The Chillout Zone (Off-Topic Thread)

The dumbest thing happened to our poor kitty this week. she is called Rince (Rinka) and also Kitterton Turned up 3 years ago at age 4 weeks, in the bonnet of my car early in the morning. We nursed her through flu and sinusitis, and then again through pneumonia, which she developed following her spay. And has been a most vigourously healthy cat ever since then, thankfully.

She's always been an indoor kitty, same as the cat we adopted a couple years before, an ex-feral from the famous Dun Laoghaire colony. All our families live miles away, so sometimes we have to take the dog and go visit them for a couple days: our lovely neighbour calls in for the cats while we are gone.

But this kitty, who is the most ridiculously vocal cat you could meet, tends to meow a lot for people to come when we aren't there. And this time she made herself hoarse :eek:

She's been to the vet, had an anti-inflammatory injection, and has throat drops to get for the next few days. Hopefully this sorts her out, so the loudest meow in Ireland will be back functioning very soon. She still keeps on trying to do it, won't give it a rest, and it sounds so pathetic I feel so guilty

She's in great health in every other way, eating well, tearing around and playing in her usual fashion, but it's easy to tell it's distressing her, not being able to shout. So please, if anyone has healing thoughts for her poor, worn-out vocal chords, they'd be much appreciated

Maybe get him to the vet for testing right away, before you do become attached? Although in fairness, I wouldn't say FeLV is so common that you'd be likely to be that unlucky twice in a row. Got my fingers crossed, tho, and all the best of luck to you, this time around.

We have to bring Cream to the vet next week too for his skin, might see you there :P

At least it was horse poo!! A few weeks ago during the warm weather people took to using the dunes as a loo... Crossing from dunes to beach early one morning and Bailey the poo roller found something he liked the smell off ! PUKE PUKE PUKE Luckily we were right beside him as he went to do it so it wasn't bad - into the sea and under the solar showers with him then scrubbed him when I got home. I have a small bottle of shampoo in the car now just in case

Anyways ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I'm SO TIRED!!! Can't wait until Lucy is housetrained lol!

Good luck with the vets everyone! I don't do to well at the vets, usually my babies are grand but it's me that gets stressed :pac:

Poppy's getting so funny with playing ball. She'll have the ball her her mouth and jump up and grab my arm with her two paws and actually places the ball in my hand (or tries to anyway). How can I say no to that?

Little visitor is still coming by regularly. He spent most of yesterday here. Going to try and get him/her to a vets this week if we can catch him. I don't think we'll need a cat trap this time around, he's so close to coming in on his own (Still presses himself up against the glass on the back door). I don't think I've ever met such an insistent stray before. I snapped a photo of him and Cinnamon doing their longing looks just before:

Oh poor Jazzy Hopefully when you take him in he wont need repeat visits for the tail. It's a shame a vet couldn't come out to you and save all the stress

Oh my goodness, retriever heaven! http://www.her.ie/story/too-cute-222-golden-retrievers-gather-for-scottish-festival-987146

ah it must be a typo? There's a frenchie on our puppy class and he's a bully to the other pups lol! He looks like a gremlin too!

We've had Rocky, our 1yr old lab for six weeks now and it's beginning to seem like at first he was on his best behaviour, and now he's like - hey guys, we're all besties, no need for manners here eh? He is an absolute greedy glutton, he would eat continously if he could and if he hears a food wrapper rattle he is on the case within seconds, whether he's asleep or in the next room. On Sunday evening I decided to have a cuppa and a bicky but could not find my oreos - I knew they were around somewhere as I had opened them earlier in the day and taken one out of the packet. Went looking thinking I had gone mad til I found half the wrapper at the bottom of the garden!! He had also stolen a half Dairy Milk bar I had left on the kitchen table. I was worried about him being ill after that but not a bother on him. Little scamp! Will have to make sure any food is kept in the cupboards from now on!!!

No, he is actually due a visit to the vet to get a load of stuff checked off the list so that needs done anyway but it's really just a matter of him thinking it's completely unfair if we are eating and he is not, he's a hungry hungry hippo!! Unless of course it's vegetables we're talking about...!

