Life sucks ...

Poor Whippety Dog. Fireworks really do have a bad effect on some animals.

The cats aren't too bad so long as they aren't too close to the house (that'll be next week), but my mum's cat Maxine used to be terrified of them. I was housesitting once and she was just running round the room panting. I ended up making a tent out of a blanket and an armchair for her, which seemed to be some help.

Shadow Leader has serious problems in her neighbourhood and her dogs are badly affected, I believe.

How are the dogs coping, Shadow?

PS Moehat, didn't realise that sight hounds enjoyed TV. Quite logical now I think about it!
 
I did have a serious problem in my neighbourhood, redhead (so bad that I wrote to the local MP) but I moved a year ago. Fingers crossed I've not heard any yet around here this year but I still gave the mutt valerian on Friday/Saturday night. I'll do the same next Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun and hope she's drugged up enough not to be bothered! There's a big firework display in the next village along on Sunday so she can have a double dose then - along with the nags!

The only fireworks I've heard so far this year were when I went Abingdon hospital on Friday night to have my head put back together after one of the horses split it open...!
 
We can expect the blurry iriots to start any time now, I imagine, through the hours of the night here. There was just one BANG! last night, around 2.30 a.m., but the fools know no bounds - the flashbangs will start going off a bit before and then for a good week after the 5th. The poor old seagulls go up in their hundreds, screeching their heads off, and I daresay that thousands of people across the city have their night's sleep interrupted, if not ruined. For any animals, especially outdoors, it's a wretched time of year.

Shadz: was it that squirly filly again??
 
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I used to dread fireworks night/week with our old dog (golden retriever) he was so petrified that we had to put him in the loo (internal with no external windows!) and if we needed to use it he would growl from behind the bowl.

Three years on and we have a new puppy (choc lab - 9months old) and there has been a smattering of explosions just loud enough for us to start to worry but he is currnetly spaced out on the floor oblivious! I hope it stays that way.

He wasnt too bad during notting Hill Carnival - but that was just continuous noise and hovvering helicopters.
 
Ouch, poor Shadow. Not too horrendous and hope you're feeling better today and heal quickly.

Still, one good thing - no vet's fees! :p

When the scabs start coming off, feed the scar with E45 as recommended by our facial surgeons (unless the damage is in your hair) it keeps the skin supple and provides it with vitamin E to help healing. Failing which, I found aloe vera gel to work wonders on Dougal.
 
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I use Vitamin E oil straight on cuts, scabs, scratches, dryness, etc. Have done for decades since an American friend showed me her beautifully smooth skin when she was then in her fifties. I wish I'd remember to smooth it in all over all the time, because when I'm not, Lizard Woman is the result!
 
Ive started using vitamin E oil as moisturiser - so far its fabulous. Its got apricot,almond and some other things in it as well,and it smells like marzipan (which I hate!) but once I got over that, and the shock of how greasy it makes me look while it sinks in, my skin is definately nicer than it was. sorted out all sorts of scrapes and bumps too - and im still only about a centimetre down the bottle !! (cos me £6.60 for 150-200mls, about a month ago and its hardly dented the amount!!)
 
Cheers redhead, I've got some E45 somewhere. It's really sore today and I managed to open the wound again when trying to replace the manky steri-strips with new, clean ones - so much for the glue they used to glue the cut together!

No Kri, wsn't the squirly filly - it was the good old boy Monty. In his defence, he was rushed from behind by a filly wanting to steal his dinner - in shooting forward to run away he caught me. Lots of blood really doesn't say it.
 
I've been quite envious reading about everyones cats on this thread, being now catless, but I've been given the task of looking after someones five cats this weekend and next when they go away. They're all a bit feral and have to be fed twice a day and the list of instructions goes into two pages! I'm really looking forward to it.
 
Just caught up with this - Shadz, you are one tough wee bugger! Full of metal, regularly blatted, refuses to go down! Hope that the split's mending much better now.
 
