Cats

I spotted this NPR story this morning, and just had to forward it to some other cat lovers.

After hosting a somewhat troublesome older cat last week, in foster care awaiting dental work before being put out for re-adoption, it was comforting to read something showing that our time with Amos was not anywhere near that difficult. He actually warmed up to us fairly well, but only when our permanent house felines were not in sight. At least the later have become fairly tolerant of guest furballs.

 

@ Lord Bigglesworth....
Easy fix.
Get him "fixed."

I'm more of a cat person than a dog person.
It's a defect in my personality that I've grown comfortable with, and unapologetic for.
We've gone from a two-cat, one dog family to a one dog family......that being my CFO's Yorkie, which for all of her faults is nearly 'cat-like' in her ease of ownership.

Since we live in town now, I'm likely to remain feline-free for the foreseeable future.
My CFO will not deal with a litter box, and I do not at all believe that cats ought to be allowed to roam free in city neighborhoods.....so much so that I've bought several large rat-sized glue traps (stage-1 intervention) a cage trap (stage-2) and a .25 caliber pellet rifle (stage-3.)
When I first moved into the neighborhood we had a severe overpopulation problem with non-domesticated felines.
This condition has since been remedied with only one wizened old tom requiring me to escalate beyond stage-2.

I do have had a bit of an ethical problem with live-trapping.
Our shelter, unlike our state prisons, is very effective at acquiring and dispensing lethal agents to euthanize undesirables.
This means that an un-collared, unfriendly feline dropped off at the county humane[sic] center is done so at direct peril to all nine of its lives.
So......
I have employed several means to salve my conscience.
Some I have transported to counties with no-kill shelters, and others I have donated to rural cat ladies after a reduced-fee testiclectomy.

In some nations, non-domesticated strays are live-caught and "fixed" by dot.gov. and re-released, but at least one nation employing this solution is teetering on the brink on insolvency - so it's just one more of the many problems that will require out-of-the-box thinking.
As for me, I think that stray urban cats should be euthanized if this is the last available option.
The alternative would be for them to continue to decimate local wildlife, and even pose problems for people, pets, property, etc.

It may seem like a cruel choice, but if I've learned anything from being a cat person......I think that the cats, being cats, would understand.

 

This is an old thread. But came across by chance. The photo of Mr. Biggles in the original NPR article reminded me of a black domestic short hair cat who lived with us for the last 6 years. He was caught as a kitten in one of the traps for the TNR (Trap Neuter Release) effort along with his Siamese sister. He was still young enough to be adaptable, so we kept him after neutering. But as with his sister, we could not find any adopter, and he and his sister were the very first rescued cats that we ended up keeping. At that time we already had five house cats living with us. And over the years, we have increased that number to a total of 11 cats.

Even though he was caught as a kitten, being born feral, he never developed cuddliness traits. Except when he was very young, he mostly shied away from our contact. No petting, no touching, no cuddling. But he was trusting of our presence such that he would come to us when called but still keeping a safe distance and was mostly relaxed around us as long as we don't try to catch him. In the 6 years being with us, he was caught only twice for forceful hygene grooming purposes. Aside from the very initial vet visit for neutering, he has been a completely vet-free, healthy, and powerful feline.

My DW who takes care of all of our cats noticed that he has not been eating much lately, and has not been very active. Mostly hiding under the couch and sleeping all day. That was just a few weeks ago. Last week, we finally decided to capture him and take him to a vet. He put out some fight but was not too difficult to capture. We could not get a vet appointment right away and waited a few days while keeping him in a crate. He cried most of the day demanding to be released. That was early last week. Even during a few days in captivity, he was not eating and was extremely lethergic. On Thursday, he was taken to a vet appointment, and with some in-house testing, a preliminary diagnosis of leukemia was revealed. Since there was really nothing they can do at that time, he was released back to us. The following day (last Friday), the confirmatory lab test for the Feline Leukemia Virus came back to be negative.

Despite the prescribed medication, his condition got worse rapidly. Despite my DW's several days of sleepless TLC, he died in her arm yesterday. And we just received the result of the biopsy from our vet. FeLV negative acute myeloid leukemia (AML), erythroleukemia, inflammation, and lymphocytosis. The lab finding of marked nonregenerative anemia with an inappropriate increase in nRBCs, evidence of erythrodysplasia, and 21% circulating rubriblasts. From my reading AML in the absence of FeLV is rare, but has been reported with a very poor prognosis. Even if caught earlier, chemotherapy would be the only treatment available with not much increase in life expectancy. The only thing we could have done would be to put him to sleep quicker. But, well, after over $1,000 vet bill, he now RIP.

