Picked up the spawn of Satan, and the doctor cleaned his wound and gave him a shot of antibiotics, and my only instructions were to keep him inside and let him recover. How that is different from the Tunch agenda of eating, shitting, and sleeping from every other day is beyond me.
As I was there, I looked over the counter at his charts, and even upside down I could make out Tunch * CAUTION! *, which made me laugh. I asked if he behaved this time, and before I could finish the question, she blurted out “No!” and several assistants started laughing. He’s such a bastard at the vets they don’t even try to sugarcoat it.
One parting thought- considering a wild night for me is a couple of glasses of wine at a friends and falling asleep by 11ish, it occurred to me that a night out on the town chasing tail is now far more expensive when my cat does it.
Guess I need to pick up this: The First Aid Companion for Dogs & Cats.
You Don't Say
Welcome home Tunch! Hope you feel better soon.
eco2geek
OMG. Cole shot Tunch!
Chris
Ah, so you (he) got the injection antibiotic after all. No need to pill/squirt.
Rosalita
Eeek! that is a nasty looking wound, poor guy. glad he’s back at the ranch. tuna for dinner?
Michael D.
Glad he’s ok.
Chat Noir
Glad Tunch is back home safe, sound, and healthy. He’s such a dolly!
My two older cats each have red “WILL BITE” and “BVC” stickers on each of their charts. BVC = be very careful. Our two year old is still pretty good when he visits the vet; I wager it’s just a matter of time that he turns horrid like the older cats.
Edit: I love the alt text on the pictures you post.
licensed to kill time
Give ’em hell, Tunch!
oh, and shouldn’t it be “merely a flesh wound?”
Sentient Puddle
On the note of open thread, the West Virginia Attorney General says a special election is OK. So looks like that seat is now on the radar in November.
demo woman
I have to agree with Rosalita, Tunch needs a special treat for supper. The poor guy!
scarshapedstar
Jesus, that’s terrible, look how swollen his abdomen is!
schrodinger's cat
Good to know, the boss is home. Hope his wound heals quickly. Does he have to wear the Elizabethan collar?
geg6
My John’s Henry has the big orange “CAUTION” sticker on his vet’s file, too.
I keep telling John he needs to get one of those to put on his truck when he takes Henry to the vet’s because Henry insists on driving every time.
schrodinger's cat
@scarshapedstar: Fresh shrimp?
Tokyokie
The kitten I gave my vet to be the office cat a couple of years ago was sent home with an assistant for bad behavior. I kept his brother, and his behavior is a lot worse.
Putting Scotch Magic Tape around their paws can be a big help. But having a pair of welders’ gloves around the house is a good idea; they help with recalcitrant cats and BBQ!
suzanne
¡Ohhh, pobrecito!
Not sure if I mean you or Tunch, come to think of it.
libarbarian
OT.
Someone explain something to me.
Recently we’ve all been hearing a chorus of people telling us that “You can’t borrow your way out of debt”.
Isn’t this what businesses do all the time? Isn’t the first thing many struggling businesses frequently do is borrow money so they can re-invest it in growing their business to try and get in the black? Isn’t this perfectly normal and acceptable? Doesn’t Wall Street try to make money by borrowing money every single day? Isn’t the definition of “leverage” essentially “borrowing money in an effort to make more money via profit-generating investment”?
What am I missing here?
madmommy
Poor kitty! Is that his “don’t talk to me, I’m pissed at you for taking me to that place” pose? As I sit here looking at a fairly portly cat, I realize Ralph is merely a shadow of the majesty that is Tunch.
Sentient Puddle
@libarbarian: Absolutely nothing.
What they’re also missing is that government budgets don’t play by the same rules as business budgets. Not that it changes how wrong they are, of course.