Just had a phonecall from my nan to say she had to have one of her cats put down yesterday :( which was actually my cat when I lived at home before heading off to uni and the big wide world. She had a phone call from a neighbour at about 8pm to say someone on the local caravan park had called them about a ginger and white cat by the side of the road (neighbours have lots of cats) and was our old boy around. He wasn't so off they went and sad to say it was him apparently just curled up in the grass verge.

Managed to get him to a vet, who patched him up overnight with pain killers, antibiotics, fluids etc. Apprently when he was reassesed in the morning they found his jaw was broken in several places and there was a huge hole in the back of his mouth with something lodged in there that they couldn't actually see what it was. In order to investigate they'd have had to operate and he'd have to been tube fed during recovery and possibly permenantly :( and with the huge cost that would've involved alongside his age (15) the kindest thing was to let him go. Surprisingly despite where he was found the vets didn't seem the think he'd been run over as didn't have any of the usual damange to claws etc that you'd normally see with an RTA and though it's be more likely that he'd fallen from somewhere high up and landed face first :(.

Have to say a massive thank you to the neighbours though as they don't have the best reputation in the village but they went out of their way to ring round and find a vet that was open and take nan and Felix to the vets once they found one (I live about 150 miles away and my dad's away on holiday -typical as my stepmum's a receptionist in a vets) which was 20 miles away.

So, feeling very sad now as I'm off home for a visit next week and my little marmalade friend won't be there to sit on my lap while I have coffee in the mornings :(
 
Oh, how sad, Imagine. It always hurts to lose an old friend.

I'm glad your nan found him before the end though. It would have been even worse to be wondering where he was and never finding out. At least he had a friend with him.

How kind of your nan's neighbours. People can surprise you, can't they?
 
Having given him a deflea-ing potion this afternoon, I have just walked back into the sitting room after a bath and Dougal has just taken one look at me and fled for the catflap. I still have to apply some aloe vera and give him his pill later.

Why does trying to be good hurt so much? I really hate the fear in his eyes whenever I approach him some days.
 
imagine; you're right about the pain of a pet disappearing; my first cat that I had after I left home disappeared and it was awful....[we did find him again many years later but I won't bore you with the details] and my daughters pony disappeared one day along with another pony that some people had been looking at the day before with a view to buying;hours later we found both of them in a stable full of hay..they'd got in and the door had closed behing them; neither of them made a sound. We said there and then that nothing that happened to her in the future would be as bad as not knowing where she was and what was happening to her. Also remember me and my daughter crying all night when Nelly, our little burmese cat was knocked down and killed on the road.She wasa 'house cat' but had somehow got out for the first time ever. So sorry about Felix.
 
Imagine - so sorry about the loss of your old cat. But as said, at least you found him and he ended in a warm safe place, not all alone and cold and hurt.

When cats fall they often break the roof of their mouths, it has happened to those falling out of windows. Hard to understand what happened to your guy, but so sad.

Moe, hope you enjoyed your catsitting! Sounded like fun. Mine are semi ferals too and I feel sorry for our cat sitter. She has to coax them out from under bed to feed them and then make sure they are all sighted.

Now that winter has set in I'm seeing a few cats and dogs wandering out all day and night. There are a few abandoned around here. Very sad and makes me so angry. One is a black and white Tom cat that fights with ours and bit through our black females leg. i want to smack him one, but he is thin, dirty, straggly looking and wet. Probably needs a good supper. No doubt he will get one eventually once I can get his trust.
 
Another day to go and then next weekend. So much for the list of instuctions as to where to feed them. They all line up in the kitchen saying, hello, have you come to feed us again, we love you.where do you want us to stand! Mind you, I have been taking them cooked chicken. There's one, a beautiful long haired ginger tom called Teddy who won't come near me..don't think I've ever known a more nervous cat. Determined to get him to take some food from my hand. I was talking to someone about dogs and fireworks the other day, and he said his mum always gave their dog an aspirin mixed in milk on bonfire night. I wouldn't recommend it and I'm certainly not going to try it on my dog..can't think how an aspirin could have any effect [unless the fireworks gave it a headache].
 
