He could have hung himself!

Oh my gosh! I`m still shaking and crying.....Toby was just rolling around on the dining room chair while I was petting him, when he suddenly slipped his neck under one of the back brackets and got his head stuck!
I thank God my son was here and could get a screw driver to remove one of the wood "buttons" and unscrew the bracket while i held Toby still and talked to him to keep him calm. (I felt anything but calm on the inside!!!)
I keep thinking ...what if i`d been here alone...what would i have done? I would`nt dare have left Toby to get a tool (if i`d even have thought about it) for fear that he would panic and fall off the chair breaking his neck or hanging himself......or what if no one had been here at all??? (That thought actually makes me feel like throwing up!)
Antiques or not...those chairs are going to be "operated" on TONIGHT when my Hubby gets home! I`d never have thought one of my kitties could have gotten stuck in them like that...and i`m not taking any more chances....whether it was a freak accident or not....if it can happen once it could happen again!
The whole incident only took a minute from start to finish....and Toby acted like it was no big deal.....I`m glad he is`nt tramatized...but I sure am!
Linda

Oh my God...I would have been traumatized, too!! How lucky you guys were there! But I don't think fate would have let that happen to Toby, anyways. (Well personally I'm kinda religious...I don't think God would've let that happen). I'm so glad everything is alright now.

How scary, Linda! It's so great you were there keeping such a great watch over Toby! What a great lesson learned, thank you for sharing this experience with us! It's over now with Toby safe and sound, you can resume breathing again!

Oh that is so scary! Thank god that you were there to get him out of there!
At least now you know that those chairs have to be fixed tonight so it won't happen again!

Take a deep breath and cuddle with Toby, everything is okay now!

Funny thing is.....reading your words of sympathy is making me cry all the harder....not that I don`t appreciate your caring..., cause it means a lot....but it just makes it all the more real what could have been.
I have tried so hard to "kitty-proof" my house and have gotten rid of anything that I thought they might get hurt on....but I just never thought about one of them being able to get caught in one of these chairs!
I`m sure God would have given me His strength to bare it if it would have happened....but I`m just so thankful that it did`nt !!! Toby and Tedy are only a year old...and I hope to have many, many wondeful years of loving them.
Thank you for your kind words.
Linda

Oh my gosh Linda!! My eyes are as big as saucers reading that, and my heart skipped a beat or two. I can't imagine how panicked you were!! Good for you to keep your wits about you and get Toby out of that dangerous situation!

OK, now that Toby is safe, and you know how to fix the potential problem...breathe!

Oh Linda, that is scary!
Glad Toby is ok!

When one of my nieces was about 2 yrs old she stuck her head through the railing bars of the stairs at the mall and it took a few scary minutes to get her out.

And one of our RB ferrets got her head stuck in a toodler gate we use to block off a room and we had to cut through the plastic...all the while trying to keep her still so she wouldn't get cut in the process.

Oh my, Stormy. Those are scary stories too...and I`m glad they turned out well also. I`m sure there are some stories that don`t.
The funny thing about this is something Toby did just a few minutes ago.
Toby is a cat who wants to be petted when he is in the mood, and then he is really loving...but otherwise he`ll slink away from touch...often too busy to be bothered...and in any case is not a "lap cat" type....but a few minutes ago i was sitting in the recliner and was thinking about what almost happened, still teary, and I felt a sob escape me. Toby looked over at me, hopped down off the cat tree, walked across the livingroom, jumped up on the end of the chair, walked up my body and put his face up against my tears and rubbed himself into them. That is TOTALLY not a "Toby-thing" for him to do....I think he actually felt my feelings and was trying to comfort me! (Think i`m crazy if you will....but I am completely convinced that he did!)
I feel much better now!
Linda

What a horrifying story. You really hung in there & saved your kitty's life.

Oh my gosh!! How sweet! I think he definitely felt your feelings, too. No doubt. Wow...that is soooo nice! That is, like, one of those touching, once-in-a-lifetime experiences...

I am so glad that Toby is O.K. It's weird that you mentioned this because I have been looking at new dining room sets and always look at the chair backs because my cats are always playing on the chairs. No matter how hard we all try to "cat proof" the house, you cannot always anticipate what is going to be the next danger. Once of my newest discoveries was a nylon bath poof. I leave it hanging from the tub faucet. Megan jumped in the tub and actually tore pieces off. I didn't even think that anyone would play with that. Just thank God you were there to see him get caught.

Originally Posted by stampit3d

Funny thing is.....reading your words of sympathy is making me cry all the harder....not that I don`t appreciate your caring..., cause it means a lot....but it just makes it all the more real what could have been.
I have tried so hard to "kitty-proof" my house and have gotten rid of anything that I thought they might get hurt on....but I just never thought about one of them being able to get caught in one of these chairs!
I`m sure God would have given me His strength to bare it if it would have happened....but I`m just so thankful that it did`nt !!! Toby and Tedy are only a year old...and I hope to have many, many wondeful years of loving them.
Thank you for your kind words.
Linda

Click to expand...

It's true. It is totally impossible to totally 'catproof' everything. If you wanted a catproof house, it would probably be a single, empty room with padded walls and floors ...ya know? Just try not to think about it too much; don't worry. It's over, he's fine, let's hope he learned a lesson. Easier said than done, I know...

having been one of the foolish people to get my head stuckj in the bars, I will say if the cat can get his head in the bars, you can get it back out, and generally speaking, the cat will itself figure it out. Your slats are probably either thinner or farther apart higher up on the chair and if you calmly lifted the cat up, his head would have freed itself. That said, sometimes when cats are trapped, they can get scared and may hurt themselves :/ I'm sorry you experienced this, it sure is nervewracking.

Thank heavens you were there! I'm so pleased Toby is ok

How frightening - I'm so glad you were there!

That's good to know about the chairs.

I agree it's nearly impossible to totally catproof a house. In their younger years, Mr Underfoot & Sylvestra managed to frighten the socks off me many times, in ways that never would have occurred to me beforehand.

Just do the best you can, and then try to relax about it.

Oh, Linda, what a close call! I hope that TurtleCat is right & Toby would have pulled his head back through the bars somehow, but one can never accurately predict how a person or animal will react! I am glad that you shared this story, because now I'm going to check on a rocking chair that I have that has decorative bars. A lesson with a happy ending that is a wake-up call for us all! TCS ROCKS!
BTW, how wonderful that Toby came to comfort you!! Cats are so perceptive.

*** huggs lotsand lots of hugs*** I'm so glad you found him... one of my outside cats once died from sticking his head in a cvc(?) pipe my land lady left out... if we had found him (I'm guessing here from lack of rigor) just a little sooner maybe half hour we might have been able to save him... I'm just so glad you were there and got Toby out alright! I'm so sorry that happened...

Phew! So glad he's OK!

Aaaaww sweetheart, if we could totally cat-proof our homes, we'd be living in padded boxes with no doors or windows - and the cats themselves would have all their paws tied together! They will ALWAYS manage to find soemthing silly to do to themselves. In fact, only this morning Tosca fell off the top of the bookshelves (they're about 8-9 feet tall) because she was having a wash and sorta rolled a litle too far. Oh and that line about cats always landing on their feet? That's a lie. She landed on mine. Toby is really lucky you were there, that's for sure, but you shoudln't feel sad because of what "might" have happened.... be thankful that it didn't Toby's got a good mamma there, and I'm fairly sure that he'll be much less traumatised than you were!

I just want to thank all of you TCS folks for your concern for Toby....and for me. And I want you to know that I`m NOT still crying this morning. :-) (Although I do find myself looking threw the house at things with keener eyes)
Hubby did not want to cut off the brackets from the antique chairs....but what he did do was add a piece of wood to where the back and the seat of the chairs meet to make the space way too small for one of the kitties to stick their heads in there again, and it can easily be removed leaving only 2 small screw holes on each chair.It actually looks better than what my plan was. (All I could think of was "DESTROY THE MONSTER") He`s going to pick up some stains to mix ,to match the chairs ,tonight after work.
Momma Lori....I`m so sorry about the loss of your kitty. I wish too that he would have been found sooner. I`m sure your heart was broken. I KNOW mine would have been.
and Lille Kat...I`m thankful YOUR feet were there to break Tosca`s fall, and that she`s OK.
Linda