Keith
When Tunch goes psycho, is it like a switch going off where he’s like a completely wild animal (even to you)? I ask because the cat most attached to me has done that a few times – something goes off in his head, usually when he thinks a stranger is threatening one of the other cats, and he becomes SUPER-aggressive (dangerously so…he’s jumped off a table onto a friend’s FACE and slashed it up) to the point where I can’t even control him. It’s very rare and very bizarre, but I was curious if that kind of total jekyll and hyde is unique or not.
schrodinger's cat
@libarbarian: Also where were all these deficit concern trolls when Bush was in power and increasing the said deficit?
FlipYrWhig
@libarbarian: You’re not missing anything. People are being stupid.
You don’t even have to be a struggling business. You can be a regular start-up, with more ideas than available money, so you go to the bank to borrow the money to launch it, and if you’re successful you pay back that loan.
The whole concept of educational loans, too, is that you (or your parents) borrow a bunch of money for you to acquire the skills and/or prestige that gets you a job good enough to pay back those loans. You have hence borrowed your way into less debt.
Yes, it takes time, and it doesn’t always work, but, as you point out, similar acts of borrowing aren’t esoteric, they’re routine. Some people call it “good debt.”
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s because concern about “the deficit” is actually a euphemism for concern about spending on social programs. You can call it “the deficit” rather than exposing yourself as being worried that the cullo’d folks and the Messikins are getting a free ride.
bemused
All the recent trips to the vet doesn’t leave much cash for wild nights out. John, you definitely qualify for a frequent visitor discount at the vet clinic.
joeyess
So what was the diagnosis? DId he get bit?
cathaireverywhere
Tunch looks great! They hardly shaved him at all. Maybe they wanted to keep their appendages attached……
Sentient Puddle
@FlipYrWhig: See also Krugman.
Poopyman
So you’re saying a couple of glasses of wine for dinner for Tunch?
Ya know, that may not be such a bad idea. He’s had a rough couple of days.
General Stuck
Tunch is Raisuli the Magnificent, sherif of the Mid-Riffian Kittehs. He is the true defender of the Tuna and the blood of Feline Prophets runs in Him,
and I am but a servant of his will.
You have nothing to say?
Maude
@Keith:
Tunch hates to be at the vet. I don’t blame him.
Look what’s happened to him there. A tooth pulled, a cyst removed and abcess cleaned on his nether region.
It isn’t normal for a cat to suddenly attack for no apparent reason. It shows instability.
FlipYrWhig
@libarbarian: For that matter, I’d say that almost all of us have gotten a credit card bill, realized we couldn’t pay it all, and paid the minimum instead, hoping that when things improved in the future we could pay it back. In other words, we borrowed money to get through a rough patch. You might feel a little guilty or defeated when that happens, but it’s not like it’s uncommon.
elmo
The first-aid book is a good idea. We keep a large Plano tacklebox full of animal first-aid supplies, including hemostats, sharp scissors, a skin stapler, Betadine, and suturing material.
Had to use it just yesterday, too, as the dogs cornered one of the chickens and gave her a bad gash. They’re about 80% good about leaving the chickens alone, but every once in a while a chicken will startle, make a funny noise, and then the chase is on.
asiangrrlMN
Aw, there’s my poor Tunchie. I am glad he got taken care of and that he is on his way to healing. Make sure you pamper him, Cole, and give him something special for dinner.
FlipYrWhig
@Sentient Puddle: Thanks for the link. I was referring to rank-and-file voters rather than policymakers, but both make sense. It seems to me that the noisiest voices about the deficit have been riled up by the idea that Obama is spending money we don’t have _in ways that benefit Other People_. They call it “the deficit” because that way it seems like their complaint arises from fiscal prudence rather than outright resentment.
Politically it should make sense for even the blue-doggiest of Blue Dogs to say that, yes, the deficit is a problem, and we have concrete steps we want to see taken to reduce it, _after_ we first address the subject of putting people back to work. Just about every major Democratic initiative lately has had as an element that after some big spending in the short run there will be big savings in the long run, which is wise, and, you’d think, also good politics _if the real concern is deficits_.
