Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK
Cat Health & Behaviour => Health & Behaviour General => Topic started by: CurlyCatz on August 31, 2007, 10:31:52 AM
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I would just like to highlight the dangers of STRING / WOOL / ELASTIC and such like material for our furbabes !!!!!!!
Many cats will eat string and can swallow very long lengths (please see susanne's thread re Mosi )
This is very dangerous for our cats as the string acts against the natural gut movements and can result in the intestine or part of the gut being gathered up together like a concertina effect. This isnt myth or heresay it DOES and CAN happen, many cats suffer this foreign body and the lucky ones may pass / vomit or need exploratory surgery to remove the offending objects and often if the gut has been damaged they may need lengths of intestines removed also. The less fortunate ones may not survive esp where an owner doesnt know and treatment may be sought a little too late.
Again such foreign bodies can also lead to intestinal intussuseption which again is very serious and requires immediate life saving surgery.
SO
We all know our cats (and ourselves) greatly enjoy playing with many items / toys that have this type of material on them but please remember this warning and my advice is always hide these toys when you are not there to supervise play.
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Well said, Lynn.
Please anyone with a da bird be extra careful not to leave it lying around unsupervised. I know most of us don't leave those sort of toys lying around because of these kind of dangers, but it never occurred to me that Mosi would actually chew through the string so that he could swallow it. Esp as I was only in the next room. We were mid play and he was having a breather so I left it on the floor while I came onto the computer for a bit and he was (seemingly) lying in the hallway having a rest. Now he's in surgery and it's going to cost me (or hopefully petplan) about £600.
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>Lynn.....great thread ;)
>Susanne.....Good luck to Mosi for his surgery the poor man :(
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OMG Susanne I didnt know about little Mosi till now hope he's ok.
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We all know our cats (and ourselves) greatly enjoy playing with many items / toys that have this type of material on them but please remember this warning and my advice is always hide these toys when you are not there to supervise play.
Good advice, it is surprising how many cats suffer as a result of people allowing them to play with certain things when there is no supervision. Even wool or cotton left unattended has been known to cause problems. Animals are as bad as children and need watching constantly.
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Needles !!!! that was the other thing i meant to mention. I have seen easily 20 + cats who have swallowed thread dropped or left lying and still having the needle attached, normally these get stuck in the palate but i remember one xray which showed the needle having pentrated right up through and was in the sinus cavities, luckily the thread was still attached and the needle was eventually removed.
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Plastic bags might be another one to mention.
Bilbo loves the things (carrier bags, freezer bags, polypockets etc) and some time ago now I was clearing the litter tray out and found that more than half of the large poo was carrier bag, it had never crossed my mind until then that a cat might eat a carrier bag. I dread to think what would have happened if it hadn't passed through naturally. Now whenever he's inside I make sure to 'debag' the house first.
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Hamish and Misty are both indoor cats, and in the past(more so Hamish) I have caught them eating wool from a sheepskin rug, sewing thread and any piece of string/tow that they might find, even Hasien backed carpet. I eventually started bringing in handfuls of Grass putting it into a tumbler of water, they would go mental for it. I think it may just be thier natural instinct to get fibre in thier diet ??
And dont get me started on Plastic Bags :evillaugh:
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One thing I won't buy any more is bin bags with a tie included. They have a thin strip of yellow plastic attached (it comes of so you can wrap it round the bag to tie it) - Willow threw up once ance there was an entire piece. I caught her doing it again so threw the rest out.
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Thanks Lynn for this thread and was thinking we needed a warning after reading about Mosi ;D
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Definitely good advice, thanks Lynn. I always worry abpout long things getting tangled around their necks too so we tidy up after playtime
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The only thing i have heard about cats strangling themselves on in the house enviroment are the cords that hang for blinds.
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On another forum I use someone posted about their cat being seriously injured with the cords hanging from blinds. Think the cat might actually have died. There are so many dangerous items around the house and I think indoor cats are more likely to go looking for trouble than those that go outside and just come indoors for a snooze and a fuss. So
owners slaves of indoor cats need to be especially wary of these kind of things.
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Thanks Lynn for posting this hun.
Will pop a thread in the behaviour & health section too. :hug:
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On another forum I use someone posted about their cat being seriously injured with the cords hanging from blinds. Think the cat might actually have died. There are so many dangerous items around the house and I think indoor cats are more likely to go looking for trouble than those that go outside and just come indoors for a snooze and a fuss. So owners slaves of indoor cats need to be especially wary of these kind of things.
Yes cords for blinds are a problems for kids too I remember readng an article about a child got strangeld from having got one wrapped round his neck.
So what we did was if possible to cut the cords shorter so they are not a hazard we do if not we loop them up and round the top part and tie them there til they need to be opened or closed.