Ah that's great news - it's brilliant when you get away with taking them lol! Bailey gets so frightened I dread having to take him. Last week at our appointment I tried some t-touch he actually lay down and relaxed! At least I know I was doing them right lol!

I've just been having a little training session with Lucy practicing loose lead/self control - with a toy because she's more toy driven atm. Started of going really well - she copped on fairly quickly that she needed to turn back to me first etc..then somebody else decided they wanted in on the action and started bringing me all other random toys lol!! Then it turned into the two of them having a mad half hour having a game with each other

anniehoo wrote: »

What's "t-touch" TK?

http://www.ttouch.com/


There's a few parts to it -
- one is slow gentle circular movements/touches
- another part is wraps - like thunder shirts or wraps you do with bandages
- another is ground work - so you get the animal to move over different surfaces or in different directions. I've done this with Bailey (always get out of our routine to my shame!) and have seen huge improvements in his balance and gait. We used cones and poles so he'd step slowly over the poles and another is a 'labyrinth' that you walk around a little maze going around corners to work on their balance
- another is looking for signs in their coat/paws - eg fur sticking out where it shouldn't be, dry spots etc etc

A few trainers I know suggested I come along to a seminar last year that somebody was coming over from the UK to do - Bailey was about 6 months post OP at the time and wasn't even on his legs. In negotiations with my mum to see if she's up to minding Lucy at the weekend because there's an intro workshop on and I'd like to take a refresher :p

anniehoo wrote: »

Just had a gawk at the website (Tellington Therapy).Wow it sounds really interesting alright, but maybe it's just me but that Youtube Video didn't convince me on their site. The dog looked uncomfortable @0.20s in.Is it just me?

Is he looking up because he didn't like it or looking to something off camera lol?!

It def works but with Bailey anyways he prefers some touches over others so some he might not want done on him and others he loves and just lies down. If there was an area he wasn't sure he wanted touched he'd start messing trying to cause a diversion!

Sitting in work this afternoon I realised I got a familiar smell off my fleece ... puppy pee!

tk123 wrote: »

Sitting in work this afternoon I realised I got a familiar smell off my fleece ... puppy pee!

Oh I've had that before with bags and cat pee, so embarassing. lol

Had great fun this evening. I was a judge at a kids pet show and it was furry and "non furry" overload,there was even a tarantula...sooooooo many pets showed up. Endless fun! People went ALL out, even dressing up their pets :pac: I got to judge the "small dogs" and "cats" categories.There was about 50 pets in total. Mental!:eek:

One diamond of a kid stood out, well stood back in the corner tbh,with her gorgeous JRT.Very well behaved and so friendly. Not a classically "pretty dog" like the others, but an absolute gem all the same. The little kid was only about 6 or 7....and both her and her dog were just adorable. I gave them 1st place!!! She was sooooo chuffed.The looks i got from the owners who's dogs had dresses/bow ties/t shirts and bling on were only hilarious. :D

Sarannewrap wrote: »

Brought my new kitten home. Can't believe how small she is compared to my other kitten who's not much older. She's ravaged with ear mites and she stank of urine so had to give her a bath. I got her from an animal rescue who's conditions didn't seem the best. Broke my heart leaving all the other kittys there

Hearin' ya! I also got 2 kittens from a rescue for my MIL a few weeks ago, not from the same litter, but from a bunch they had brought to the pet shop for an adoption drive, from all different litters. In a rabbit hutch full of shavings, if you please.

Had my name down at the local vet for her: he always gets really healthy kittens and does all the right things to make sure you pick up fab pets when you pay down your money.

But of course I'm never thinking about the money, and knew when my soft-hearted neighbour dragged me into the petshop that all bets were gonna be off. I was gonna pick 2 kittens that needed rescuing, go straight to the vet, and pay him far more than he woulda charged me for the 2 healthy kittens I was down for.

And so it happened. Both raddled with worms, the smaller one had mites too, and was very weak, so much so that the vet took her to the back and gave her a drip with vitamin B12. She did prove pretty resilient, however, maintaining healthy, solid poos throughout, when the much bigger boy had to fight through a virus over the weekend, with bloody stools and going off his food on Sunday to the point where it was just very lucky I had a couple sachets of convalescence support left over from an earlier time, and syringes to persuade him to start licking the stuff.