Keith
@Maude:
Never said my cat attacks for no reason. Quite the opposite: he is fiercely protective of the other animals in the house. My question was about the totality of it (once he goes into “aggressive mode”, he’s like a wild animal to everyone – including me – and it is VERY abrupt, including when the off switch is flipped.
WereBear
Good boy, Tunchie!
I would never get away with calling him that in person, I figure.
Glad he’s back & he’s good.
My present three are good at the vet’s; in fact, the baby, Olwyn, is their current Rock Star; she hugs them on the neck and gives them nose kisses and everyone comes out of the back to get some sugar.
(She’s now 16 months. And still adorable.)
libarbarian
@Flip
“good debt”.
There does certainly appear to be a difference between productive debt that provides returns on investment, and unproductive debt that is just spent without any return and must be paid back from other sources of income.
So, whats the deal? So why do we always hear people talk about debt as though it were all alike? Do they not understand this difference? Is it some tactical decision ? Are they afraid to open the conversation about productive/unproductive debt because they don’t think people are smart enough to make that distinction well and that its better to scare people by crying “debt = bad” rather than “some debt = bad “? Is it purely cynical effort to just scream “debt = bad” when they don’t like what the money is being spent on?
Anyways, I was just thinking about this because some jackass said something like “we need entrepreneurs in gov’t because they understand basic economics and that you can’t borrow your way out of debt” and I thought “wait…. Isn’t that what entrepreneurs do regularly?”
Athenae
Poor poppet. Glad he’s well.
Puck had a bite warning on his chart at the vet for a while. My little goddaughter carried him around by the NECK and he was endlessly patient with her, never once snapping no matter how she riled him up, and he was always very gentle with us, but the vet would come near and he’d snap.
Probably because every time we took him in he’d get stuck with needles, but still, way to make me look like a bad mommy in front of company, furry little brat.
A.
FlipYrWhig
@libarbarian: I think it’s seductive, and truthy in the Colbert sense, to feel like since individual households have to cut back, the government should do the same. I’m not sure if that could ever be changed. Owing money is shot through with guilt and shame in our culture.
Instead, I think it needs to be countered with something else that also feels, experientially and tangibly, true, and that’s why I’ve been trying to spread the same idea you brought up, which is that it’s _entrepreneurial_ for the government to borrow money in the short term to spark productivity and innovation in the long term, which ultimately translate into the money they need to repay that initial loan.
If the Keynesian argument goes wrong in the popular consciousness, IMHO it’s because there isn’t enough rhetorical emphasis on the notion that _after_ you do your deficit spending, you then proceed to repay what you borrowed.
MattR
I really, really wish I could find the clip online of Jon Stewart stand up from 1996 where he discusses his cat leaving his apartment for the first time to be taken to the vet.
Corner Stone
@suzanne:
We know Tunch doesn’t qualify for “poor little guy”, and from what we’ve been led to believe neither does Cole.
magisterludi
One of the cats that adopted us is always into trouble. We were taking him to the vet for wound treatment on a regular basis until we discovered nu-stock- a sulpher ointment. Now we know to keep the wound clean and open and schmeered.
Casper hasn’t had many scrapes lately. Maybe it’s because the stuff smells so godawful no other animal will get near him.
Elie
So good to have your wound all cleaned up and you resting and taking good care of yourself, Tunch.
What a sweetie pie! smooch, smooch, hug, hug.. (what I do to my kitties when they have endured a vet visit)
frankdawg
We had a male cat about 30 years ago who would escape from time to time & always come back beat to hell. We tried really hard to not let him out ever but he could not be dissuaded. There were absences and trips to the vet and a stitch or two but the dang thing couldn’t quit it.
He got out one night & we never saw him again – I like to think someone nice took him in but I don’t believe it. Hopefully ‘ol Tunchy there is a faster learner.
Ash Can
It appears from Tunch’s pose in that photo that he’d like John to kiss his boo-boo and make it better.
erinsiobhan
Was the vet able to identify the original wound and determine if it was a bite? I’m still picturing some cat biting Tunch on the ass.
