Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
Pierre: I had a whole day of lounging around and power-napping planned. But no…
The steam cleaning people are due to clean the sofa and chair. And deodorize it. Are they saying that I have a smell? It was the manpeep’s fault, I tell you!
If you’ll excuse me, I need to join Ashton in the closet. I’m self-cleaning, and I don’t want anyone trying to steam clean me.
A lot of you commented last week that you didn’t know the story of how Ashton had joined our family. We forget that many of you weren’t reading along a few years ago, so we’re sharing the story again for this week’s flashback Friday.
Do you remember the day that the last space shuttle launched? We do. The head peep was driving to work down the highway and noticed some debris blowing in the median. She had passed the debris when it clicked in her head that it wasn’t debris at all but a struggling kitten.
When she reached the kitten, she saw that it was scrambling with its front paws to run, but its back legs weren’t working. That was probably what had saved the kitten from running into highway traffic and being killed. One side of the kitten’s head was swollen, and that eye was obviously blind. She felt sorry for the little kitten and put her in a bin from the trunk of her car for the ride to the vet. The whole way there, she was convinced that the kitten would need to be euthanized.
The vet surprised her, asking to do an x-ray first. “Nothing’s broken. Why don’t you take her home and see how she does?” The head peep was surprised. That hadn’t been what she thought was going to happen at all! So home the shivering little kitten came, bundled in a towel with a heated saline bag as a hot water bottle.
The other cats were very curious about what was wrapped up in the bin.
Newton was immediately fascinated by the little kitten who, at first, just sat there next to her heating pad.
He hoped she would get a little more interactive, though.
Luckily, by evening, she was on her feet, and on the long road to recovery that also made her part of our family.
Ashton: I love to eat the stuff the peeps eat. Turning on the cute to get some of their food is kind of an art form. Watch me go at the dinner table!
And it works every time. Who can resist that face? SCORE!
But listen up, peeps, this is important: No matter how much I beg, or your cat begs, you shouldn’t feed anything that contains onions. They can cause Heinz body anemia. A Heinz body is damaged hemoglobin inside your kitty’s red blood cells. It’s something that can only be seen with a microscope, but you can see symptoms like:
Heinz bodies can form from cats ingesting raw, cooked, or dehydrated onions or scallions.
Foods you don’t think about having onions or onion powder may have enough to trigger this dangerous condition.
Although baby food is often suggested as a means of getting sick cats to eat, many companies started adding onion powder to baby food recipes in 1995. One study found that as little as 0.3% onion powder in a feline diet resulted in Heinz body formation. This means that “Oh, a little won’t hurt” isn’t true at all. Small quantities of onions aren’t recommended for cats, period.
References:
Heinz Body Anemia In Cats, Jaime Tarigo-Martinie, DVM; Paula Krimer, DVM, DVSc
Anemia Due to Red Blood Cell Damage in Cats
Image “Onion_8174068” by Dubravko Sorić CC-BY-2.0
