Ampersand and Rachel S. can do baby blogging, so I’ve decided to pitch in with some cat blogging. It’s not Friday, but let’s pretend.
I have invented a new LOLCat.
My cat, Alexi, got into a fight with a neighboring cat a few days ago. His head wound has become infected. We’ve put one of those radar dishes on his head (left over from last time this happened). We think he’s okay to hold off on going to the vet until tomorrow.
Meantime, I’m on “dab up the pus flowing out of Alexi’s wound” duty. This requires tissues every 30 minutes or so, and then vigorous hand washing because the bacteria that are infecting the wound are the same bacteria that live in cats’ claws and mouths that finish off all those little mice and birds.
Mike did some reading on cat fights, and we’ve learned that cats favor small piercing wounds, such as the insertion of a single tooth or claw, because they like to make wounds that will heal rapidly, sealing the awful bacteria inside. Chalk one more up to the idea that cats are vicious, evil bastards.
The new LOLCat?
Disgusting Cat Is Disgusting.
Be glad there are no pictures.
UPDATE: The little “darling” is at the vet, having a shunt installed to drain the pus.
I’m not sure it’s all that premeditated. The claw puncture wounds tend to happen when my cat is getting off my lap and slips, and he certainly isn’t aggro then — so to a certain degree they’re just engineered that way.
Of course, that lends itself to speculation about it being Darwinistically positive for cats to pass on the toxoplasma parasite as much as possible, modifying the behavior of the new carriers.
So I guess theyr’e evil bastards anyway. Evil mind-controlling bastards. Good luck to your fuzzy secret master; may he heal quickly.
Are they related to Komodo dragons? [Joke!] I’ve read stuff about how infectious the reptiles’ saliva is… Thanks for sparing us the pictures.
ay. our cat Jnr had the same (infected head wound) last year, right before Christmas. We took him to the vet on the 23rd, because of course if we had left it, it would have got worse on the 25th when everything was closed. They ‘opened’ the wound so that it could drain, so we spent the holiday period with a cat walking round looking like he had been scalped, or like a soft boiled egg with the top cut off. blech.
It is not so much the toxoplasma one must be careful of, as the Pasteurella. That’s the evil nasty bacteria that made my hand swell to the point of unusability within a few hours of being bitten by my darling cat. You really never want to be used as a bad example by the emergency-room doctor.
I didn’t know that about cats! Thanks for posting. One never knows what they will learn blogging.
Perhaps it’s time to make him an indoor cat. Indoor cats live much longer lives than cats allowed to go outside and indoor cats are much cleaner and more playful with their human companions than outdoor cats.
What Elaine said. Place I once worked at went thru 3 office cats and all met premature ends because they weren’t kept inside.
Eh. I’ve had 4 cats in this neighborhood, allof whom were outside cats who lived to 15-16 years old and died of old age / had to be put down.
Granted, this is the first one to come home with “Look, I defended my territory!” wounds. Also, the first male. Can’t imagine what he’d be like if he weren’t fixed. Grumble.
Actually, I’d love to see a picture of Disgusting Cat. I mean, how bad can it be?