And is Tunch still trying to get outside? Maybe he thinks he will do better in Round 2?
MattR
@Ash Can:
I think it may be a more general statement about what John can kiss.
kc
Aww, poor Tunchie.
Ash Can
@MattR: You got it on the first try. :)
gbear
Hate to say this, but maybe it’s your vet that has the attitude problem, not Tunch.
I had to switch vets once after one of the staff told me that my cat was untreatable at their clinic. The staffer couldn’t even get her out of the cage for me to bring her home. I had to go back and get her myself, and while I was trying to get her out of the cage, she was so traumatized that she shit on herself. Once I got her out, we cleaned her (and me) up, I brought her home and found a new vet.
The new vets loved her, and although she never liked going to the vet, she allowed the vets to do what they needed to do.
slag
Glad Tunch is ok. But how is it possible that he looks even bigger than before? Maybe the vet is afraid of him because he ends up eating another cat every time he visits. Or maybe a dog.
asiangrrlMN
@WereBear: Olwyn is so precious. I smile just looking at her.
CynDee
@General Stuck: Wow.
wobbly
You will (with any luck) outlive all these pets. It’s tough, I know…
If you have children, with any luck, they will outlive you.
I chose children over pets (limited budget).
All this blogging about dogs and cats by childless people makes me sad. Intelligent childless people who chose not to reproduce intelligent human beings, get dogs and cats to fulfill their emotional needs.
Do you really think that dogs and cats are grateful that you spayed them, neutered them, confined them to the the house?
Or declawed them? Or crated them?
CynDee
@wobbly: Sometimes they get dogs and cats so the critters will be safe and fed; and who cares whether or not they “appreciate” it all? That ain’t the point.
SiubhanDuinne
First of all, POOR TUNCH. Glad he’s back home and I hope he heals quickly and thoroughly.
Now, since this is an open thread. . . .
I subscribe to a newsletter called Southern Political Report, and I just read a lengthy article about the Kentucky Senate race. This paragraph stopped me in my tracks:
To me, the way this is worded suggests that only African-Americans could possibly care about civil rights or about Rand Paul’s specific comments on the 1964 CRA – and since they make up only 7 percent of the state population, there’s really nothing much to see here, won’t affect the vote much, move along. But I’m whiter than Wonder Bread, and I found it quite offensive in its assumptions. Am I being overly sensitive here?
In fairness, the rest of the article deals with the “drum-beat” of negative stories about Rand Paul and goes into a lot of analysis on the race and the polls and so on (FWIW, the author does think Paul will end up winning, although it’ll be close). But that one sentence I highlighted really threw me.
Cannot provide a link, as this is a dead-tree newsletter and the website has very limited number of articles.
SiubhanDuinne
I think this is one of the best lines Cole has ever posted. Nobody else even picked up on it?
licensed to kill time
@wobbly:
I have spent a lot of time in ‘third-world’ countries and believe me, when you see the effects of endless cycles of pregnancy and birth on dogs and cats who have not been fixed, you will believe that yes, they would be grateful to be free of that natural urge. I saw a dog once whose uterus was hanging out of her vagina, litters of puppies abandoned by exhausted mothers, and much worse. If you have ever heard a cat in heat crying under your window while tomcats gather and fight each other, you’d be a believer in neutering.
De-clawing is an awful practice IMHO, you’re right about that.
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne: No one bothered considering the possibility that Cole actually went out chasing tail.
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone: Heh.
EEH
@Keith: We’ve got a tuxedo who will go after people aggressively as he’s very territorial about our house. He gets placed in our bedroom with the door shut whenever we have company. I won’t go near him when he’s like that but my husband can handle him. When we take him to the vet, he has to be gassed in his carrier before he’s removed for exams or treatment because he’s extremely nasty. He’s very muscular and can cause some serious damage so we’d rather that he just be sedated for everyone’s safety before he’s handled. Yet at home, he’s quite sweet with us and he loves to have his nose kissed. If anyone else tried it, they wouldn’t have a face left.
