Flounders or Flouncers? The Excellent Cats continue their important debate

[TheShellBeach]

Welcome to everyone, old and new!

Flatfish are particularly encouraged to join us.

Welcome to Grace and Frankie!

The fur around Kettle's stitches looked suspiciously clean this morning. There was definitely a little blood around the site when he came home from the vets. The stitches look nice to me (though I'm no expert) but I suspect he can reach them.

It's driving me crazy. I'm thinking about buying some of that equine vet wrap and wrapping his leg fairly loosely. I'm terrified of cutting off proper blood supply but I'm also terrified of him ruining these stitches because what other options are there??

He does look very cute napping under his cone, like a funny headless cat 😍

Of course!

Interlocking cats, lovely!😻😻
Welcome!

Could you get some advice from his vet? You will have to have a party when it's finally all healed up!

PivotPivotPIVOTTTT · Today 10:40
My 4MO emotional terrorists Grace and Frankie

Cuddling cats - gorgeous. 😻.

I asked her what I should do if he managed to get to the stitches and she just sort of said er well I don't think he will, I hope he won't because of the pain meds. And said he could keep wearing the tights.

I told her he couldn't wear the tights 24/7 because he gets his leg stuck occasionally when he moves around a lot and I cannot monitor him every minute, especially not through the night, but she had no further suggestions.

If the wound was just a little higher up his leg it would be fine but it's in a highly accessible spot and one of the stitches already looks like it's loosened a bit. I could cry.

The soft cone allows access, the tights help a bit but not fail safe, the hard cone bangs into it and rubs it and causes trauma that way.

I will call again on Monday but I'm going to wrap it. Loosely. I will be very careful with it. But I need some peace of mind that he can't get to it or I am going to lose my fucking mind.

If this is even possible, could he wear the hard cone to stop access with a soft covering over it to prevent damage?

I think you should do everything you can to prevent the wound breaking down again.

Talking of wounds I got another good look at Gizmo's, and it's definitely much better.

I don't want to tempt fate but the new duvet cover is still white.

At the moment.........

🤞🤞🤞

Vetwrap is very stretchy, sort of like extra strong crepe bandage that also sticks to itself (but not anything else). Much of the stretchiness is there to support the muscles when there's been a strain or similar & to slightly compress swelling, so you definitely wouldn't need to stretch it right out.

I've used it for years on horses in the past and on people including myself, it's also known as cohesive bandage.

If you haven't used it before, to be super safe you firstly need to put something soft with a bit of give in it round the area you're going to bandage and ideally lint free if there's any wound e.g. a dressing pad. Then when you use the bandage go for minimal stretch of it maybe stretching it by around 10-20% of it's length (e.g. 10cm of bandage pulled to around 11-12cm) - there needs to be some stretch to allow it to stick to itself. Wrap at least 4-5 layers round, like you would do with a normal bandage. I suggest you tuck the very end into the last layer or so, so he can't get it undone by licking at the edge & pulling it away that way.

Make sure you check his cute little footsie after a couple of hours to ensure it doesn't feel any colder than usual - if it does then take the bandage off & reapply looser as it means it was too tight before. I would also leave it off when you're around to supervise him, as getting air to the wound helps with healing.

@Allergictoironing Thank you so much! You are so kind to share all that.

This is an interesting idea, thank you! I will think if I can find a way to achieve this...

Good luck 🤞🤞🤞

Asking politely for some treats.

He is very floofy, do you have to do a lot of grooming or does he manage to keep himself lovely all by himself?

He manages everything apart from round his tail, which gets matted.
The vet and I brush him when he's there for his monthly Solensia injection.
He's not keen on letting me do it at home.

I'd love to know whether cats dream and if so, what they dream of. Lex often, like a lot of cats, will twitch his paws in his sleep but tonight he was making small plaintive meows. I stroked him and he woke up but still made a couple more meows as if he was still partly in his dream. Funny boy.

I have no idea why she does this. Cat Three remained completely oblivious.

I'm sure they do! I think they are probably dreaming of hunting when they do the twitching and little meows. But I suppose we can never know for sure.

There are lots of dreams in the Mog books!

Cats gonna cat! It always astonishes me the positions they get into that they consider comfortable!

Freddie strongly approves of the heated blanket on miserable days like this.

Oh FGS.

I've just burnt some garlic mushrooms, which caused the smoke alarm to go off.

This has caused the fire brigade to attend, because we live in sheltered housing, so they automatically come.

Embarrassing.

Especially as we know all the firefighters since we live in a small village............

Anyway - the cats sped out before we could stop them and it goes without saying that Gizmo's wound was almost better before he made a break for it, so I shall have to cover the white duvet cover with towels AGAIN tonight because it is bound to start oozing.

ARGH.

And naturally, Storm Ashley is just starting to break now, with both cats outside.