Well, that's what we thought, anyway. I've posted in other threads that we already have three cats and then took in four older cats when a friend died suddenly. Two girls, two boys, ranging in age from 10 to 17, a couple of them with health issues. We've had them almost three months now and are just getting to the point of semi-integration with our cats. It's been a challenge, for sure--more than doubling the number of cats in our house, getting used to twice a day medicating, getting them over the trauma of losing their "mom", a new home, trying to get to know their personalities--all that stuff.
So last night, we had our original three in the front of the house separated from the "newbies" by a mesh baby gate we got. The four newbies were in the TV room with us and we were just thinking how well everybody was doing. Two of them sleeping, one curled up at hubby's feet, the fourth one exploring.
All of a sudden, one of the girls, Hannah, went berserk!!! Started "moonwalking" backwards, in circles, one paw up in the air like she was trying to claw at something invisible, terrified look in her eyes, not making a sound though, just going round and round in these weird circles, then falling over. Then she'd flop on her side, exhausted, and look at us with these pitiful eyes. I went online quick and tried to find out what might be wrong--seizures, tumor, stroke, all kinds of possibilities. I had no idea what to do. She kept it up for quite a few minutes and I finally thought I'd try to gather her up and take her to the animal ER right away.
So I got close to her--hubby was telling me to be careful in case she tried to bite or something. I got my hands on her gently and discovered--her "calming" collar had got stuck behind her front leg and she'd been trying to get out of it!!! Hahahahaha.
Here we were, fearing the worst--not really knowing these cats that well yet and thinking she was dying or something right in front of our eyes. I even got some of it on video so we could show the vet her "symptoms". What a scare--and what a laugh (at ourselves!) when we realized what the problem was.
(She was fine, of course, once I got the collar off!)
So last night, we had our original three in the front of the house separated from the "newbies" by a mesh baby gate we got. The four newbies were in the TV room with us and we were just thinking how well everybody was doing. Two of them sleeping, one curled up at hubby's feet, the fourth one exploring.
All of a sudden, one of the girls, Hannah, went berserk!!! Started "moonwalking" backwards, in circles, one paw up in the air like she was trying to claw at something invisible, terrified look in her eyes, not making a sound though, just going round and round in these weird circles, then falling over. Then she'd flop on her side, exhausted, and look at us with these pitiful eyes. I went online quick and tried to find out what might be wrong--seizures, tumor, stroke, all kinds of possibilities. I had no idea what to do. She kept it up for quite a few minutes and I finally thought I'd try to gather her up and take her to the animal ER right away.
So I got close to her--hubby was telling me to be careful in case she tried to bite or something. I got my hands on her gently and discovered--her "calming" collar had got stuck behind her front leg and she'd been trying to get out of it!!! Hahahahaha.
Here we were, fearing the worst--not really knowing these cats that well yet and thinking she was dying or something right in front of our eyes. I even got some of it on video so we could show the vet her "symptoms". What a scare--and what a laugh (at ourselves!) when we realized what the problem was.
(She was fine, of course, once I got the collar off!)
