Questions From A New Member: Meds And Senior Cat

[verna davies]

Building seems to be the same here. A letter asking if you have an objection and plans displayed in the local council that can be viewed but I suspect it is already a done deal. They seem to be able to build anywhere nowadays. You buy a house with a field at the back and within a few years there's an estate there. The councillors and officials call it progress.

Well my mob are asking for food so I had better obey.
Goodnight

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

View attachment 177770
Carter was slightly annoyed to be woken up with a phone in his face after a blissful sleep in the house of mouse!

...

I think I recognize that mouse the second from the right... one of those "hairless mice", correct?



One of those turned up in our household, too. Who knew they also live across the pond!

 

[Gaven Kent]

They get everywhere! It's a real motley crew of rodents. They've been battered and chewed to bits for years but they seem to love them and it stops the cats brining in the real thing. Either that or they are too lazy and well fed. The before dark curfew helps too

 

[verna davies]

Hi. We went off course a little yesterday. It started with Carter's health issue and ended with planning permissions. Quite a deviation.

Carter is a handsome boy, beautiful coat. How is he doing on the medication? My cat was on Vidalta tablets and had to have blood tests every 6 months to make sure her levels were correct. The medication was increased after about a year but didn't cause a problem. As far as metacam is concerned, I know that it can cause kidney issues but my friend had a dog that was on a maintenance dose for many years with no ill effect.

I hope Carter does really well on his medication and it gives him a spring in his step. Keep the photos coming.

 

[Gaven Kent]