I also had to put in a lot of gentle, patient work to get that boy to trust humans, although bizarrely he had fooled me on that score, by starting to purr immediately when I took him out of the rabbit cage that time when I picked out the kittens. The teeny girl was climbing onto me at any opportunity for a perch-and-purr, the entire week I was keeping the kittens for mother-in-law.

I'd thought I'd be keeping them for her for the whole time til their vaccinations were finished, but it turned out my mother-in-law (whose 17-yr-old cat had died of cancer) was missing cats too much, so we delivered them after a week in our place. At least at that stage I was satisfied they were now healthy, although she would have to keep them in for the rest of their vax program.

Probably for the best really, as she has a young and rather neurotic Rottie to introduce them to, and waiting wasn't likely to improve that. He was really very difficult with them to begin with, but got quickly better over days, so them being younger was probably better, as they didn't get as traumatised as older cats might have.

As we expected, the tiny kitten was braver, and seemed to take to things faster, standing up to Benny more easily. The bigger kitten hid a lot in the first few days, although he responded very well to us when we interacted with him in the kitchen and Benny wasn't there. Both kittens, incidentally, had been very relaxed with our dog, Lola, right from the start: Lola is a Dobie who is fab with cats - our very confident indoor cat at home is her very best non-human friend.

Just to show, we should never expect anything with animals tho, mother-in-law now informs us that the bigger male kitty (Paul) is now one of the most affectionate she has had, and brave as a lion with Benny, while suddenly miss tiny kitten (Petra) has gone all shy, no longer likes being picked up, which she used to love, and will hide behind Paul when Benny shows any interest.

Could this be due to developmental phases or something? And is Petra likely to get over her shyness and become the confident kitty she appeared when she was really young?

I'm going away for the weekend as a manager with community games, I wanted to bring the cats up as mascots but apparently that's frowned upon :P

borderlinemeath wrote: »

Urgh, it's that time of year. So far this morning I've killed 3 wasps in the house. Benson is a divil for catching bluebottles/daddylonglegs/anything that flies and eating it, I'm terrified he'll catch one and get stung in his mouth. :eek:

My friend's setter got stung after chasing bees in the lavendar she has out the back - well we think he did but no swelling or anything and was off form and miserable.. he went to kennels the same day while they went off for a week's hols, came back and he refused to go out the back! She had to pull the lavendar up to get rid of all the bees.

Make sure you have some antihistamines in case he does get stung - I normally use Pirotin for Bailey.

Well Bailey got attacked by wasps last year and he was fine - no lumps and bumps and he even bit one them(!) :eek: - he barked at every dog he met after though lol! My friend's dog - it was like a cartoon with all the lumps appearing lol.

baby and crumble wrote: »

Just back from the vet with Isabella. Her fur has gotten really thin at the back, and the vet thinks it's probably anxiety. I always thought we gave her a really good home, now I'm all worried that something is stressing her out and I don't know what.

That and she might be developing arthritis, which is why she's not running so much on her wheel.

She was so good with the vet though, she stayed really still and let her examine him with no problems. Bless her, she's so good!

Have kinda dreaded (sorry ) seeing your posts after you said the other day in the Pics Thread she was "slowing down". I literally have NO IDEA what to say, only that you know her best. Could the "anxiety" be related to a hormonal issue rather than behavioural/environmental? Vets treat hormonal conditions (resulting in anxiety e.g. Cushings) in "small animals" all the time, but does it extend to rodents?

Hope you're ok, Isabella is like our Boards rodent mascot, legend

baby and crumble wrote: »

so long as she's happy and relaxed that's all I want.

Exactly. Keep us updated won't ya?!

Little Isabella must be the most loved hamster in the world! Her pics make me want a hammy and I know one looking for a home. Not sure I could dedicate the time to it though, considering how much your lady seems to thrive on attention.

Anybody any nice plans with their pets today? K is off doing something boyish today, left at 6.30am so today the boys and I plan to do nothing but this: