String and plastic string

shadoww

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Just had the scare of my life, other than with Scrappy. His brother Scooter just climbed on my desk, with a pink plastic string sticking out of his mouth and seemed stuck. I didn't try to pull it out, just panicked slightly and wrapped him in a towel and woke my husband. We got his mouth open and looked inside with a powerful flashlight and Thank God it was only wrapped around one of his teeth. *whew* I thought I had "kitty-proofed" the house, but I totally missed the floor vase of artificial flowers. All I could think of was Scrappy when he first got sick and the vet said that if he had swallowed string, then we were in for major problems. Another thing I have to be really careful of is also rubber bands. Whiskers is bad for finding them, who knows where, and then running off with them if he see us. He knows we will take them away from him and does his best to hide it from us. I swear it's a wonder I have any sense (or hair) left!!

Mary
shadoww
 

hissy

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Yep string is a big no no for kitties! They think they are mouse tails I guess! I have a rubber band hunter as well. It doesn't matter where the rubber band falls, Kahuna will find it. I end up having to keep them in a covered container- because The Big K can open drawers!
 
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shadoww

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yep you are 100% right about the rubber bands. It seems like Whiskers has built in radar when it comes to them.

Scrappy still seems to improve. He hasn't had any diarrhea since last night when I gave him some plain yogurt with kaopectate in it. Dr. Stone just called to check on him, he'll call back later on this afternoon. He's still eating but as far as I can tell, not drinking much or any water, so I'm giving him small syringes of plain water mixed with pedialyte every hour or two. Dr. Stone says that the kaopectate won't help him much but it seems to slow it down. I guess he's like anyone else, he has his own opinions about what works and what doesn't. The least I can see is it doesn't hurt and if it reduces it then so much the better. Hope you have a great weekend.
 

hissy

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You are doing so good with Scrappy, despite the odds, (since he is a kitten) Scrappy is quite the fighter! Most people would have given up by now. Feline distemper is very serious but Scrappy could not have a better caretaker on his side! Have you tried floating one of his toys in the water dish to encourage him to drink? Or dribbling sardine oil or tuna juice in the water? You can also float a few ice cubes in the water bowl.

I had one kitty once who would not drink at all. I took several small marbles, washed them off well and put them in an ice cube tray, filled the tray with water and froze it. Then I took the ice cubes with the marbles inside and floated them in the water bowl. Hissler, was so intrigued to see these dark spots in her water bowl, she started chasing them around, and the would lick her paws, and finally drink. When the cubes finally melted the marbles sunk to the bottom of the bowl, and she drank then too, trying to get at her prize. I have also in the past bought aquarium rocks, washed them off really well and put those in the bottom of a glass bowl, filled the bowl with water, and the kitty drank. I am nothing, if not tricky!
 
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shadoww

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those are some good ideas hissy. I'll give the toy thing a shot. I don't have any marbles at the moment, not even many of my own! Thanks for the nice compliment, I really am trying my best. Even though these babies were ferals they have come a long way. I just wish Scrappy could warm up to my husband more. He was the most scared one out of the bunch and has really come far, but mainly with me because I'm the one to take the most care of him. My husband is a BIG boy, 6'6" and about 285 lbs. so he is really scared of hubby's big hands and feet. He tries to spend some time with him, but he is so busy that his time is really spread thin.

A little humor: you should see Scooter with my aquarium screen saver! It looks so real, he jumps up on my desk and tries to get the fishies out of there. Between being mesmerized by that, he is also an avid tv watcher. My husband built me a padded arm rest for my computer chair for the mouse. Scooter sits on there and watches the tv for the longes time. How can anyone just dump off something so precious? Am attaching a couple of photos of him in action.
 

hissy

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LOL! You should sent a photo to [email protected] for the Caption This forum. Cute! cute! cute!

As to why people dump cats? I don't know- but they do it all the time!
 

sicycat

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Wow Zoey goes for rubber bands too. Very scary. I saw her trying to eat one one day and I ran up to her and grabbed it away from her. Zoey eats mouse tails too
I have since cat proofed the house and cut all the tails off the mice.
 
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shadoww

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Yep Whiskers is terrible with rubberbands. He knows when we catch him with one, we take it and as soon as he gets it then he runs from us so we can't get it from him. Its amazing how much he looks like your Zoey. He was another "throw away kitty". He was dropped off at our house when he was about 6-8 wks old. We were getting ready to go to work and I heard this meow. I knew the only cat we had was Sassy and she was inside. I told my husband, wow that's close by. Then all of sudden there he was. After he was over a year old, he got sick with a terrible liver condition. He was jaundiced all over, his ears, his eyes, his skin. It was terrible. He stopped eating and his muscles started to deteriorate. Dr. Stone said his liver count was off the charts and started him on cortisone and massive antibiotics. We kept this up for over 2 weeks, and he didn't get any better. He was so weak he could hardly walk and I had to force feed him. Dr. Stone said if it was his cat, he'd have him put down, but there was no way we were going to do that. So I had almost decided to do it after a while because I didn't want him to suffer, then Dr. Stone said we would try one more huge cortisone and antibiotic treatment, and he pulled out of it. Now you'd never know it. It was amazing. We still don't have any idea what it was or what caused it. Dr. Stone said his mother could have passed it down to him and it just came out at that time rather than when he was little. He was full grown by then. Now there are no words to describe that little critter......
His pic is below.
 
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