Category Archives: Living with cats

First aid for cat : how to bandage a paw ?

Reminder :
BEFORE helping an animal, you need to :
– Protect yourself, protect the present persons, and protect the animal : muzzle the animal and held him, establish a safety zone, or go away from a danger zone, and put gloves on.
– Give warnings : warn the veterinarian, and if needed the police or the fire brigades.

How to bandage a paw ?

If there is a small wound, you need to clean it if possible, to disinfect it, and to put a compress on it before making the bandage.

An about 2m band (6.5 ft) is needed to bandage a cat paw. Any bandage begins with a holding turn to hold the beginning of the band in position. For a paw, the holding turn is made under the joint.

Begin from the TOP of the paw and come down in diagonal up to the end of the paw.
Cover well the end of the paw, and go back up UNDER the paw, by following the same diagonal.
Go to the other side of the paw by following the holding turn OVER the paw.
Come down in diagonal UNDER the paw up to the end of this one.
Cover well the end of the paw, and go back up ON the paw, by following the same diagonal.
Go to the other side of the paw by following the holding turn UNDER paw.
Repeat.

Our friend Fluffy kindly agreed to help us to make this video :

To wrap the paw well, diagonals will be slightly moved, what will reveal a chevron motive on the bandage.

At the end of the bandage, nail the end of the band under the last turn, and fix well with plaster.

First aid for cat : the bases

On Caturday, Claire attended a class of first aid for dogs and for cats in Carouge, very close to Geneva. She took the train at 6:30, and after 120 km and some meters with the tramway, she arrived at the classroom. Valérie drove 710 km by car from Bordeaux to share her knowledge as first-aid worker and to teach the gestures that save.

It was a pawsome day, rich in teachings which we’ll let you discover in video during the next weeks.

First aid for cat : the bases

Do not want to replace the vet !

A well equipped case

The ideal case contains the following material : single-use gloves, small and medium sterile compresses, haemostatic pillow, plaster roller, 2 elastic bandages (5 and 10 cms wide), 2 instant cold packs, at least 2 monodoses of physiological salt solution, 2 monodoses of disinfectant (chlorhexidin), 2 monodoses of hydrogen peroxide, plastic tongue depressor, big syringe, razor, scissors, thermometer, metal tweezers, foil blanket, mask for mouth-to-truffle, cotton strips, hydro-alcoholic gel, cohesive band.

The hydrogen peroxide serves to clean a wound before disinfecting it, and the physiological salt solution serves to moisten a wounded eye or viscera (yuk !) for example.
The syringe is useful to rehydrate in small dose.
The thermometer has a flexible tip, and it takes the temperature within 10 seconds ! (Phew …) Valérie recommends to have a monodose of lubricating gel to make its use less unpleasant.
Scissors are special scissors called “scissors Jesco” and can cut thick materials as harness or seat belt.

The cotton strips (1 m and 1 m 50) can serve to put a withers or to muzzle a dog (except the brachycephalics who must have a muzzle adapted to their very short snout). For us, cats, Claire bought a “special cat” muzzle : this model also covers eyes. These devices, if needed, allow the first-aid worker to intervene in safety with a wounded animal.

The good gestures

What’s to be done if an animal is unconscious ? What’s to be done in case of airway obstruction ? How to do a resuscitation and a cardiac massage ? What’s to be done in case of bleeding ? What’s to be done in case of wounds or in case of burns ? What’s to be done in the event of an ocular accident ? What’s to be done in case of intoxication or in case of poisoning ? What’s to be done in case of drowning ? How to put correctly a bandage that holds on a tail, an ear, eyes, or a paw ?

Claire learnt all this in the course, but BEFORE helping an animal, it’s necessary :

Protect yourself, protect the present persons, and protect the animal : muzzle the animal and held him, establish a safety zone, or go away from a danger zone, and put gloves on.
Give warnings : warn the veterinarian, and if needed the police or the fire brigades.

Then, we can really help : the mission of the first-aid worker is to help the hurt animal to arrive to the veterinarian with the best possible chances of survival.

And don’t forget to replace the used material !

Feline communication for beginners

Over time, your domesticated became more or less expert in communication with you : you mutually learnt to decode your verbal and nonverbal language, and to interpret several signals given simultaneously.

We address the not domesticated humans, as well as the future domesticated ones. Imagine that you meet a cat on the street, or at somebody’s. This cat looks at you, or not. He emits sounds, or not. He’s standing in some way.

How to understand a cat (beginner level) ?

Listen : if the cat growls or hisses, it’s better not to approach him !

Look : look at the eyes, at the position of the ears, and at the tail of the cat : an expert in feline communication will have very subtle information by combining this three information, but a beginner can already understand roughly the basic message.

By Hannibal Poenaru from near Paris, France (flickr.com) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Eyes

half-closed eyelids : comfort
wide opened eyelids and dilated pupils : aggressiveness or fear
fixed look : warning !

Ears

raised forwards: interest
folded back : threat or been afraid (drop ears)
folded aside, like a plane : anger

Tail

non hérissée, verticale, rectiligne (extrémité recourbée ou non) : accueil amical, contentement
not bristly, vertical, rectilinear (hooked extremity or not) : friendly welcome, satisfaction
not bristly, horizontal : interest, curiosity, neutral
bristly, vertical, rectilinear : aggressiveness
bristly, low, rectilinear : fear
pulled down against paws or under the belly : concern, fear
movement of the extremity : small annoyance
fast movement : excitement
jerky movement : big annoyance

Of course, feline communication is much more elaborated : our posture, our mimes, our moving, all these other elements also give information to humans who can understand them. We repeat it, what we presented to you here represents the BASICS of feline communication for novice human. We voluntarily left aside several visual and acoustic signals which the majority of the domesticated know how to recognize.

Between us, between cats, we communicate also a lot by chemical messages : deposits of urine or poop, secretions of our glands put down in the environment, or still secretions and smells which spread directly from us. However, this form of language remains inaccessible to humans : they don’t have the sense of smell developped enough, and their vomero-nasal organ is vestigial for a very long time. In other words, they are underequipped !