Cats

Categories Cats

I haven’t posted much about my cats

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The dogs tend to be more photogenic, so its easier to focus on them.  But a cat update.

For Trouble not much has changed.  She still lives up to her name, enticing Arty into chasing her and then swatting him with claws when he does, and trying to eat any piece of plastic bag type material I miss when cleaning up.

Unfortunetly the same can’t be said for Janie.  Her health has continued to deteriorate.  We keep having to adjust her thyroid meds.  She’ll be stable and then her thyroid will go screwy again.  One of her last sets of bloodwork showed some odd numbers that the vet thought MIGHT be indicitive of Addisons disease.  Addisons is REALLY rare in cats, but its inevitably fatal if not treated, so we tested for it.  Came back negetive for Addisons, but possibly positive for Cushings (which is basically the exact opposite).  Except its only possibly positive.  And while Cushings is technically easily treatable, when you add in her other problems (random pancreatitus, kidneys slowly failing, an out of control thyroid, occasional IBS) we don’t know how the meds will work with her.  I HIGHLY suspect that the REAL cause of her out of control thyroid isn’t that her thyroid is getting worse, its that her kidney’s are getting worse resulting in improper dosages of medication actually getting absorbed.  But checking her kidney’s requires another ultrasound, which means another day spent at the vets, and every time we do that she comes home sicker from the stress, and we have to re-integrate her into the household cause she smells so odd that none of the other animals want to deal with her…..and I think she’s heading into another bout of pancreatitus on top of needing her thyroid meds adjusted again…..the bad days are starting to outweigh the good ones, and I’m not sure its fair to her to keep prolonging the pain and misery…..

Categories Cats, Dog, Rants

For American cat and dog owners

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And anyone else who cares.

The American Veterinary Medical Association is considering putting into place a policy officially frowning on the feeding of raw diets to household pets.

Now yes, the AVMA does not make the laws in this country, it would “only” be a policy.  Yah right.

First up: as a raw feeder myself, I can tell you the frustrations of trying to get a vet to tolerate the concept of a raw diet.  If this policy is passed it will become yet one more stick to beat you with when you tell them you feed raw.

2nd: The AVMA is a highly regarded association.  If THEY pass the policy who else is going to follow suit.  Already two separate Therapy dog organizations do NOT allow raw fed dogs to be certified.

3rd: The stated reason the AVMA is considering this policy is because one of the above mentioned Therapy dog organizations asked them too.  Why would they do that?  Well, Purina’s Marketing Director just so happens to serve on the board of said Therapy dog organization.

4th: A HUGE percentage of the money donated to the AVMA’s charity arm comes from petfood manufacturers.

You gunny people ought to see where the real concern is.  Alot of the pet people just aren’t getting it.  “The AVMA doesn’t create laws, so whats the fuss?  They can’t stop me from feeding what I want to my dog.”  Nope, the AVMA can’t.  That’s correct.  But how long before some one in government notices the AVMA policy and figures if its important enough for the AVMA to make a policy then maybe it ought to be law?  How long be fore someone in Child Protective Services notices the AVMA policy and decides that someone deliberately feeding raw to a pet in the household where a child lives is “knowingly putting the child in danger due to exposure to pathogens”?

Oh yes, “pathogens”, such an ugly word.  It conjures up a horrible list of bacterias and pests.  And certainly raw meats do carry the risk of some of this.  Even raw meat headed for human consumption.  However, human grade raw meat has a lower risk of such than many, and when its the human grade foods there’s a HUGE push to get it recalled in a timely manor.  There’s no such push with processed pet food.

Oh yes, processed pet foods, kibbles and canned foods.  The stuff the AVMA apparently wants you to feed to your cat or dog instead of that evil germy meat.  The stuff that sent a total of 49 HUMANS (and god knows how many animals cause the FDA doesn’t keep track of that), to their doctors for medical treatment just this spring.  And thats just the folks who required medical treatment.  Who knows how many people got sick and never went to their doctor cause it wasn’t THAT bad.  And Diamond’s recall is by no means the first to cause sickness not only in the pets who eat it, but in the humans in contact with those animals.

I can think of quite a few pet food recalls where a significant number of humans got sick too, on top of the sick and dying animals.  I’m unable to come up with a single pre-packaged raw diet that caused the same wide spread problems.  And although human grade meats DO get recalled, I can’t think of a single instance where that meat was fed to an animal, and anyone other than the animal’s immediate caretaker (and possibly their household & attending vet) got sick.  And the instances of the animal them self getting sick from “contaminated” human grade meat?  Even fewer.  Carnivores have been designed, (via evolution or God, your choice) to eat raw meat that may not be completely safe, their bodies are MADE to handle it safely.

