Bebi's blog

In the last few days there have been a few cats dying for seemingly no reason. The black & white one we named Thomas has been found dead, alongside a small tabby that died between yesterday and today. I've spoken to the woman who feeds the strays round here and she says Thomas was fine three days ago, and the tabby was fine yesterday morning. Both seemed healthy and had good appetites. My brother in law has seen a couple more, but these are the only two I've seen. I'm also going to warn other people who have cats, best to be on the safe side.

My suspicions that Davi was poisoned are stronger now. 18 months ago our old neighbour had to take his cat (George) to the vet with poisoning, he alerted me to it at the time. So much time had passed that we didn't think to put two and two together, but this recent spate of deaths is very worrying.

I've rung Environmental Services to remove the tabby (the kids round this area have already started messing with the poor thing, it's on a footpath) and I've also rung the RSPCA to tell them my suspicions. They've passed the info on to the inspector and will ring me to let me know the outcome.

As soon as I know more I'll update.

Davi has gone downhill very fast in the last few days, Saturday he was trying to climb up Kris's leg to get at the tin of Kitekat he was opening, and since Monday night he's been quite poorly. It started getting serious Monday night about 7pm, he was quite distant and had trouble walking due to very wobbly legs. We decided to bed him down in the front room and keep an eye on him. Yesterday he was worse, he’d only drink small amounts of water that were brought to him and a few nibbles of fresh tuna and wouldn’t walk anywhere. He’d lap up the tuna juice and eat any flakes that came with the juice, but didn’t want to actually bite into chunks. He was also very glassy-eyed and not focusing on anything, when we called his name he’d just sit there staring at nothing and not acknowledge us. Last night we took him to bed with us and bedded him down in a box with a blanket with his tuna and water next to him. During the night he came and slept on the bed with us a couple of times but spent a lot of time either in the box or under the bed. Both me and Andy spent a lot of time sat on the floor in the middle of the night watching over him as we were so worried. This morning he seems a lot better, he’s still listless but he does seem more alert than yesterday. He’ll actually look up when you call him rather than just sitting there in his own little world. He’s still not eating properly but has managed some milk and plenty of water so I’m reassured he’s not dehydrated and he’s getting small amounts of goodness. I’ve not seen him go to the toilet since Monday night, but I think that’s down to not eating rather than anything else. I think it’s just a case of keeping an eye on him now; I’m convinced he’s over the worst.

Our eldest, Cuddles, has taken to sleeping in the litter tray. It's a control thing, he's feeling out of control and it's a way of gaining a little control over the other cats. He'll only do it when it's clean, so those of you out there who are cringing can relax LOL I've seen him use a corner of the cellar then go back to sleeping in it. I suppose it feels a little like a bean bag to him as well, nice and comfy. Anyways, he's done it before, when the kittens were just coming of age. It took him a couple of weeks to realise that Margaret was now "top cat", but he soon settled down with it. Now there's a little tension between Margaret and Moses he's feeling insecure again. It's quite amusing in a strange sort of way - it's almost like he's showing his lack of self esteem by finding the worst thing he could do.

Honestly, if he was a human I'm sure he'd be registered with a psychiatrist... He has so many strange habits and you can tell from his expression when he's about to go offside. One of his common habits is to sit quietly in the living room and then just bounce from one side to another and then settle and go to sleep again. He also hates dogs, but he'll actually try to physically antagonise them. He'll sit in the open doorway in the summer and if someone walks a dog past he'll be out there bristling at it and the poor dog's there going "what have I done?!?" At my old house he'd sit behind a hedge and if the gate opened he'd be straight up the path to see who it was - I'm sure he thought he was a guard dog... Another thing he'd do was eat crusts of bread from the bird table. If I threw them on the grass he'd ignore them but as soon as they went on the bird table he'd climb up it (a supposedly cat proof one LOL) and sit on top of it eating them as if to say "they're not having it"

My brother in law moved in with us on Thursday, bringing with him his ginger and white tabby called Moses. He's so named because when he was a kitten he was a basket case. He seems to be settling in well with our cats, although he can't quite work it out when our cats just sit there and ignore him. He's expecting them to be hostile as he's in "their" house but they're fine with it, just curious. When he first arrived we had a bit of grumbling but they've accepted it now. We've nicknamed Davi and Margaret the raptors (from Jurassic Park) because at their first introduction to Moses they crept up on two sides like the raptors in the film and scared poor Moses to death. For two days he'd howl when he saw them both together. Today Davi was asleep on the sofa and Moses went up and had a sniff, as soon as Davi woke up and looked round he backed off to a safe distance but Davi just curled up and went back to sleep. You could see Moses couldn't understand it because he kept looking over as if to say "did he really go back to sleep and just ignore me?". Then Margaret came in and went up to Moses to have a sniff and he went back to the stairway door and asked to be let back upstairs (he stays in Kris's room out of the way normally). He's fine with Cuddles because Cuddles has been neutered, but the other two are still proper Toms.