RoonieRoo
I also recommend this book for your shelf:
Cat Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook
There is one for dogs too.
Mnemosyne
Fortunately, I’ve never had any trouble with any of my cats at the vet. Keaton is easily freaked out by cages so he isn’t a popular favorite when he has to make a long, caged visit, but as long as he’s not caged, he’s a sweetheart. Which is why he came home from the vet last time with lipstick on his forehead where the vet tech smooched him for being a good boy.
I, too, can’t help wondering if the problem is that Tunch doesn’t like that particular vet.
D-Chance.
My God, he’s having an allergic reaction to the shots, Cole. Look at how he’s swelling up. He’s HUGE!
Mnemosyne
@Keith:
Cats are pretty notorious for attacking everything in sight if they get freaked out enough — it’s called redirected aggression. My brother got his arm torn up by his cat one time when he imprudently tried to break up a cat fight with his bare hands and Cleo turned on him.
If your cat is in fighting mode (and you’ll know if s/he is) NEVER touch them because they will attack you.
bemused
@frankdawg:
We had one like that. We gave up trying to keep him in. He was a large, all white neutered male that still wanted to go out and terrorize the neighborhood and he would come home all beat up. One time I swear he came back with black eyes. He tried to boss the dogs, the other cat and us. He was cuddly but he drove us nuts with his insistence that he was the head honcho. He died suddenly when he was nine years old in the house. The vet thought it was probably an aneurysm or heart attack. The vet clinic sent us a sympathy card but they really shouldn’t have bothered. We were afraid the brute was going to live to 20.
General Stuck
Charlie has only been to the vet once when I first adopted him, with the coupon the animal shelter provided for a wellness check. As Karma would have it, by chance, I chose the same vet who had neutered him a couple weeks prior and did it for free.
I didn’t know this until in the exam room, when the vet and nurses saw him, they all got this look of affectionate relief on their faces that puzzled me. Until they told me they had fallen in love with the little guy and were perplexed that no one had adopted him in over a month at the shelter, and did the fix for free in hopes he would find a home. I could also tell he remembered them when his tail started to wag to beat all.
Angela
I have always “picked” at my cats from day one. I clean out their eye boogers, I check their ears, I even clean the black gunk from one cat’s nose (she has weird nostrils). I clip their claws. Daily, they are (wo)manhandled.
None would dare bite me or scratch me, no matter what. This has been true ever since I have been an adult living on my own, with cats, so 22+ years now.
Recently, my youngest cat (7) had kidney issues and had to go on meds, 3 pills a day. She didn’t like it, but she put up with it (she’s not normally a cooperative kitty, just grudgingly acquiescent because she knows I WILL WIN every time).
The vet said that my regular handling of them in this manner makes them more compliant when it comes to vet care, giving pills, etc. than if I’d mostly left them alone or kept the physical touching to be only affection petting, etc.
One cat has had to have blood drawn from her NECK, and she obeyed completely.
It’s so much easier this way. I suggest y’all give it a try with your next kitten.
DrDave
John:
We label the charts of all of our difficult patients with “Caution,” “Better on table,” “Muzzle #3,” etc., because it helps keep staff members out of the emergency room. And decreases (but does not eliminate) the number of scratches and bruises our patients give us on a pretty regular basis. Most of our patients are easy to deal with but it takes only one pissed off kitty–and size does not matter–to ruin your day.
Cats are very adrenergic animals. If you want to see the “fight or flight” reflex, scare a cat. They can go from placid to explosive in a microsecond and it’s no fun for anyone. (They are also not always rational about when they go off. Some cats are notoriously bad at judging what constitutes a real threat to their well-being!)
A couple of years ago I bought an induction tank–basically a plexiglass aquarium with a sliding top and fittings for an anesthesia machine–thinking we would use it a couple of times a year for those *really* difficult cats. We use is several times a month and generally regard it as among the best couple of hundred bucks I have ever invested in a piece of equipment. Less stress for kitty, less stress for the animal hospital staff. If your vet does not have one, buy them one for Christmas. They will love you forever.
