Caturday

The downside of the whole nine lives situation with cats is that when they have run through all nine and have come to the natural end of their lives and no longer find any pleasure in their daily routine they tend not to just pass away peacefully in their sleep. They tend to need to come into the clinic to be given that final gentle nudge into the great beyond. Cats are that tough. Consequently, we see a lot of really ancient, really skinny, really creaky cats come in for euthanasia. Often they are accompanied by entire families, sometimes including older teenagers who have never known life without that cat.

It's been a long time since I've had to say goodbye to my own cat, but after the last old cat euthanasia at the clinic - an 18-year-old torti named Kitten - it's been on my mind. Kitten reminded me a lot of our oldest cat,  Lucy, also a torti. I recalled that Caturday would soon be upon us. Lucy was a stray and we have no idea when exactly she was born, so making an educated guess we assigned her birthday to the first of March. Gabi, the second oldest cat, has her birthday in September (we think...), but the newest beast, Lily was probably also born in early March. It was then that we decided to make the first Saturday in March "Caturday" to mark both Lucy and Lily's birthday. This Caturday Lucy will be thirteen and will officially be an old cat. Not ancient by any means, but old. Old enough that I look at her a little differently.

I came home after Kitten's euthanasia, made myself a mug of tea and sat in my usual spot on my usual couch. Lucy was sleeping on the other couch but stirred when I sat down. She looked over at me, stretched, leapt down and made her way over, purring loudly. Oh yes, she definitely still can leap. In fact, there's nothing about her that would hint at her age except for the fact that she has become thin. She was always the fat cat - the fat boss cat who would prowl about the house, keeping the other pets in line, handing out swats and issuing hisses as she deemed necessary and appropriate. But in the last couple of months, she has very gradually become thinner. She seems healthy enough in every other respect and she is still just as bossy with the other animals, but the other change is that she has become friendlier to me. She was never unfriendly, but she always favoured Isabel and Lorraine. However, the arrival of Lily (aka The Hellbeast, aka The FK - I'll let you figure that one out) resulted in a slow-motion shuffling of loyalties. From the start, Lily was Isabel's kitten. Lucy still wanted to be with Isabel, but she could not be in the same room with Lily, so after a few months of cats screaming at other cats, she stopped trying as hard. In the meantime, Gabi, the "middle cat", cemented her position as Lorraine's cat. Lucy and Gabi could have shared that role as they used to be best friends, but some subtle cat politics were at play wherein Lily's arrival cooled their relationship.

Enter me. I don't mind being third string.

I petted Lucy absentmindedly while checking my emails. When I was finished I looked more carefully at her. Yes, she was definitely not just thinner in the sense of happily no longer being fat, but thinner in the sense of possibly being too thin, making her look older than her almost thirteen years.

My thoughts then drifted to how she was snuggling. She never used to do that, at least not with me. It made me think of Kato, the cat Lorraine had when she was a student. Kato was a Siamese cross and was named for Inspector Clouseau's sidekick in the old Pink Panther movies. Like her film character counterpart, she would ambush you with frightening savagery at the most unexpected moments. I learned to enter Lorraine's place with extreme caution. When we moved in together it was to a pet free apartment and Kato went to live with Lorraine's parents. It was only much later, when we had a house and Lorraine's parents had passed on, that Kato came back to live with us. By this point she was a very old cat and she was a completely changed cat. No more ambushes. No more savagery. In her old age Kato had become mellow and affectionate. Letting her go when her time finally came tore our hearts out.

Lucy apparently had enough snuggling and stretched and sat up, looking about her. Lily had entered the far side of the room. Lucy tensed and jumped down. As she stalked towards Lily I took note for the first time how boney her hips were. Yes, I would have to take her to the clinic and run some tests. She had had a full check-up and blood tests within the last year, but a lot can change quickly in an old cat. Old cats need special attention and special love.

My grandfather lived to the age of 93. Shortly after he died I was talking to one of my uncles. I don't recall exactly what I said, but I must have implied that it is easier to let go when the deceased is very old. I may not remember what I said, but I do remember my uncle's reply very clearly:
"Philipp, just because someone is very old doesn't mean that you love them less. In fact, the older they are, the longer they have been part of your life and it is possible that you love them even more."

Happy Caturday Lucy, my old cat.

Fido v The World

Urban wildlife encounters in three parts:

Part One - Sprayed

Before I even saw him, I could smell Brownie. The whole clinic could smell Brownie. Probably the neighbours could smell Brownie. Maybe even the people driving by on Portage Avenue could smell Brownie. But Brownie didn't care. He was still the same old happy tail wagging chocolate Lab we loved, or at least we used to love until he came in and made everyone go, "Oh my God! What is that smell? Is that skunk??"