Anyways I'm rambling now lol I'll update when there's any new developments :O)

Last year I started getting broody and we decided that as Andy's (my hubby) daughters cat was pregnant we'd have one of the kittens. We couldn't decide whether to call the kitten Margaret or Davith (Little Britain fans will understand ;) lol ) and when we were due to pick the kitten up Andy's ex said that there were two left and would we have both. We said yes straight away, and it also solved the problem of which name to choose. When we got them back we opened the cat basket and let them have a look around. I'd made sure Cuddles was in the room so he saw them arrive and understood they were "allowed" to be here. Cuddles approached first, warily, but not in an intimidating way. One of the kittens straight away turned into a little spitting ball of fluff and went straight for him so we thought to ourselves "definitely Davith!" (he's the "only gay in the village" in Little Britain) Cuddles hissed and growled back but backed off rather than trying to retaliate. He soon got used to them, only really getting upset when they tried to use him as a climbing frame or tried to muscle in on his food dish. It's quite amazing really, male cats are supposed to eat other male kittens, but he was really good. He'd give them the odd swat now and then but we never once saw him put a claw out towards them.

The "kittens" (we still call them that lol) are now well over a year old; they'll be two in April,and have calmed down a lot. All three will curl up together and nap and I've even caught Cuddles washing them when he thinks no-one else is looking hehe.

The kittens' first meal in their new house

Davi (top) & Margaret posing for their pictures

Cuddles eating his dinner from the table (desk lol) with Andy helping out

I've been waiting before creating a blog as I never know what to put in it, but a thread on the forum has given me the idea of one based on the pets I've had.

I've always had pets, right from when I was born. My parents already had a cat called Dinky when I was born,and got me a puppy to grow up with called Sadie. Dinky was mostly white with dark grey/tabby patches, and Sadie was a ginger coloured mongrel. I remember Dinky used to ambush Sadie and they used to playfight all the time, they also used to share their food.

When Dinky died we got a cat called Kipper (black&white)from an animal shelter, unfortunately he managed to get out through a window the day after we brought him home and went missing :(

When I was older my brother and I got a kitten each, Sooty (full name Sootica) was pure black, and Sweep was black with a tiny white patch like a priest's dog collar. I took Sweep to my junior school pet show and he won best in show - I was sooo proud :D I've still got the rosette somewhere.

Other animals I had at that time were my rabbit (Buckthorn - black&white) and guinea pig (Butch - black, tan&white), a tortoise (Tommy), and a budgie (Peter - green&yellow). Believe it or not tortoises can climb, and Tommy got himself up and over a 3ft smooth board we had at the entrance to the garden and ran away. Well, not exactly ran, but you get the general idea.

My aunt took in a long haired tortoishell cat who was being mistreated by a neighbour - she had chewing gum stuck in her fur and was just a bag of bones (the cat, not my aunt LOL) as my aunt already had lots of pets we had her and named her Lucy. Once she'd become well she was the nicest tempered cat you could wish to meet.

Sadly when we moved, Sweep and Lucy were run over and Sadie died of old age soon after. Sootica lived to the age of about 11/12. She'd been having phantom pregnancies for a while and one day she just went missing. My neighbour found her body in his garden and my brother Robert and I buried her.

Caesar was the next pet we had, he was a black alsatian/labrador cross. He was the size of a kitten when we got him as a pup and soon grew very large. Unfortunately one day the milkman ignored the "Beware of the dog" signs and let himself into our back garden one day. It was quite amusing watching him run up the driveway with Caesar hanging off the seat of his trousers, but it meant that he had to be put to sleep. My parents appealed the decision as it never would have happened if the milkman hadn't gone round the back (our milk was always delivered to the front door) but sadly weren't successful. Caesar was such a friendly dog, the milkman was the first person ever he'd gone for, and even then he didn't break the skin, just held on to his trousers.