DrDave
QuaintIrene
Welcome home, Mr. Tunch. Even just judging from his back, he looks relaxed and relieved.
There’s no open thread yet, so I just have to rant here. If I hear one more syllable about ‘King’ Lebron James and wherever the hell he deigns to sign up to play……I am going to have to kill somebody. Not sure who. But somebody.
Toonces
Poor Tunch, he’s had a hard day! Extra treats and head scrunches for sure!! Hope he gets the place of honor on the bed tonight, too.
MattR
@QuaintIrene: I have only one response to that.
A separate article on ESPN about the World Cup final had this great paragraph.
WereBear
Yup.
There are people with children and pets, people with neither, and people who have different ones at different times. Right now, I have a chronically ill partner and three cats, who keep him company at an economic and energy level we can handle.
What bothers you so about it?
Emma
I second, or third, or whatever the people who say it could be the vet. Cats aren’t “bad” at the vet, they’re terrified. One bad experience and that’s it, a previously chill cat freaks out every time they go to the vet. It takes someone very experienced and patient to get them over that. We got lucky and found a vet like that right when we needed her. Our cat, whom other vets couldn’t even touch unless she was sedated (she once bit hard enough to draw blood through a protective glove), ended up getting eight months of chemo, every two weeks, without needing to be sedated. It bought her many extra months with a good quality of life.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah. Once.
I saw someone I know (won’t say a friend because he wasn’t) turn his cat’s head around 360 degrees when the cat tried this on him.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Oddly, most people aren’t willing to kill their pets over a single attack. And if they are, most of them will decide to take them to the vet for a humane euthanization rather than kill them with on the spot.
I guess YMMV, but I would be very wary of giving that person access to any animal or dependent human ever again. God forbid a three-year-old kid should punch him in the crotch and he decides to retaliate the same way.
harlana peppper
Tunch boo-boo, go bye-bye soon
*pats noggin*
harlana peppper
@wobbly: Intelligent childless people
whochoOse not to reproducelimited budget you say? seeing as I have no employment prospects in the near future, I am somewhat relieved I won’t be be needing to send my cat to Harvard
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: He wasn’t a nice person.
WereBear
@Corner Stone: Sounds like the cat actually felt threatened. I’m not surprised.
harlana
also, she doesn’t eat much and i never have to take her clothes-shopping
QuaintIrene
Oh, please. Not this old canard. Dogs and cats are simply child substitutes. We couldn’t possibly keep them for the pleasure of their own unique companionship. Heavens , No!
It’s pretty well recognized that dogs and cats originally chose us, as much or even more, then we chose them.
jefft452
@Keith:
Is he a Manx by any chance?
They are known to behave that way, esp the abruptness of the on/off switch
and some get like that for no reason
WereBear
While both dogs and cats can “run amok,” often from bad breeding, I’m convinced a lot of this behavior is not really out of the blue. Some of it is people who are utterly clueless about the clear signals the animal is giving.
As in this famous clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuiL4WZTjOo
I’ve often seen it with the sound off, and the cat attacks without any warning!
But if you watch it with the sound on, you realize the cat is doing their best imitation of a ambulance siren for quite a long time before the “attack,” which does not hurt anyone.
I’d adopt that cat in a New York minute.
Mnemosyne
@QuaintIrene:
Cats especially. “Hey, it looks like you have quite a few mice in an enclosed area here — mind if I help myself?”
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I was attacked and bitten pretty badly by my brother’s cat but, again, I did get some pretty clear signals that I probably would have responded to better if I hadn’t been half-asleep. Plus he first gave me a warning bite that didn’t break the skin but was hard enough that you could still see the indentations 3 months later.
Keith G
@wobbly:
Sad or not, I would hope you are not the moron you seem by statements such as this. I have been round animals, pets and commercial, all my live and will continue so until I shuffle off this mortal coil. I am astounded by your interest in making such sweeping generalizations.
