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March 27, 2008
Cat-scapades
Did you know that a cat physically can't walk when you tie something around its stomach?
That was our lesson for Wednesday.
Symphony kept trying to pull her stitches out following her "operation", (obviously not advised), and despite attempts at reasoning with her, she studiously ignored us and kept trying to pull them out. So we turned to the vet for help, who told us that a "conehead" like you see for dogs is absolutely out of the question for cats (who apparently are too traumatised by it), and told us that we needed to put a bandage on to stop her from chewing on the stitches.
I trotted off to work, confident that Sylvain could take care of it, but -20 euros of bandage and one very cranky cat later- he rang me and said, "I'm going to take her to the vet and get her to do it". And so, Symphony was essentially mummified.
The vet warned Sylvain that when he got her home she would have a lot of difficulties walking around for awhile, but "difficulties" was apparently an understatement. She literally walked two steps, fell down, miaowed in anger, walked another step, fell down, then threw a full-on temper tantrum at Sylvain. It took the poor little sweetie a good hour to be able to walk properly again.
Who knew? I've never been the type to tie things to my cat, but now I know what is apparently a well-documented fact (at least according to some of my colleagues): that you can't tie something around a cats stomach unless you want them to flop around like marionnettes and be unable to walk for an hour.
So, she's been stomping around like a cranky puss for the last 24 hours, trying to chew off her bandage and miaowing randomly at us. I confess, it's been a little amusing, watching her alternate between her little temper tantrums over this thing wrapped around her tummy and getting distracted into chasing moths that sneak in when we open the windows to let out the smoke from cooking sausages for dinner.
One of the things that Sylvain was worried about following her "operation", was that she might have a personality change. That she might mellow out a bit too much, that she might be a different cat.
But if the evidence of her continued stubborn-headedness in persisting to chew at her bandage, hissy fits and insatiably playful episodes with moths are anything to go by, I think he shouldn't have been worried. Symphony is Symphony, and that's that.
Posted by Katia at March 27, 2008 10:49 PM
Comments
Comments
huh - I've never heard that about cats. I wonder why? As for the personality thing - my cat didn't change much. I love cats and their attitudes!
Posted by: stacy | March 28, 2008 3:16 AM
Hmm... David's parents' cat just got fixed, and she had one of those conehead things!
Posted by: kim | March 28, 2008 8:36 AM
Mimi didn't change from that operation but she did get a tad nasty after her other operation. She had to have her front paws declawed because of the thumb. But after that operation she didn't have any problems. I can understand about problems walking though since cats use their entire body to walk. You should post a photo of her though.
Posted by: Mia | March 28, 2008 9:02 PM