Category Archives: Living with cats

How to reconcile cats and works

Pixie in the nail studio
The renovation work of the bathroom began for a week ; the first two days, it was infernal ! Nevertheless, Claire and Momo do their best so that we are the most comfortable possible : this is what your human can do in case of works so that it’s bearable :

  • Tell your cats that it’s going to have works there, that other people are going to come home, and that they will have no more access to a part of the house for a few days.
  • Plan to put your cats in the part of the house the most distant from the noise and from the agitation.
  • Prepare the living-room : a place for the food, a litter box in the opposite side or in a next room if possible; bring the favourite toys of your cats and their basket or their cover so that they feel safe.
  • As possible, stay with them in the room : your calm will help them to feel that the noise is unpleasant but that there is no danger.
  • If noises of machine (drill, grindstone) either big noises of demolition are to be planned during a whole day continuously or for several days, intend to go with your cats to a reliable person during this period.

Our isolation room is the nail studio with access to the garden, but as the house is small, we cannot say that we heard nothing !
Zorro listening in the garden
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How to save your furniture from the claws of your cat

Easy : give him something else to scratch !

All right, we are going to explain to you : we, cats, naturally need to scratch our claws. This activity allows us to sharpen them, to deposit our smell on objects, to mark our territory, and to stretch. We thus need several places in various rooms to be able to make him if you like your furniture.

  • The surface to be scratched can be vertical or horizontal ; the ideal would be to have both at arrangement.
  • The surface or the scratching post must be stable.
  • The vertical scratching post has to be minimum 70 cms high so that we can stretch completely.
  • Scratching posts can be made by diverse materials : carpet, sisal, cardboard, soft wood, …
  • A scratching post can be a simple log, a piece of carpet (on the wall or on the ground), an immense cat tree, …
  • You can ask your veterinarian to show you how to make us regularly a pawticure: we’ll less need to scratch if our claws are not too long.

used scratching postThe more we use our scratching post, the more we love it. Don’t change it when it becomes used (and ugly), this is the way we prefer it !

We don’t like be scolded, but we adore treats : it may happen to us to confuse the new leather sofa with the scratching post. Instead of yelling, say firmly “NO”, and manage us towards the deliberate place ; show us that it’s there that we can scratch, and encourage us in giving us a treat. We’re more a quick learner with a small reward !

We’re not straight off going to understand ; so, during our learning, why not to protect temporarily the new sofa with an old blanket ?
zorro on the cat tree

How to stitch without thread nor staple

Some of you wondered to see that the veterinarian had closed my section with some glue during my spay. Here are some precision :

  • The suture with glue began to be used in the 1960s shortly after the discovery of the glue cyanoacrylate.
  • This glue has a very high adhesive power, and its residues are totally biocompatible.
  • It’s liquid and polymerizes in the contact of water (in my case, the water contained in my skin) to form a flexible film.
  • Various formulae of cyanoacrylate glue were developed for a purely medical use : better support, ease of use, flexibility raised once polymerized.
  • We use this glue to close small little deep wounds.

Our veterinarian uses it since a few years for the cutaneous sutures of sterilization of cats and for the cutaneous sutures of small animals (rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, …). For the sterilizations, he makes an abdominal suture with thread, then closes the skin over with the glue.

Advantages:

  • The suture with glue avoids that I pull or chew away my sutures.
  • The film of glue forms a coat of protection against bacteria and other dirts.

Inconveniences:

  • The scar is a little less attractive at the beginning, although the final result is identical to that of a suture with thread : that, it’s true, we would have said that I had a relief human navel ! But now, I have again a beautiful small belly (hair are only still missing).
  • If the wound must be reopened, it is not practical of the whole.

Here we are, you know everything ! Admire the result after two weeks : Pixie127