General Stuck
@Keith G:
Sad is always a construct of a persons expectations. Wobbly wants to impose his on us. I don’t do the same to him. This is the eternal problem with human animals. They judge. Furry critters don’t. They just love unconditionally and accept you, warts and all.
Lesley
I’m trying to picture the situation that lead to that wound and can only smirk. Somebody in the neighbourhood (a cat) is a bigger badder ass than Tunch.
ms badger
@Emma: I agree with the “bad vet”. I had a horse who had been man-handled by an older male vet. He was terrified by male vets as a result.
And at 17 hands (5’8″ at the shoulder) and 1400 lbs, when he was scared everyone around him was at risk of injury.
Switched vets to a slightly younger, vastly more patient, male vet who loved the horse and the horse loved him back. At the start of the vet visit, they would go off 10 or 20 feet away and “talk”. Everyone was mellow. That was a great vet.
Comrade Mary
Yay, Tunch is back! Thanks for the pic, John.
Poor Tunch. If he likes having his magic button (aka sweet spot, aka lick spot) scratched, that may have to wait for a couple of weeks.
Anne Laurie
@DrDave:
Forget the vet, I want one of these for home use!
(Yes, yes, I know anesthesia is serious business. But we have three high-reactive cats, two of them ex-ferals, and three large-cat-sized rescue dogs. None of whom are cooperative about stuff like nail-clipping or dag-removal.)
Beej
I had a big Maine Coon cat who was so laid back at home that he’d curl up in the nearest handy lap and purr like a lawn mower. At the vet he turned into Frankencat. Nobody, including me, dared to reach into his carrier to get him out. Instead, the vet tech would unbolt the top from the bottom and reach in with welder’s gloves that reached up to her elbows. He would growl and hiss and claw and bite and heaven help you if you got in the way without protection. Then I’d take him home and he’d stroll out of the carrier, start that maniacal purring, and hop into my lap for a nap. I could never get the vet to believe that he was such a sweetheart at home. The notation on his chart said, “Do not handle without full protection!”
asiangrrlMN
@Corner Stone: This gave me a BIG sad.
@wobbly: Wow. Nice generalization there! And, yes, I believe my boys appreciate eating organic food, having a gazillion scratching posts (no declawing. That’s barbaric), having fresh filtered water or me turning on the tap for them, me petting/cuddling/scratching them whenever they want, etc. And even if they didn’t, as others have pointed out, that’s not the point of having animals.
I actually feel it’s sadder that people who are not suited to be parents procreate. Those of us who choose to be child-free for various reasons? Not sad at all.
P.S. There are plenty of bloggers who have animals AND children, by the way. Tbogg is one such person.
DrDave
@Beej: I could never get the vet to believe that he was such a sweetheart at home.
I believe it. The vast majority of the cats who are most terrified (and thus most difficult) at my office are reported by their families to be mellow sweethearts at home.
I don’t take it personally and I don’t think it is always a result of rough handling at the doctor’s office (although it may have been in the animal’s past). A lot is just the process: They get cornered at home and put in a strange, dark container. They get carried out and put in the car where they a bumped along for some period until the car stops and they are carried out into a new place where there are the smells of literally hundreds of other animals. There may be the noises of other strange (and to the cat potentially hostile) animals in the office. Then they get brought into a room with bright lights and turned out onto a cold, stainless steel table to be handled, poked and prodded by complete strangers. Wouldn’t this scare the crap out of you?
I have won over many cats who had never been examined before through patient, gentle handling. But there are others who just aren’t having any. We do try anti-anxiety meds and tranquilizers (given a couple of hours before kitty leaves home) and this can also help de-condition the hysterical response in some cases. It just doesn’t work with all of them.
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: He was not a nice person. And he treated humans with the same lack of regard, for what it’s worth.
Of course, one funny corollary to this individual. One day his fiancee caught him in the driveway and beat him near to death with a car brake lock over some perceived (or real) slight.
