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Cat had nine lives and fourteen hair elastics
By adamg on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 1:23pm
X-ray via MSPCA-Angell.
The MSPCA reports a Siamese cat named Kitty had successful surgery to remove 14 hair elastics from his stomach and intestines.
The society reports Kitty's owner, who was already trying to find another home for the rubber-mad feline, rushed him to Angell Animal Medical Center in Jamaica Plain after discovering numerous hair ties were missing - and the cat showing signs of distress:
Dr. Emma-Leigh Pearson of Angell's Emergency & Critical Care unit performed a delicate two-hour operation on March 7 to extract the hair bands from Kitty’s stomach - as well as several that had lodged in his intestines. According to Dr. Pearson, there was not a moment to lose.
"The foreign body [hair ties] had nearly perforated Kitty’s intestine and he could have died if the surgery had been delayed," she said. Dr. Pearson also removed five centimeters of Kitty's intestines, which had become badly damaged as a result of the hair ties moving through them.
Once he recovers, Kitty, 7, will be available for adoption.
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Comments
I find this news
tough to swallow.
But glad she's okay, kudos to Dr. Pearson and the staff at AAMC.
The good news
Kitty the cat appears to be bouncing back from surgery.
Adorable!
Wouldn't you think that you
Wouldn't you think that you would keep such elastics put away in covered container? Common sense is not too common.
No I wouldn't think that.
The world is full of things a cat should not eat but sometimes will anyway. As such things go hair ties are a relatively common thing for cats to eat, but I wouldn't say it's "common sense" to treat them as such a unique danger that they need to be secured away. And even if it had been in a closed box, cats can sometimes get into things you wouldn't expect.
This is true and I agree with
This is true and I agree with you as I have had cats my whole life as beloved pets. They are clever as can be. But I also believe that being a responsible pet owner means educating yourself on what potetially fatal but common household items should be kept away from them and secured (certain plants, sewing pins, etc) so that you can keep them healthy and in your life a little longer. And cats should also be spayed/neutered. House cats tend to live longer in loving homes than being outside, too. And don't forget a clean litterbox and vaccinations!
You have to know your cat
Different cats will eat very different things!
I had a cat that would eat curling ribbon and loose shoelaces. These things were kept in tight control, and the kids were trained to look out for them. His sister occasionally ate rubber bands, although these didn't seem to be a problem so much.
One of my parent's cats ate twist ties.
My current cat doesn't eat anything not food.
You have to watch them, and see what they get up to, and "babyproof" your house accordingly!
I just think it's hilarious that
anyone would notice "missing" hair elastics. I just assume that they disappear to the same place the missing socks go--i.e. the ether.
I am assuming
that the elastics went missing all at once, which is why she noticed.
One of my cats used to have a
One of my cats used to have a severe case of "glove love." She'd steal fleece gloves, fuzzy socks, small plush toys... anything she could drag into the middle of the kitchen and groom for hours in the middle of the night. Another had a downright erotic fixation on denim.
My latest basket-case cat is obsessed with medium-large plastic hair clips. Luckily she can't do much with those except drive me absolutely crazy. I usually clip them to the edge of the nightstand while I read before bed, and eventually I realized that if I can't find them in the immediate vicinity, I need to check the coco mat by the back door where she likes to gather her treasures.
This would be a minor problem if I weren't near-sighted and she didn't have the same affinity for eyeglasses. More than once I've been called in to the guest bedroom in the morning because a visitor didn't properly secure their eyewear before bed.
Cats.
Shoe fetish cats, too!
We call ours "the shoe plow". I couldn't figure out how our shoes were all ending up in an inaccessible area under the headboard. Then I woke in the middle of the night to see this dark form with her head shoved in a shoe, plowing it in front of her toward that end of the bed.
The boys have noticed similar behavior in their rooms, and also know where to look for missing shoes.
She will shove her head into the boots of visiting girlfriends and walk around.
Or sometimes people will
Or sometimes people will accidentally leave things out. Not everyone can meet your standard of perfection in life.
owner trying to give the kitty away
I hope the cat finds a loving home. I have one, and a tiny studio apartment so I can't fit another cat.
Siamese
I hope so too. This one's a Siamese (or Siamese cross), though, which is definitely in his favor. They're beautiful, and awesome cats, although some have a tendency to chew/eat things they shouldn't!
It's possible that the owner
It's possible that the owner is forced to give the cat up because they cannot afford the medical treatment.
No...
The story says the owner was already looking to give up the cat before this happened