it had been !
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... I omitted cheese from my list, both Bad Cat and Little Monster Cat do like cheese ...
I've yet to find a cat that doesn't like cheese.
Ethel-the-Toothless is not particularly impressed with it. Fish, especially kippers, are good. As is sitting with us at the dining table on a spare chair, waiting patiently for us to finish eating and then being allowed a lick of gravy.
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Zev is generally looking and behaving a lot more positively now.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=P9200888_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9200888_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=P9210909_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9210909_crop_adj.jpg)
If she continues in much the same manner, I'll open up the cat flap tomorrow morning, and let her into the outside world again. :)
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Zev is generally looking and behaving a lot more positively now.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=300&file=P9200888_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9200888_crop_adj.jpg)
She looks like she wants to kill you!
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She looks like she wants to kill you!
Isn't that what cats do, plan world domination, and how to dispose of their owners ? (once they've evolved opposable thumbs, so they can use a can opener)
(http://a2.files.blazepress.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI4OTkzMDQ1NTA4MTI0NjQy.jpg) (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tell-Your-Plotting-Kill-Oatmeal/dp/1449410243)
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I've replaced the previous climbing frame (seen here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=50285.msg2002180#msg2002180)) with some bits of the more substantial cat tree, which was meant to go between the floor and ceiling, so I've had to rearrange things quite a bit. She now has several high level spots to chose from, as well as an enclosed area, fluffy base and plenty of scratching posts
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=480&file=P9190823_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P9190823_crop_adj.jpg)
She hasn't investigated it yet, but I suspect she'll manage to find somewhere that's she's comfortable with. She's happily used it in various previous configurations and locations.
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I haven't updated this for a while, so here are a few photographs.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/vsmall.php?size=350&file=IMG_20200326_093922_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20200326_093922_crop_adj.jpg)
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/vsmall.php?size=350&file=IMG_20200326_093851_rot_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20200326_093851_rot_crop_adj.jpg)
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/vsmall.php?size=350&file=IMG_20200326_102830_rot_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20200326_102830_rot_crop_adj.jpg)
As you can see, she still has the same frame, because it works well and she uses all of the locations to sleep, depending on how the mood takes her and the ambient temperature. Most of the scratching posts get used too, although the longest section is her favourite, but still has a good bit of wear in it.
Zev is also especially happy with the new 24-hour concierge service!
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Awww Zevcat!
A lot of my cat slave friends are saying how pleased The Cat(s) are about having slave at home all day.
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Zev's booked in, for a social distanced (for me!) visit to the vets, later this afternoon.
Since yesterday's supper, she's been eating very slowly. She still seems to have an appetite, but a meal gets eaten in 4 or more attempts, which is unlike her normal ability to eat her breakfast before I've managed to make a cup of coffee, let alone drink it!
It reminds me a lot of the retrobulbar abscess (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=50285.msg1249376#msg1249376) she had, eight years ago. I haven't had a chance to pick her up, and inspect her carefully, although I doubt I'd learn anything useful, so that's probably best left to the vet.
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Erk. Fingers crossed she's okay.
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Other than slowly eating, she seems to be fine. With the weekend approaching, I thought it was better to get her to the vet asap, rather than crossing my fingers and hoping she gets better.
When cats get ill, they rarely seem to show it obviously, so by the time we notice it they're often suffering more than would be ideal. :(
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I took Zev to the vets, where she was inspected very thoroughly. Aside from a slightly elevated temperature, there's nothing clearly wrong with her. The vet gave her an injection to lower her temperature, and told me to bring her back in again tomorrow, so she can check her over again and see if things have changed.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/vsmall.php?vsize=300&file=IMG_20200820_164243_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/IMG_20200820_164243_crop_adj.jpg)
After getting home, I gave her some supper, and she inhaled it, so either the injection worked wonders remarkably fast, or whatever the problem was, it's just naturally going away! 🙂
She is also on lock-down, for a day or two!
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Glad the vet is taking things seriously and Zev is feeling up to her usual food inhalation state today.
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Hope she remains in her perky state :)