The unfunny corollary is she didn’t survive this incident when he came home from the police station.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Mary: You just can’t say things like this here. Especially after saying you’re French and sleep naked.
It just isn’t freakin fair.
limniade
There are nearly 7 billion people on the planet, and a global climate and resource crisis approaching like a fucking freight train. Who seriously thinks the answer to this is more kids? Maybe if fewer people had kids, we’d be able to feed and educate them all and not have to put up with bingos like “Oh, if only the smart people had more kids.” You want something to love and teach? Get a dog.
Jennifer
@wobbly:
I have to say, this is one of the most blinkered, pig-ignorant (ok, ok, so pigs aren’t ignorant but that’s how the saying goes) comments I’ve ever seen here.
Just for the sake of argument, suppose you’re a person who realized that marriage wasn’t going to work for you; that you would be a happier person if you remained single. You thought about kids, but because of the financial burdens of single parenting combined with bouts of depression severe enough to interfere with your ability to carry that burden, you realized that having kids probably wasn’t a good idea, either.
According to your rubric, the “intelligent people” who know all this about themselves should have forged ahead and had one or more children? So those kids could either grow up in a miserable household where one of the parents really never wanted to be married (or cohabitating) or with a single parent who suffered depressive illness severe enough that they couldn’t get out of bed in the morning to get the kid(s) off to school?
As for the pets fulfilling “emotional needs” for a person of this type, would you instead have them cut off from all living beings and utterly alone? Have you ever heard of service animals that go into nursing homes, prisons, etc.? A lot of elderly people’s pets give them reason to want to go on living after losing a spouse. Lots of depressed people and people with other mental illnesses also are literally kept alive by their connection with their animals. Do you have any idea how much higher the suicide rate would likely be if these people didn’t have companion animals?
You may believe that the animals we love have no appreciation for the things we do for them; if that’s the case, it’s because you’ve never had an animal or opened your heart to one. I’ve had the good fortune to be chosen by (thus far) 3 different homeless cats in succession – whenever one of my pets has died, another cat magically appears about 3 or 4 months later and lets me know they want to stay. Don’t believe for a second they weren’t grateful for it when I took them in, every bit as much as I was.
Perhaps you didn’t intend to offend with that comment, but that was some major league ass-hattery.
asiangrrlMN
@Corner Stone: Sigh. Too bad the gf didn’t finish the job when she had the chance.
@Jennifer: Good points, too. My main point to wobbly, though, is that some of us gleefully and joyfully choose not to have children. It’s the best decision I ever made, and I am so glad I don’t have them (obligatory I love children remarks inserted here). Choosing not to have children is valid in and of itself and needs no justification.
Choosing to adopt my boys was the second (by a whisker) best decision I ever made in my life. They have enriched it in so many ways–and yes, they chose me. It’s a win-win situation all around.
Jennifer
@asiangrrlMN: Although my decision not to have them took into account complicating factors, in the fullness of time I have no regrets about it. I think for me, having them would have been an act of selfishness. And then there’s the whole thing about how hellish this whole place is going to be about 50 years from now, which makes me really glad I don’t have any offspring that will have to live through (or die in) those inevitable horrors.
Miriam
Lurker but regular reader here – total OT.
I got a virus that primarily affects Norton Internet Security, won’t allow any web browser to load except IE, and freezes Yahoo mail. Very weird.
So for the first time of paying for Norton for several years, I actually need them. So I contact tech help, go through their process, and find out that it is too new for them to have a fix.
So their solution is for me to pay them $100 to remove it, or go to geek squad and pay $100 for them to fix it.
There is something wrong with this picture. What am I paying Norton for? Isn’t Norton supposed to protect me from viruses and trojan horses? Why are they charging me money to eliminate the only virus or trojan horse I have actually gotten? (I very rarely download anything and never click on weird things – I don’t know exactly what happened this time)
I tried to download AVG and avast and apparently the virus prevents downloading them.
Does anyone know what I can do short of paying another $100 to do what I have already spent hundreds of dollars trying to prevent?