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Good luck to Mosi Suzanne :Luv:
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Thanks for posting this - I didnt realise the danger so its a good job you did !
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Your post is especially pertinent to me at this time. My 17 year old cat, Dragan, raided my kitchen bin (something he has not done since he was a youngster). He ate the netting from a joing of beef and has been so very very sick. He had to be hospitalised for two days and nights and is still not properly recovered. I knew he had eaten it when he sicked some up.
His back legs have weakened since he has been so ill and he had emergency treatment last night. I thought I was going to lose him (and in fact still could as the vet said last night).
So yes please be aware of the dangers to your animals and please keep your fingers crossed that my precious man recovers
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Best wishes to Dragan
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I do hope that Dragan will be OK, please let us know :hug:
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I'll be keeping everything crossed for Dragon :hug:
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Thank you for your kind words and Max the cat is the living image of my boy. well the news is good so far, he has rallied and is almost back to his old self (vocal demanding loving and sweet) but it has left him a "frail old man" (vetspeak). His legs are weakened and he is sleeping a lot. However I am lucky he made it through and I have learned a very valuable lesson.
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I am so pleased he has pulled through ;D
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Same here, hope he goes from strength to strength now the worst is over :Luv:
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Excellent post! These things can't be stressed enough. I always try to be super-vigilent... although I did once find poo-on-a-rope when I emptied Poppy's litter tray... The sneaky girl had somehow managed to find a piece of yarn to swallow - well, it's not easy trying to out-smart a cat! Fortunately, it passed right through. And it did make the job of scooping poo out of the tray extra easy... :rofl:
Best wished to those cats who are recouperating at the moment.
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Excellent thread. We have seen many cats with linear foreign bodies requiring surgery, as it's such a lot for them to go through, sometimes with fatal consequences.
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Ooooooooooooooooo Emma does vn stand for Vet Nurse purrrrrrrchance ;D
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Why yes it does :evillaugh:
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It does indeed, she is a new member and very welcome!! ;D
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I have to remove all metalic ribbons and bows from presents at Christmas as Penny eats them - she does not touch anything else like that, but as soon as the christmas presents appear she straight over to them to see if they have any metalic on them.
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I am picking up a pair of new cats next weekend :yayyy: but I am already aware that one of them has a bit of a fetish for plastic - not just carrier bags but *any* kind of plastic. He licks it! I am going to spend the next week ordering my house and educating my family! Luckily, we don't have carrier bags often (reuse, recycle, etc!) but it's worth keeping an eye out nevertheless. (When I saw him at the cattery, he was licking the plastic wallet containing his details!)
Previous cats of mine have had peculiar peccadilloes - one used to plant his entire head, if he could, into leather shoes that had just been removed by the wearer. He wasn't fussy whose they were and this often used to amuse/befuddle guests! Our current cat loves anything rubber - she will go as mad for it as she does with cat-nip (which we have to ration as she goes loopy.)
Thanks for the info about string, too!
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Many years ago, i was woken in the middle of the night by a stange sound, could not have told you what it was, call it a motherly instinct, but i got up to investigate and at the time we had roman blinds at every window. I went into the box room and found Lineker tangled in the strings behind the blind. He had got up on to the windowsil in the night and all i can presume is that as he moved the blind so that he could get to look out the window he must have climbed in to the workings of the blind and had the blind one side of his body and the strings the other side. He then got the strings tangled round his collar and tried to free himself and got himself even more tangled. The point that i found him he was completely stuck tight in the blind and i thank my lucky stars that he did not fall off the windowsil otherwise he would have hung himself. The blinds went in the bin the very next day and there is not a day goes by that i dont realise what a lucky escape we had, oh and neither of my cats wear a collar in the house any more, it only goes on when they go outside.
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Jameson loves playing with anything that has a string attached to it (inc. blinds) but recently he has been getting overly excited when he plays and has started playing very rough with them - especially with the string attached to his scratching post (with a fur ball attached on the other end). I actually cut it off today when I witnessed him fighting it like he was possessed by the devil. I am sure to always put anything 'stringy' away - yesterday he was chasing the mouse on a string and he got tangled up several times (he doesn't actually catch the mouse - he just runs after it and then whacks the string once and then charge off).
It's not worth the risk, always supervise the playing. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him swallowing a stringy piece of material and tried desperately to get it out of his mouth - I had no idea cats would eat material, but now I know. Luckily he was ok.
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Thanks for the warning,
My 2 will eat anything they can get their paws on, even the one with no teeth! Fred does also have a bit of a shoe fetish and will chew the shoelaces.
From now on the shoes are going in a cupboard!
Thx
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Reading this post has made me a little cautious of my Poosha's fetish with anything paper .