Isi: the b&w - is he new to you? Just wondering if he's a runaway during Fireworks Night, who's disoriented and too frightened to go home, as he equates it to the uproar. I hope you will put out food and water in a bowl for him. I ended up feeding 14 ferals at one point in Dhahran (Saudi Arabia), as well as my own ex-feral brood. Others used the back yard as a drop-in centre - at one time, I think I'd fed 24 for a week. Gradually, they thinned out, probably taken by the oil company's catchers, who would have them pts humanely by the vet on site. In many ways, that was the kindest option, as the toms who fought often carried horrendous wounds which festered and gradually poisoned them to death. They wouldn't let me approach them at any cost - they were probably third-generation wild, and not the slightest bit interested in human contact.
 
Moe, I cannot think what good an aspirin would do either. I don't know about dogs but they kill cats, very bad for them. A vet will usually give you pills if the dog is really bad. I don't recommend giving anything to cats, drugs react badly with them. I use herbs, or Feliway spray. Even catnip helps keep them happy.

Kri, this cat appeared prior to the fireworks. He seems to belong over the road from us, a fair way he goes. No one knows for sure, but he is not really thin, just filthy and matted. So someone is feeding him, but not caring very much for him. He is young, I watched him trying to catch a bird this morning. He is so scared of people though just runs away. I can't feed him, mine just hate him and eat what I put down. The village shop are feeding him now though and he sleeps on a bench outside there. We may eventually be able to touch him.

I live in front of a massive equestrian yard, it's beautiful, run by an Olympic Gold Italian guy, who adores cats, so we are lucky, everything we find goes there. He has 2 or 3 we found, one hit by a car, two abandoned in the village. They all live in a big barn and have nice dog houses for their beds. Frankie has got nothing on him, he is a cutie and mad as a hatter.

Our grey stripey guy was very feral when we took him. He definitely thought people were overrated! We've had him for 3 years. He stayed in the beginning because I did not let them out for months, and we had another cat he was close to. Now he is head of the family, looks out for all of them, washes them and does his patrol to keep out new cats. He comes and goes but mainly is in all night. He wakes us up at 7 should we fancy a lie in, and demands to be let out. I can touch him, but he does not care for it. He has a crarboard box and deep pillow by the radiator in sitting room and he comes in and sleeps in there while the other cats are on our laps. He is very happy, but I know he is still wild.

I am nuts about him, it's been fascinating having him but I would not recommend to anyone without a lot of patience, love and understanding to take a feral. I think he and his mate should have been fixed and put back onsite, toruble is that their site was knocked down and they had nowhere to go, we were their last chance. I'm glad they found us! :<3:
 
Oops, Kri, forgot to say .... one of my old Bosses at work brought back a feral from Saudi when he lived out there, cost a fortune but he could not stand to leave him behind. George was a stunner, white with ginger long fur round his neck like a lion. He was very thin, even after feeding up. He was small, but tall. Once he got tamed he was unstoppable. Before then he tore up Alan's flat, the doors and wallpaper, sofa, bed. Alan really loved him - good thing!

He was so smart, would open all the cupboards and doors, no keeping him in. He also liked water and if you filled the tub a little he would hop in, lie down, wash himself and then hop out and meow. Alan dried him with a towel. So funny! He could walk along the top of doors and jump really high. He had a meow like a Siamese, loud.

He lived to be about 20, no one knew how old he was of course. We were all totally gutted when he died, such a character. Alan was so cut up he would not have another cat and he gave me his cat basket and carry box. A year later, almost to the day, a small ginger kitten turned up at his flat meowing in the car park. He took it in for the night and meant to take it to a shelter. However as you can imagine he stayed, and is now 5 years old. I returned the baskets with a bow on them and a note from George. He called the new cat McGeorge in honour of his old friend, and a racehorse he had known.
 
