Een je-weet-wel-kater
Apr. 4th, 2005 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miekecTranslated: a-you-know-what-male-cat
Understandable translation: fixed male cat
Origin: well-know Dutch cartoon series has an orange cat who describes himself as
"een je-weet-wel-kater". Probably because he just doesn't want to talk about it :) here's a picture.
Weasley got "fixed" on Friday.
We dropped him off in the morning, and John and Alex picked him up that afternoon. Still groggy from the anesthesia.
They had put one of those elizabethan collars on him, so he wouldn't be able to bite his wound. The doc told J to keep it on Weasley for 10 days; J just looked at the guy, smiled, and said "It's a cat!". "Well, as long as you can. Preferably 10 days."
Yeah, right.
Heh. You can guess where that went.
W was very unstable on his legs when he got home. Not surprising, considering the anesthesia he'd had. That didn't stop him from trying to get the cone/collar off, and from blundering around the place. At least he didn't barge head-first into walls, like Yoda did when he'd gotten fixed. Every-day things like eating, drinking and litterbox were now a challenge; the bowls were almost impossible to eat/drink from. We basically had to grab the cone and position it over the bowl, so that his mouth would actually reach the contents, rather then use the cone as a giant scoop to shove everything out of the bowls. Litterbox-as-it-was didn't work either, seeing that a) it was on the other side of the basement door, and b) the collar didn't fit through the cat-flap in said door. After hauling the box up, there was still c) the opening of the litterbox-lid was also smaller than the cone. Sigh.
Removed the lid to the litterbox, and shoved it under the desk in the kitchen (yes, yes, a desk in the kitchen and a tub in the living room. I know. We're working on it). I figured, at least now the box is contained on all but one side by wall and desk, so that would keep the mess to a minimum.
Wrong.
There was a lot of viscious digging and turning and clawing and more digging, every time he tried to use said device. Combine that with the scooped-out water and food (did you know that cat dry-food, when absorbing water, becomes nice and soggy and slippery?), and voila - instant disaster. In the kitchen.
Plus, a still very frustrated and pitiful cat, who kept trying to get the torture-device off, and kept trying to lick the wound clean, and had to be scritched behind the ears because his paws couldn't get there now. And a filthy cat, because basically his tongue was separated from the rest of his body, so he couldn't clean himself. Of course, he did not appreciate the warm, wet, washcloth we used to clean his worst smelling sections.*
Needless to say, this didn't last 10 days. Or even a day.
Shortly before bedtime, he managed to get the collar off, and was cleaning and cleaning and cleaning before we noticed. The poor thing. There was absolutely no way we would (let alone could) put it back on him. So, we did basic disaster-recovery, swept the kitchen and put the lid on the litterbox. Still in the kitchen, since it was still a pit, and we didn't want him to negotiate the steep basement stairs to get there. Or risk him using the whole kitchen as a litterbox out of defiance :)
The next morning, we had a much happier cat. All clean, rested, fed and watered. And healing very well.
*To his credit, he only used his claws on us (or rather, on J) once during the whole ordeal.
Understandable translation: fixed male cat
Origin: well-know Dutch cartoon series has an orange cat who describes himself as
"een je-weet-wel-kater". Probably because he just doesn't want to talk about it :) here's a picture.
Weasley got "fixed" on Friday.
We dropped him off in the morning, and John and Alex picked him up that afternoon. Still groggy from the anesthesia.
They had put one of those elizabethan collars on him, so he wouldn't be able to bite his wound. The doc told J to keep it on Weasley for 10 days; J just looked at the guy, smiled, and said "It's a cat!". "Well, as long as you can. Preferably 10 days."
Yeah, right.
Heh. You can guess where that went.
W was very unstable on his legs when he got home. Not surprising, considering the anesthesia he'd had. That didn't stop him from trying to get the cone/collar off, and from blundering around the place. At least he didn't barge head-first into walls, like Yoda did when he'd gotten fixed. Every-day things like eating, drinking and litterbox were now a challenge; the bowls were almost impossible to eat/drink from. We basically had to grab the cone and position it over the bowl, so that his mouth would actually reach the contents, rather then use the cone as a giant scoop to shove everything out of the bowls. Litterbox-as-it-was didn't work either, seeing that a) it was on the other side of the basement door, and b) the collar didn't fit through the cat-flap in said door. After hauling the box up, there was still c) the opening of the litterbox-lid was also smaller than the cone. Sigh.
Removed the lid to the litterbox, and shoved it under the desk in the kitchen (yes, yes, a desk in the kitchen and a tub in the living room. I know. We're working on it). I figured, at least now the box is contained on all but one side by wall and desk, so that would keep the mess to a minimum.
Wrong.
There was a lot of viscious digging and turning and clawing and more digging, every time he tried to use said device. Combine that with the scooped-out water and food (did you know that cat dry-food, when absorbing water, becomes nice and soggy and slippery?), and voila - instant disaster. In the kitchen.
Plus, a still very frustrated and pitiful cat, who kept trying to get the torture-device off, and kept trying to lick the wound clean, and had to be scritched behind the ears because his paws couldn't get there now. And a filthy cat, because basically his tongue was separated from the rest of his body, so he couldn't clean himself. Of course, he did not appreciate the warm, wet, washcloth we used to clean his worst smelling sections.*
Needless to say, this didn't last 10 days. Or even a day.
Shortly before bedtime, he managed to get the collar off, and was cleaning and cleaning and cleaning before we noticed. The poor thing. There was absolutely no way we would (let alone could) put it back on him. So, we did basic disaster-recovery, swept the kitchen and put the lid on the litterbox. Still in the kitchen, since it was still a pit, and we didn't want him to negotiate the steep basement stairs to get there. Or risk him using the whole kitchen as a litterbox out of defiance :)
The next morning, we had a much happier cat. All clean, rested, fed and watered. And healing very well.
*To his credit, he only used his claws on us (or rather, on J) once during the whole ordeal.