She happily attacks letters, newspapers magazines etc . She holds the paper down with her paw and tears away with her teeth.
I,ve never seen her eat any of it, she just sits with a satisfied expression when she has totally destroyed her find.
Now I have to move all mags ,papers etc out of her reach, and have fitted a letter basket on my front door..
:rofl: nothing papery is safe !!
I put a card and envelope on the dining table the other day ready to write out. On my return the envelope had been shreadded by madam !!! :notme:
But i will be more careful now incase she has ingested any!
Moggy xx
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My Oscar always had a tissue and loo roll fetish as a kitten. he never used to eat it , but many the time I would go to the toilet to find a shredded loo roll and a smug looking cat!
Beavis much prefers human feet - naked toes are just too tempting!
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My sisters cat swallowed a needle and thread, she didn't know this, but when the cat started to lose weight she took her to the vet, sadly it was too late to do anything.
My boy Roque likes to lick plastic carrier bags, so they are put in a safe place away from him, it's better to be safe than sorry.
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I can only vouch for how dangerous sting/cotton is.
My cat Murphy swallowed some cotton and ended up with intersusception. Thank goodness we were so persistant with the vets.
We noticed hime stop eating and miowing alot and not going to the toilet. We rushed him to the vet and they gave him antibiotics. These just made him foam at the mouth and made him aorse. We took him again and they said it was nothing to worry about.
Then finally it was the last straw and I called up and demanded to see the vet, she tried to book me in at 3.30pm that day but I siad it was not good enough. She then asked me to come straight away, I did so and it turned out that he was hours from death.
Luckily they caught it in time and operated!
He is fine now but just be warned. We also had insurance and they paid out as the operation was over £500!
I am so lucky he is still here and theat I was so persistant with the vet!
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My little cat sophie ate a piece of carpet string which thankfully worked its way down and out of her system yesterday. The string irritated the anal glands which then flushed it out. She is very picky about eating at mo but looks healthy.
My big warning is about clothes. I had a cat who died a terrible death from cancer of the isophagus caused by sucking clothes. Clothes contain deadly cancerous chemicals found in fabric softners and probably washing powders. Remember if you let your cat even suck at your hair or skin it is ingesting poisonous detergents, moisturisers etc.
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Another one to watch for is dental floss. I found a piece this morning despite warning OH to make sure it is binned >:(
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Another thing: keep your toilet lid closed! (yes really) Cats have been known to fall in head-first and drown because they couldn't get out :shocked:
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I had left string hanging from tape at top of curtains in the event that we might move house and curtains need readjusting. Never gave it a second thought until I found Millie chewing one of them the other day :shocked:. They have all now been cut off.
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Another thing: keep your toilet lid closed! (yes really) Cats have been known to fall in head-first and drown because they couldn't get out :shocked:
Always do cos I would be scared of that
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Just seen this and has to reply to say the dangers are real, Lou Lou Flump ate the String from a Roast Beef Joint, (you know the butchers string that keeps a joint of meat together whilst you are cooking it) she went into the bin and took out the 'beefy string' and ate it, 24 hours later and over £600 later she was recovering at the vets after the string had wound itself round her stomach, that was a few years ago now and she is OK now - apart from a very saggy tum !. We now keep any sort of string out of reach of the cats and any string from the Sunday Roast gets cut into little peices before it is put in the bin.
Also on another note, the danger of the bits of plastic that keep cans together !, I saw a cat a few years ago with one of them round his head, I chop them all apart now before placing them in the rubbish bin x
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Excellent post! These things can't be stressed enough. I always try to be super-vigilent... although I did once find poo-on-a-rope when I emptied Poppy's litter tray... The sneaky girl had somehow managed to find a piece of yarn to swallow - well, it's not easy trying to out-smart a cat! Fortunately, it passed right through. And it did make the job of scooping poo out of the tray extra easy... :rofl:
Best wished to those cats who are recouperating at the moment.
Isn't Poppy beautiful!!! She looks a little like my Chester!!
Chester also has a thing for yarn. I knit and he finds my 'creations' and chews them. i knitted a beautiful scarf that noone can ever wear because Chester chewed it. He then started dragging his bottom on the floor, chairs, tables...any surface really, and miaowing a lot. When we picked him up he had a piece of yarn hanging out of his bottom...it wasn't pleasant for anyone involved. We successfully removed the yarn..and the scarf and he hasn't been able to do it since!!
(http://i710.photobucket.com/albums/ww107/Hayley-M/ChesterApril09031.jpg)
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I know that Christmas is a long-ish way off, but.
Icicles are so bad, I had to ease one out of Barneys bottom over the course of two days. He did yell but I was very gentle and we did get it all out eventually. I don't have them on the Xmas tree now!
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I read somewhere that chocolate is bad for cats.