Links:

Truth About Pet Food article 1

Truth About Pet Food article 2

The actual text of the proposed policy

The AVMA’s response to the uproar

Additional article on the subject

Additional article on the subject

Change.org petition

Oh, and for anyone running across this, this policy is NOT specifically limited to “prepackaged raw” only.  The policy text specifies ANY raw and unpasteurized foods, also:

So please stop trying to tell me how the policy isn’t going to effect you….

Categories Apollo, Birds, Cats

That moment

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When I got home from work today the heat powered fans had been knocked off the top of the woodburning stove.  Didn’t think much of it, picked them up, made a mental note to figure out which animal was responsible and finished putting away the groceries.

A while later I hear what sounded like a bird flapping its wings against the window.  Except there was no bird.

A while later I noticed that Trouble seemed awefully facinated with the top of the stove.  I figured I’d found the culprit, chased her off, and went on with my evening.

A while later I heard that sound again.

Except this time it sounded like it was coming from the stove.

A moment of brilliance, I opened the stove door to see wtf?

A moment of flight as the House Sparrow shot for the door.

A moment of ‘holy crap’ as Trouble made a flying leap and caught it on her first jump.

A moment of ‘uhoh’ as Apollo convinced Trouble to give him the bird, and let it go.

Another moment of ‘holy crap’ as Apollo duplicated Trouble’s jump.

 Apollo was a good boy and took it to his crate to eat, as I racked my brain trying to remember if sparrows carried anything that might be dangerous to him.  Except he was baffled by the feathers, so I was able to convince him to trade for a treat.

Sigh.

Categories Apollo, Cats, Dog

Apollo WANTS to GET that cat

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This cat, in case you weren’t sure what cat I meant.

He’s great with my cats, and he’s never had an issue with any of the cats owned by various inlaws and families who’s houses he’s visited.  But something about that one cat…He put serious effort into trying to drag Husband across the street last night to get at said cat.  And he did it again to me this morning, Husband watched his lack of success this morning and said he might have to start using the prong collar too.

Categories Apollo, Cats, Dog, Rants

The house across the street

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When we were first looking at houses to buy we ran across two houses directly across the street from each other listed under the same realtor.  Took an evening to come out and look at them both.  The one we bought had the larger acreage, if slightly older house, better cared for house/property, the pool, the attached (large) garage, the carport, the woodburning stove…the one across the street might have been newer, but it wasn’t in quite as nice a shape, didn’t have the above mentioned extras, and the current owners were smokers.  We put in an offer on ours, a bit under the asking price, and got it no problem.  The house across the street was listed for 10k more than we bought for.

The following spring the house across the street still hadn’t been sold, and the owner turned it over to the bank (not sure if he walked away or not, didn’t ask), who sold it that summer for significantly less than he’d been asking for it.

The folks who bought it have 4 kids, and at the time only had one dog.  Seemed nice enough, rarely saw the dog except when someone was outside.  They said she was 11 years old, and she didn’t like Apollo at all.

September they got a puppy.  Cute little thing, looks like a smooth coated collie or similar.  Terrified of Apollo from day one.  Mid November we started to realize that the reason Apollo had taken a sudden dislike to the sight of both dogs was because they had taken a sudden liking to using our yard as their potty area.  It explained the random piles of poo that didn’t belong to Apollo.  See, apparently at their old house, the older dog had been trained to stay in their yard with no fence, or restraint.  I have my doubts.  At any rate they never did any training with her to teach her the NEW boundaries, so when they let the dogs out for potty and exercise they didn’t bother to restrain them, and just ASSUMED that the older dog was teaching the puppy the boundaries.  They were “surprised” when I chased the dogs back across the street one evening and asked them to keep their dogs out of my yard…..

Apollo goes ballistic at the site of a dog in his yard without permission.  I don’t really want to come home one day and discovered he figured out how to go through a window.

At least one of the random piles of poo I picked up contained a rather large number of worms, and worms are the LEAST worrisome thing that can be passed on by dog feces.

And neither dog is light colored, and they were coming across the street to reach my yard.  The street is not lit at night, and there’s no posted speedlimit, which means its the state limit of 55mph, which means even after dark people FLY down the road.  I really don’t want to have someone knocking on my door at 9:30 at night cause a dog ran out of my driveway and got hit.