Could George have been a Turkish Van cat; the only cat breed I've ever known that have a love of water and similar colouring [white with ginger?].
 
Isi - lovely story. There are so many ferals out there, it's quite cruel, because there are no shelters for them, and they just have to try and live off scraps and, as you can imagine, Saudi culture doesn't have the same attitude towards stray animals as we have. The two I first kept at home were a beautiful, sweet-natured longhair black queen who I called Sammy, as I first thought she was a boy! She had one litter on the way when she ingratiated herself on me, of which I kept the runty, spastic 'Kitty' (stunningly original names). Later, 'Sunny', a ginger stripe with no white markings at all, arrived in my back garden with four kits already born. I found a home for one which went to live in Scotland, and kept the rest. Sammy died during this time and her daughter Kitty was disgusted with the newcomers, who she viewed as usurpers to her kingdom. Or queendom. Kitty, tiny, peevish, fairly unloving, wobbly, lived to be 14, which was pretty good considering her far from robust physical appearance.

Sunny and her daughter Poppy came back to the UK with me and lived out their days in Staffordshire, enjoying unbridled access to lots of small wildlife they'd never had the pleasure of hunting in Saudi! I was horrified when 'gifts' of mangled voles, tiny mice and unidentifiable body parts began arriving - they'd discovered a hunting instinct I never knew they had, and which they were delighted to exploit.
 
moehat said:
Could George have been a Turkish Van cat; the only cat breed I've ever known that have a love of water and similar colouring [white with ginger?].
Click to expand...

Funny you say that because although George was a stray and pretty wild when Alan first began feeding him his vet in the UK said he looked like a Turkish Van too. Who knows, he could have been an abandoned cat I guess. He was stunning looking.

Kri, funny how your cats took to hunting late in life, so old cats do learn new tricks!

Speaking of new tricks .... when I was in Bahrain (only for a few weeks to visit family who lived there) there were also masses of feral cats, but the most shocking thing for me were the feral dog packs. They were everywhere. As a lot of locals live in houses surrounded by high walls the rubbish is placed outside these compounds and the dogs tear it open, not a pretty sight, rubbish everywhere. Quite stark contrasts, all that wealth and glittering white and gold, then the skinny feral dogs and cats. I found it highly depressing and was glad to leave actually. No offense to anyone but I don't think I could have lived there very long.
 
Isi, have you tried gently stroking the very soft fur at the base of the back of Morpheus' ears? I've managed to get round most cats with that manoeuvre. (It might help if you chirrup first, just a "brrrrrr" on a rising note, the way they say "hello" to us and each other.)

When he shows signs of liking that, move on to long, firm, sweeping strokes over his head, flattening his ears and making him slightly duck his head, like mother cat used to do when washing him as a kitten. He might start to like being touched after all!

That might work, as you say he actually likes being brushed, but just doesn't like the idea of contact with humans, being a wild, tough guy. :)

Moe, you really seem to have enjoyed looking after your friend's cats.

I'm thinking of renaming Dougal Baldrick. Poor little lad has lost a lot of fur during the past week. This time it is not just his head, neck and chest, but all along his sides and under his belly too.

We sit watching TV huddled up in a blanket together. It isn't enough to warm him to sit on my lap, so I have started covering us both with a lovely, snuggly fleece blanket that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I cover myself in the blanket, then Dougal hops onto my lap and I cover him with the spare folds, so that only his head is showing. So cute!

I've also bought him one of those beds that hangs over a radiator, he is feeling the cold so badly, poor little chap. He jumps up onto the radiator and crouches there to warm paws and bare little belly, then he jumps into the "hammock". Sometimes that isn't warm enough for him, so I tuck him in with a small cat blanket.

He's not spoilt - he just has everything he needs! :lol:
 
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