Hi. The planning permission thing was in my mind as it affects how I can let the cats outside. Basically if it goes ahead the cats become house cats unless I fence off the garden. All the residents know the cats and drive carefully. They check under their cars and even tell me if they see them. Hugo almost got knocked down when he saw me outside and abandoned all caution. They assume I'll protect them. Also he looks like he's a Maine Coon and is highly stealable. In 2012 Carter went missing for 9 days. We put posters up and i printed a thousand leaflets that we posted through the doors of every house within a 750m radius. It was done like a military campaign! We even contacted a company that searches for lost pets. They come to you and blanket leaflet the entire area and depending on how much you pay they have staff physically search the area and knick in doors. I think a 2000 leaflet drop and 2 people searching for 2 days was about £1000. The money wasn't an issue but instead we took some leave from work and did it ourselves. I did a leaflet post run and that night of houses I'd already done. At 9pm I heard a mewing outside and frantic scratching. It was Carter! He looked exhausted and thin and his front claws looked really worn down. Once we had calmed diwn we started to seriously think about what had happened. The only conclusion we could come to was that he was locked inside somewhere, had been given water and that it was nearby. The next day I heard a woman in a garden that backs on to mine calling the name Harvey. I'd never heard this before and didn't know she had a cat. I went and knocked at her door and asked her if she had lost a cat. I described Carter and she said that it was her new cat Harvey. She had 'found' him and kept him in but he escaped. She said that he was starving and looked like a stray. Carter had a collar with an expensive engraved tag with his name, our postcode and number. He had it when he returned so it was obvious he was ours. Also I had put three leaflets through her door. Carter was so thin because then he was really fussy only eating tuna in spring water. I used to buy it in bulk through work so each tin was cheaper than cat food. He had clearly not eaten or eaten very little but had water otherwise he wouldn't have survived nine days. I wanted to call the police as I was so angry but left it. I did tell all my cat owning neighbours and had recorded the conversation. Carter didn't go outside for three weeks, showing no interest in doing so. His escape had used the last strength he had as he had to scale three high fences to get home. Carter had a brother called Sebastian that we got at the same time in 2001. We lived in Finsbury Park then. In 2003 Sebastian went missing. We searched high and low. 3 years later we saw him in the window of our neighbour, an eccentric reclusive opera singer. We approached her and she claimed that Sebastian insisted on living there and that we had neglected him. Sadly he had settled in with her and looked happy. I do regret it but we left him with her but showed her his paperwork, his tag details and the hundreds of photos we had of him and leaflets we had made in our search. He would have freaked out if we had taken him back. Hugo came to us in a strange way. In 2014 I had a hospital appointment. When we were leaving the car park I saw what I thought was a rat. Out of nowhere a young female tabby walked up to us and got in the car! She was young, had a broken tail and has clearly given birth recently. It was dark, cold and far from any houses. I asked in the hospital if anyone knew anything but has no luck. The cat was sitting on cats lap purring in the car! We took her home. The next morning we took her to a vet as we knew that somewhere there were kittens and worried for them and that her milk would start causing her pain. The vet wormed her, sorted her tail and gave flea treatment. The milk issue needed some medication that they didn't have so we were advised to make an omelette with flat leaf parsley as something in the parsley slows milk production. We photographed her and put her on several lost pet websites. I'll try to find the details of the site that led to her being reunited and post them on the cat site. By some sort of miracle we were contacted by her owners. They had seen the ad and cintqcted us immediately. She was called Didi and had 3 two week old kittens at home. They were about to hand feed them but we managed to reunite them. It was 18 hours since she had disappeared. They lived 2 miles from where we found her and she was lost when a dog chased her while she was in the garden. She was a rescue cat who had been saved by the owners mother. Didi was 7 months old and had been attacked by a dog and abused by someone and allowed to get pregnant. She was rescued and given to her present owner. Four weeks later she gave birth. The kittens came crawling up to her and she switched to mum mode. Her milk was still there. We had made an appointment to get her chipped and paid for it so passed that to the owners. It was obvious that they were cat people who loves their animals. The owners and their kids cried when we returned her. Didi was clearly loved and they wanted to pay us back for the vet treatment. I didn't want paying back but I did ask if the kittens had homes yet. They said that they were keeping the two girls but wanted a good home for the boy. I showed them my phone with photos of Carter and the house hoping they were good cat loving credentials and asked if we could have him. Something stood out with him. He was long haired unlike his sisters, twice as big and came up to me and nipped my finger. I'm a great believer in the accidental cats. Those you get through strange events. 6 weeks later we collected him. He sat in the box on my lap in the car and purred. I let him out at home and he walked around purring and padding his paws. He fell asleep on my lap and settled in within 5 minutes. I've never seen anything like it. He fell in love with Carter who very quickly took on a fatherly role. Early on when Hugo started going out Carter would go everywhere with him. We had got Hugo vaccinated and then used a harness to introduce him to the garden. I've digressed but it's sort of linked to my fear of this development and what it means to the cats and their safety. We live near Enfield and two years ago there were a huge number of cat thefts. Its hilarious that the cat owners in my road are more concerned about their animals safety if traffic increases and the non cat owners concerned about the potential devaluing of their property. While it affects is all is not thought of that! Both of our cats have come to us through random events and Carter has survived being taken, illness and a dodgy start in life. I don't want any situations where any of their nine lives are gambled with as Carter has definitely used some! My reply has ended up being an essay! Carters health has improved ten fold since the new medication regime. We are both certain that he looks better and that he is happier. I hope it's not us seeing what we want to see but his arthritis has responded well to the metacam and his movement is more fluid and it's as if he doesn't have to think and plan his actions like he did before. He playing and jumping up and down to places he had avoided. We bought cat steps just so he can get to the sofa and bed upstairs. The metacam is 2ml of 0.5mg/ml once a day and Thyronorm is 0.5ml of 5mg/ml twice a day. We still have the Temgesic from last week for emergencies but the ridiculous fact that it has to dissolve inside their cheek to work and that when it does it causes him to be comatose. The dosage of half a 0.2mg tablet will apparently affect a human and that dose is often used as a last stage in substitution therapy in opiate addiction. Carter has some blood tests booked in 12 days and that will be a regular thing. So there's the partial history of Carter and Hugo that started with planning permission! I hope your beasts and yourself are well. I'll pop the Hugo as a kitten photos up once I've taken them off the hard drive as he is very very cute. As a kitten the vet said that he's not seen a tabby with that many varieties of tabby pattern! Again apologies for the essay. Once I start writing about the cats it's very hard to stop as they are a huge part of our lives