I tried to be patient, and give them time to do the retraining that would be needed to make sure the dogs stayed on the property, or take the other steps required to ensure it.  But nothing changed, and at the beginning of January I went back over and we had another discussion.  They swore they were working on it.

End of January I called animal control for the first time.  It must have made SOME impact, for the next few weeks they sent a kid out with the dogs (almost) every time they let the dogs out.  Not that sending a kid out did much when the kid wasn’t paying attention.  But I considered it an effort, and took it.

Till the end of February when they stopped sending the kids out with the dogs, and the dogs started coming across the street again.  This time I didn’t go over to have a chat.  I just called animal control again.

Just about the same time period as my 2nd call they got a 3rd dog.  Young male, possibly a boxer.  Donno what the ACO said to them this time, but ever since then if the dogs are outside they’re on tieouts.  Its an improvement.  I’m not sure how long I expect it to last, but I’ll take it.  However if that boxer is ever allowed loose at a time when we’re out with Apollo its not going to be pretty.  He hits the end of his cable every time he see’s Apollo.

Of course, now they got a cat.

And they allow the cat free access to roam like they did the dogs.

Today the cat wandered across the street and strolled down my driveway to plant its butt in the middle of it, watching the swallows soar overhead.

Apollo DID NOT APPROVE.

Sigh.

Categories Cats, Dog, Rants

Spanish blogger threatened with lawsuit for warning pet owners about recall

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Full story here.

 

So, even though the Diamond recall information sent out only included the USA and Canada, apparently the food was sent out to quite a few other countries as well.  And the USA and Diamond have no interest in publicly announcing what countries either.  They sent the info to the appropriate authorities and its up to them to publicize it in their countries….so a when a blogger in Spain found out about the recall she posted it on her blog in an attempt to spread the word.  She’s now being threatened with a lawsuit for doing so.  Now likely its not actually the parent Diamond company itself doing the suit, but its certainly someone associated with them, if only the local distributor…..this on top of the information that there appears to have been an attempt to cover up the recalled information on some bags sent to Malaysia?  Yah, I don’t think so.

 

Btw, the human count for those sick with this particular strain of salmonella comes to 22, there are two confirmed canines infected with this strain, where the strain was confirmed by a lab to be the same strain of salmonella.  There’s a huge list of other reported illnesses and deaths in pets, but none have been confirmed by lab, at least yet.

Categories Cats, Dog

Two cats dead after eating recalled kibble

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Article here.

I know alot of folks, including the media, keep saying it “can’t be THAT bad, no animals got sick”, but its not that simple.  The problem is IDing the cause of the animal sickness.  Dog or cat gets diarrhea and vomiting and they’re given an antibiotic and fluids and sent home (trust me, I recently had to deal with it).  They might test for Parvo, but salmonella just doesn’t enter the thought process untill WAY down the treatment process unless there IS a current recall.  I highly suspect that if a survey of vets offices could be done, for cats and dogs treated for diarrhea/vomiting in the last 3 months, and then further survey to find out how many of said animals were being fed (or had in the home) kibbles on the recall list,  that the percentage would be pretty high.  And that doesn’t include the animals with mild cases who never saw a vet.  Of course since the affected animal was never tested for salmonella at the time of the sickness you can’t PROVE anything……

Categories Cats, Rants

Fricking recalls

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I’ve posted a couple times about the pet food recalls in the last week or so.  Of course it was a week in before it occurred to me that I feed the CATS Taste of the Wild kibble….course, the media keeps saying its a DOG food recall, and certainly most of the specific formulas mentioned are dog food.  But some of them don’t specify.  So two days ago I called TOTW, and sure enough, not only is cat kibble included, the bag I have on hand is ALSO included.

ARG!!  Getting Janie to eat something new is HELL, even when I can use the old food to gradually intro the new.  But with her poor kidneys I don’t dare feed her any more of the potentially contaminated food.  So that means a cold turkey switch.  Picked up a small bag of Earthborn (since as far as I can find out they don’t have any relationship with Diamond), and made note of a couple other brands I’d be willing to try. 

Well, she ate some last night….and now she’s puking flem.  Pancreatitis most likely.  Quite possibly set off by the new food.  Whether because of something about the food itself, or just the cold turkey change I have no idea.  And of course the vet is closed for the night.  I could make it an ER visit, but I know from experience that if it IS a pancreatitis flairup none of the standard treatments will help her, and since she isn’t otherwise acting in poor health its not worth dragging her down there.