Yes, it was. Brownie had been skunked. He may not have cared but his owner was in a state of some considerable distress. She kept apologizing for bringing him in, but she didn't want him in the house and he had met the skunk in the yard, so she didn't want him there either until she was sure that it was safe, and it was a hot summer day, so she couldn't leave him in the car. The only place left to go was the clinic, where she was desperately hoping we could help. We did have "Skunk-Off" in stock, so a brave vet tech put on a large smock and led Brownie, tail still wagging, to a distant room to apply it. Brownie was lucky because he hadn't gotten it in the eyes, where it can be quite irritating, and he was lucky because he was up to date on rabies vaccines and it didn't look like he had actually come in direct contact with the skunk. Skunks are the most common carriers of rabies in Manitoba.

Now some of you, especially those of my generation and older, will be thinking about all those old classic television shows where skunked dogs were bathed in tomato juice. Don't do it. First of all, it is easily more expensive than an enzymatic cleaner, secondly, it is ridiculously messy, and thirdly it doesn't actually work. It only seems to work because of something called olfactory fatigue wherein your nose has become overwhelmed by the combined tomato-skunk stench and calls it quits. Anyone new encountering the dog will still smell the skunk until their nose packs it in too. And then the competing tomato smell wears off and you have a pink stinky dog. If you really need a home remedy, the recipe you'll see online for 3% peroxide, baking soda and dishwashing soap does work. (If you're reading this you presumably have internet access, so just Google "skunk spray peroxide recipe" for detailed instructions.)

But on the plus side you and your dog have been exposed to a marvel of nature. Skunks can spray three metres from their little anal sac nozzles, their spray odour can be detected up to 5 km away and it only takes 10 parts per billion to make a stink. So mix a little wonder into your horror.


Part Two - Poked

In porcupine country, every clinic has these. In the city perhaps only one or two, but in rural areas probably quite a few. I'm talking about "quill dogs". We call them quill dogs because there appears to be a circuit in the canine brain that is dedicated to solving The Mystery of the Spiky Beast. You would think that getting a faceful of quills would be a deterrent to approaching the Spiky Beast again, and that's certainly what said beast intends, but to a quill dog, this is just a mystery that absolutely needs to be solved. A puzzle that needs to be figured out. An enigmatic opponent who needs to be bested. And this mystery is almost never solved. The Spiky Beast almost always makes a getaway.

The practical consequence of all this is that these quill dogs will present again and again to the vet to have the quills removed. This is rarely medically serious, but it is often a significant nuisance. On the rare occasions where it is serious, it is because a quill has gotten in the eye, or deep in the throat. In even more rare occasions they can migrate deeper into the body. Usually though it's just a matter of giving the poor bewildered dog an anesthetic and painstakingly searching for the quills. Once you find them they're easy to remove. "Once you find them..." Please do not be upset at your vet if he or she missed a few quills! Ones that have broken off at the surface can be very difficult to find. And please do not consider this a DIY project - you will miss far more if your dog is not sedated or anesthetized, and it will be painful.

On the upside, porcupine quills are coated in an antibiotic substance. We will still often prescribe an antibiotic as a precaution, but getting quilled leads to far less infection than you might expect. You might wonder why the porcupine is being so kind to others? It's not. It's being kind to itself because the animal most commonly poked by a porcupine is the porcupine itself when it accidentally falls out of a tree! This is more common than you might think. They are not especially elegant creatures.

And before we move on to Part Three I want to dispell a porcupine myth. They cannot shoot or even toss their quills. What they can do is jump very quickly towards their opponent and then lash out with their tail before jumping away again. Not elegant, but lightning fast.


Part Three - Chomped

As the saying goes, there's a first time for everything. And I suspect that this may also be the last time I see something like this. Mrs Bernard brought Duffy, her beautiful golden retriever, in after he had fought with a beaver and lost. He had a set of perfectly chisel shaped puncture wounds on his paw. Yes, a beaver. Yes, fighting with it and losing. And yes, right here in the city of Winnipeg.

So let's unpack that.

Last thing first. Winnipeg is a city of rivers and streams and beavers are actually quite plentiful here. They keep to themselves though and I suspect that the majority of Winnipeggers have never seen one, but if they walk their dogs near these rivers and streams, their dogs almost certainly have smelled them and are almost certainly intrigued. Well, Duffy was intrigued. He was intrigued enough to dive into the creek and investigate the source of that smell.

This brings me to the next thing, beavers and fighting. There is a general prejudice about beavers that they are amiable but dull-witted. People have a cartoon image of a good-natured, hard-working, basically passive animal going about its business without paying attention to much else. Well, they are hard-working, but they are as mentally sharp as any rodent and they are only amiable, good-natured and passive if you leave them alone. Duffy did not leave the beaver alone. The beaver tried to swim away, but Duffy followed until they got close to the lodge when the beaver decided to make a stand. It whipped around and chomped the surprised dog on the paw. It was a one-sided fight. Duffy may have intended to bite the beaver, but quickly changed his mind and splashed back to his shocked owner.

In 2013 a beaver attacked a 60-year-old fisherman in Belarus. The bite severed an artery and the man died. Kind of gives you new respect for our supposedly comical national animal...