Despite all of this, I am sure if my DW sees the listing for Mr. Biggles on her FB, I am almost certain she would adopt him in a heartbeat.

 

I generally do nothing with the non-domesticated cats in the neighborhood. I don't antagonize them, I don't feed them. Sometimes I will skritch one if it is willing to get that close. I don't collect them for shelters unless one expresses to me an interest in going straight.

Two have done so.

The first time, I heard a yowling in the back yard, stepped out my back door, and one of the local black roaming ones (there were a bunch, seemingly related) made a beeline across the yard for me and climbed me. Not any roaming-cat behavior I was accustomed to. I looked up the no-kill shelter in the next county and it wasn't open yet, so he hung out with me reading (well, I was reading) until noon.

The crate in the car did not please him, but when we got there he went in the office calmly perched on my shoulder, and sat there while getting his obligatory jabs and while I paid his surgery bill. The woman doing the intake was sure that with his personality, they weren't going to have any trouble adopting him out.

The other was a gray one that came over to the car as we were parking in the street. Same kind of a story.

 

Even cats who are notoriously grumpy tend to like me.

The only exception was the cat of my friends Neil and Dinah. They went on holiday, and I went to their apartment every day to feed the cat. He was a miserable b----d. He'd attack me when I came into the apartment, then go off and sulk while I put food in his bowl, and wouldn't appear again, except maybe to hiss at me, until I left. He was thoroughly unpleasant.

When they left Hong Kong, they took him with them to New York, where he was apparently just as horrible.

He's really the only cat I can think of that I haven't got on with. My daughter has a friend whose cat is really standoffish and grumpy, but who always comes up to play with me whenever I go to their house.

----

We adopted my cat when he was about four years old - his previous owners moved into an apartment that didn't allow pets, so they advertised him on the Internet.

He's the calmest, friendliest, happiest cat one could ever hope to meet. In summer, when our doors are all open, he hangs out in the sun in the garden, but comes into my office about once an hour, just to say hello and check I'm OK. If either of the kids are feeling miserable, he will go and find them to cheer them up. He's just a pleasure to be around.

This winter has been bitterly cold by Sydney standards, and we bought a couple of electric throw blankets for the sofa. He's taken to coming into my office to ask me to turn the blanket on for him.

 

Different cat.

That was the dearly-departed Yoda. He died last year. We got him in Hong Kong, and took him to Shanghai with us. He was a HK village cat - they have short tails and a life expectancy of about eight years. He was nearly eight when we moved from Shanghai to Sydney, and I didn't want to put him through Australia's six-month quarantine just for him to live a couple more months, and he liked all my staff in Shanghai, so we thought the best thing for him was to stay in the office (which has an attached apartment for the Shanghai manager) in Shanghai. He lived, unexpectedly, for another 13 years. He really seemed very happy living in that office.

Anyway, when we lived in HK, we would take him to the vet for check-ups. While most cats would howl and moan, he'd get in his basket quite happily. At the vet, he would jump out of his basket onto the table and .... ummm .... present himself to have his temperature taken. He loved it. As soon as the thermometer was inserted, he'd start purring.

 

My boy cat has a broken meower. I'm wondering if it is a possible side effect of being fixed.

 

help yourselves:

40835502

 

Immunity to catnip seems fairly common. Pocket (the current cat in Sydney), loves it. Yoda (the HK/Shanghai cat) did not even notice it. He was more of a thermometer guy.

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Playing fetch is cool. I've never heard of that before.

 

Hmmmm.... Can't see anything on Google.

Pocket is neutered and he is very vocal. He "speaks" in full sentences, and clearly expects me to understand.

 

See also incompletely-educated young squirrel.

 

Evolving a specific ability to make a noise that says "mmm....this is nice" is a very cool thing.

----

I was listening to a science podcast the other week that mentioned that bats also purr. I did not know this, but it is also cool.

Perhaps this is why there was an attraction between Batman and Catwoman.

 

There we go. He's just done it again.

 

I hope my DW doesn't see this news. LOL
She has been thinking to rescue the 4,000 beagles ever since that news broke out.
https://www.humanesociety.org/4000beagles

As much as I like cats, in many ways, dogs are more useful than cats... but we really don't need (or can't afford) to have any more pets.

 

Beagles are especially useful if you can't remember where you left your recreational drugs.