blogcutter

When my mother-in-law died three months ago, she left behind two thirteen-year-old cats, who had been her sole live-in companions for the last eight years of her life. It didn't seem right to take them to a shelter. We seemed to be in the best position to adopt them, although we already had a cat in residence (see my post of two summers ago, "A funny thing happened on the way home from cat sitting"). So adopt them we did. The venture has not been has not been without its challenges, however.

The first step was to ensure that neither of them had any contagious diseases that might be passed on to Reigning Cat. That meant taking both of them to our vet for a once-over.

One of them is a spayed female, severely overweight. Let's call her Queen Victoria, the snow queen. The other was an un-neutered male, also somewhat overweight. Let's call him Uncle Albert. Those aren't their real names, but Eliot said something along the lines of every cat needing at least three names. Both are big white fluffy long-haired cats which at least initially, I had trouble telling apart.

Their check-up was on Friday, June 19. Somehow we managed to wrestle both of them into their (separate) carriers and transport them to the vet. Albert yowled and panted all the way. Victoria seemed quietly resigned and settled down for a little catnap in her carrier.

First step was weigh-in. We decided to start with Victoria, since she seemed calmer. We opened the door to the carrier. She moved farther back in it. The veterinary technician tipped the carrier and Victoria dug in her heels - all four of them. The technician suggested one of us should get her out and since my partner was busy trying to get Albert a bit calmer, I volunteered.

Now, Victoria, unlike Albert, is usually super-affectionate with people. You start petting her and she nuzzles and rubs around you and purrs loudly. Should be easy to get her out of a carrier, right?

Wrong! I reached in and the moment I tried to gently extricate the cat, she bit down on my hand. Hard. Blood flowed. A little more freely than it might for most people, since I'm on anti-inflammatories for my arthritis. The technician was alarmed and decided to weigh the cat inside the carrier and weigh the carrier alone once the vet had managed to get her out. Ditto for Albert.

Once we got into the vet's examining room, the vet informed me that by law, since the bite had occurred on their premises, they had had to file a report with Ottawa Public Health. Moreover, she said, I needed to get that bite of mine looked at by a doctor (the kind that treats humans). Today.

Did I mention that both cats have been indoor cats their whole lives (or at least since they were adopted by my in-laws) so it was highly unlikely they could have rabies, even if their shots were not up to date?

Anyway, both cats eventually got examined and vaccinated, although doing Albert was a two-person job - our vet got one of her interns to put a towel over his face (Albert's face, that is) and murmur sweet nothings to him while she completed the necessary procedures. We're so sorry, Uncle Albert!

Victoria had one of the particularly matted bits of her coat cut - it has since grown back and she actually has quite a luxuriant coat now. Albert was given a neuter-and-dentistry appointment for July 2 (they couldn't admit him before that as they had to allow time for the vaccinations to take effect).

Once we had taken them back to my late mother-in-law's house, we went to an Appletree Clinic near our place. It was closed for the weekend. Next, we drove to the one in the Loblaws where we usually shop. It was just closing, but unlike the Appletree one, it's open Saturdays between 9 and 1.

So the next morning we went back there, even though I really wanted to go to the Friends of the Experimental Farm book sale (we did go there after I was finished). By then, the "wound" was barely noticeable. The doctor raised his eyebrows a little when I told him what had happened. He didn't seem too concerned but wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic, which he said I might not need, but if the injury swelled up or started oozing later, I could get filled.

Over a month later, the prescription still sits unfilled in my wallet. Maybe I should get it framed.

STAY TUNED .... for the next exciting episode of Old Blogcutter's Blog of Impractical Cats!

About nine or ten years ago, I decided to become a life member of the Ottawa Humane Society. I liked the fact that they were offering this option (which seems to be becoming increasingly rare) and at a price I considered reasonable. And I'm a life-long felinophile (though currently catless).

Since then, I've donated a few times. For example, I knew that their old shelter was cramped and lacking in modern amenities, so I donated towards the building of a new shelter (which I have yet to go and see). And I'm sure they still are doing some great work in terms of animal welfare. On the other paw, there have been some cases in the last few years which have led me to be a bit leery of contributing further to their operations.

Recently, a Barrhaven woman was charged with cruelty-to- or neglect-of-animal because her 12-year-old cat, Napoleon, was severely overweight and apparently could not even stand properly or groom himself. She has my sympathies. After all, animal welfare organizations are quick to tell us that we should spay or neuter our pets and keep them indoors, or outdoors under strict supervision. And that in itself is likely to make the animals less active and overweight, especially in their senior years. In the news articles about Napoleon-and-human companion, it was mentioned that Napoleon had been under a vet's care, but Ms. Caregiver had ignored the vet's instructions. Had she really been ignoring the vet, or was it just a matter of Napoleon having ideas of his own about what he would or wouldn't eat? Or perhaps Napoleon's excess weight was in fact the SYMPTOM of an underlying medical condition - an underactive thyroid, for example - rather than the result of Ms. Human's disobedience with regard to the vet's instructions?

Cats are notoriously picky eaters. If they turn up their noses at that healthy, low-cal dish of catfood that you've lovingly set before them, or if they decide that they're going to do their own scavenging for higher-calorie, less-healthy meals of spiders, frogs, household mice and backyard birds, there's very little that's going to change their minds! And if the Humane Society was so concerned for the cat's life, surely it could have found a better alternative than to "euthanize" the animal. Not that I believe euthanasia is necessarily a mistake when the animal is genuinely suffering and there are few options for alternate treatment. But I can't help feeling there might have been other reasonable possibilities for Napoleon's care. Assuming his condition was not contagious, perhaps he could have been housed with another cat. Mutual grooming would have ensued and perhaps the two cats would have started chasing each other around their living quarters, playing together, and resulting in a weight loss for poor Napoleon.

Another case, this some years ago now, involved a dog that was tied up in a back stairwell of an apartment building. The Ottawa Humane Society seemed to think this was a case of animal abuse. Personally, I thought it was probably a matter of someone having found the animal at large, but was unable for whatever reason (maybe he lived in an apartment that didn't allow pets, maybe her parents had forbidden her to keep a pet or the family had allergies) and the dog-finder was going to get help. I would think we should have been far more worried that maybe the human going for help had met with foul play and perhaps was lying dead or incapacitated out in the snow! But admittedly, I don't know if that's what actually happened.

There are a few other issues with regard to animal welfare that I'd like to address in my blog at some point. For example, some organizations claim to be "no-kill" shelters. But what does that really mean? I think euthanasia is a viable option in certain circumstances; sometimes perhaps we allow our pets to die with greater dignity than we do our human family.

Also, there was a demonstration by some Quebec-based shelter workers recently against the use of gas chambers for killing unwanted animals. I'm very much on their side. I remember some twenty years ago seeing a segment on TV about an animal shelter in the province of Quebec (perhaps in the Montreal area?) which made use of this kind of animal holocaust. It was horrendous! Just as we've largely eliminated the hangman's noose or the electric chair in favour of lethal injection for humans (in countries that still have the death penalty) so I believe that this is the best option for putting down a non-human animal.

Recently, the Parliament Hill cat sanctuary closed. There is an art exhibit at the Orange Gallery in Parkdale Market which has some paintings of the cats there. I'd like to believe the claims that the closing of the sanctuary is a good-news story, that it means the facility is no longer needed. But frankly, I'm sceptical. I think there will always be feral cats which are not really adoptable and need something like we had on Parliament Hill. But time will tell, I guess.