About a year after this, my sister Sarah got a tan & white springer spaniel puppy (Theo). She quickly realised he was too much of a handful and so donated him to my parents (they were like "oh gee... thanks..." lol). He'd chew constantly,we used to have to make sure there was at least one person in the house with him at all times or we'd get back to find half of it eaten... One day he was in the car while my parents sorted some business out, they could hear him barking constantly for half an hour outside in the car and when they got back he'd demolished the entire passenger side front seat, the inside of the front passenger door, all the floor mats and half the drivers seat. Another time he managed to eat his way through the bottom two foot of a solid wooden door, but unfortunately he got out onto the main road and was hit by a passing lorry. The person behind the lorry saw this and with luck was a vet, so she took him straight in for operations etc and then returned to the house to let us know. My sister hadn't kept up the insurance payments as she'd promised so the vets bills came to around £500. We still paid it though. Theo had smashed his back leg, cracked his front, and needed to stay in a cage until it was healed to stop him walking on it. We had to feed him special food to prevent excess bowel movements and carry him outside to the toilet. He stayed with us for another few years, but he really was a handful so my parents reluctantly offered him to another relative.

My parents were then given Maxine (alsatian) by our local pub landlord, he didn't have the space for an alsatian there. Although previously saying "no more dogs" after Theo, they accepted.

When I moved in with my (now ex) husband, I got two kittens from my brother Gary and called them Cuddles and Dmitri (both black with white breast & socks - their mother was called Psycho). Gary had told me that Cuddles was definitely the female of the two. By the time Cuddles grew enough to be obviously male it was too late,they knew their names. Cuddles grew very fast and was soon a proper bruiser of a tom cat, but Dmitri stayed quite petite. I decided to let Dmitri have one litter before having her neutered,and she eventually fell pregnant to Cuddles. I was a week overdue in my first pregnancy the night she gave birth. I got her a nice hidey hole and put a cardboard box with a blanket there and was going to leave her to it (as people say not to disturb kittening females in case they eat the young) but every time I left she tried to drag herself after me so I stayed with her. After she'd had what I thought was the single kitten she let me quietly slip away. The next morning imagine my surprise to find her nursing two! (one grey&white - Smokey, and one black&white - Bandit. Both females) I quickly realised that there was something not quite right with one kitten, Smokey, as her head was rather large and she used to go around with it almost touching the floor. Her tail was also half the length of Bandit's. I'm convinced this was why Dmitri had such a stressfull birth, due to the size of Smokey's head, I'm sure she was the first one out. After a couple of weeks Dmitri was violently ill and when I took her to the vets I was advised to have her put to sleep as she'd got terminal liver failure brought on by the birth. The vet said that we weren't to know, and gave me advise on hand rearing the kittens - which I did, alongside a newborn baby lol I'd had Anthony a week before Dmitri died. Cuddles was also very good with the kittens, he'd sit and wash them for ages which is unusual as male cats normally don't like kittens. Sadly Smokey didn't live very long, 3 months at most, and Bandit got run over at around 2/3 years of age. I still have Cuddles, he made the move with me from Cambridgeshire to Yorkshire - wailing all the way on the back seat. We made jokes that we ought to put the basket on top of the car and pretend we were a police car hehe.

Lady was a border collie/doberman cross. She was advertised in the local paper as free to a good home. When I called they said she was an indoor dog who'd only eat Pedigree Chum. When we got there she was tied up outside, and when we got her home she threw up after eating the Chum we'd bought. It turned out the previous owners lied to us, and the reason she threw the Chum up is because it was far too rich for her compared to the tat they'd been feeding her. She had such a lovely personality, was excellent with the kids. She was a little scared of men - my ex would only have to raise his voice and she'd wet herself in terror, but she soon got over that. When my ex fell ill and we couldn't excercise her my brother Gary took her in. His wife has horses and Lady now goes with Rachael when she rides. She's very happy in her new home.

Omigod! How could I have forgotten! We used to also have 2 goats. Both female,one was called Gertie and the other Queenie. Mum "inherited" them from someone who was moving and couldn't take them with him. Gertie was lovely but sadly she died. Queenie had horns, and tried to attack everything in sight. I remember Theo used to play a game where he'd race to where she was tethered, steal one of the windfall apples and then run away as fast as he could. It was so funny watching Queenie try to catch him... I also remember the time we tried to milk her. My parents had gone away for the weekend and she was full of milk. I have four brothers and a sister, and we all leaned her against a shed and leaned on her to try and stop her attacking us and eventually milked her that way. My parents were so impressed when they got back as Bob (my step-dad) was the only one who could ever control her. She died of old age a few years ago.

Ohhh I'm all typed out now LOL I'll add some more another day...