eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Hi,

So where were we?

Ah yes... That pic jars my memory... We had a sick cat (Daedalus), and the vet told us that I had to give the creature a prescribed-dosage suppository. (I warned that this story would be awkward, yet funny, but still have a very serious ending...) Onward...

OK... So my best friend Richard, sick cat Daedalus, and I found ourselves in a closed bathroom with a part of a baby suppository... (I should stop this blog right now and just walk away... That's how absurd that last sentence was...) The plan was to insert the suppository, and in doing so relieve the animal's 'tail-section congestion'. Yeah... Richard was to fend off the paws and lift the tail. I was going to hold the cat by the scruff of the neck and insert the glycerin 'thingamabob' in the 'target area'. But this is where it gets interesting... After my first failed attempt, it seems that Daedalus quickly grasped what I was trying to do and heard that banjo music from the movie 'Deliverance'. And with that, the cat somehow turned as one possessed (which he was) and stared at me for about one second... Never in my life have I been so in touch with another soul. It wasn't Homo Sapiens and Feline... Nah... This was pure Vulcan Mind Meld stuff, and Daedalus delivered two messages... "What the *bleep* do you think you're doing‽" and "I'm going to carve you up so much that even your shadow is going to bleed." And that was it. Freddy Kruger and Jaws and the Tasmanian Devil all exploded in a ten-pound bag of fur. True to his glare, Richard and I were in ribbons... Nothing was sacred, not even our faces. (I still think the cat was holding an additional grudge against me for having him 'fixed'... Oh, and cleaning cat scratches ain't no picnic either.)

The bottom line is that we took him back to the veterinarian, and it was decided that a bit of exploratory surgery was called for -- and the end result ($$$) was that the cat had eaten plastic and was completely blocked. Nothing but surgery could've saved him, which it did.

So, here's the bloodied and very serious lesson learned... When you have a sick animal and you take it to a vet, ask questions! Don't just glom along with the doctor. Ask for explanations... Use your common sense...

By the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Daedalus never did look at me quite the same way as before the 'Suppository Incident'...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I waffled about writing this post for a couple of days, but in the end, I stumbled upon the picture below and decided it was Fate telling me to go forward... (As in my post on death, I'll try to keep this light, though there is a bone-serious conclusion, so be aware...)

Obviously this is a bird blog, but if you're reading this, you're probably an 'animal person', so this probably is closer to home than one might think.

Alrighty then... For those of you not familiar with suppositories, take a look at the shot above. Notice how the crow has turned his fandango towards the lens? Well... suppositories help that particular part of the digestive track function. Basically, for creatures like humans and cats, a semi-solid lubricant is inserted where the sun don't shine, and then the person doing the insertion immediately seeks counseling in another state.

There... Mechanics out of the way, here's my story...

We had a cat named Daedalus, whom we inherited from the roadside. Daedalus was an abandoned waif, and understandably so -- he just wasn't right from the git go. He was bow-legged, an entire fries serving short in the Happy Meal category, and more clumsy than a drunken Hollywood starlet. But worst of all, Daedalus suffered from chronic skitters regardless of the diet. Still, he was our pet, and we had to care for him as the years crawled by...

And after roughly three years, the fun began... Daedalus' #2 cat box habits ceased -- he was bound up tighter than Dick's hat band... Oh goody... We took him to a vet, who, after a perfunctory examination, prescribed part of a baby suppository. (The amount is important -- incorrectly dosed suppositories can literally be lethal!) Formalities out of the way, we were given our cat and told to head for the local pharmacy.

Now, let me stop this story cold and offer a bit of advice. IMHO, any time a doctor examines any patient and prescribes a home-administered suppository... well, just look out!

Anywho, to wrap this up and compel you to read Part 2, I'll simply leave you with this teaser... By the time this experience was over, the cat was fine, the family budget had been blown right out of the water, my best friend and I lost quite a bit of blood, and Daedalus never looked at me the same again.

Still traumatized by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)