When Emily was still a kitten, there were several hair-greying incidents that were likely attributable to her intent to conquer my taller furniture, the windows and various counter-tops. The worst one earned a blog post of its own, but there were several that didn’t get blogged since they were comparatively minor.

I eventually got used to it. Dorothy, who still has Emily’s sister Scribbles (and their mother, Ginger), dubbed the activity “skydiving” after Scribbles pulled a couple of similar stunts.

This armoire conveyed with the condo I bought in December, so it’s relatively new to the house. I haven’t seen Emily skydiving off it yet, but she scrambles down via furniture whenever I walk in the room. It took me several tries to get a picture since I had to sneak up on her.

But I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that skydiving is already going on when I’m not around; Emily’s pretty good at the “don’t get caught doing” parts of rules. If there’s no skydiving yet, I imagine there will be soon.

Photo: Checking Out the View, uploaded by airnos

This isn’t a decision I made lightly, because I’m one of those people who’s always held the opinion that adopting a pet is a lifetime commitment. I also knew, when I adopted her, that Paris had a less-than-perfect background and thus would have socialization problems. I felt like I could handle it; I’ve worked with former abused dogs and cats several times before.

I was wrong. After a little over four years and more patience than even I thought I’d be able to find, I’ve realized that I’m not able to handle it. When I moved last year, Paris reverted to the “inappropriate elimination” problems she’d had during the first six months after I’d adopted her. I’ve cycled through a whole host of ideas developed on my own and with the vet, and if anything she’s gotten worse. I have a limit, and I’ve finally gotten to it.

There are right and wrong ways to re-home and animal and I should mention that this blog post is not a “free to a good home” advertisement. She had a regularly scheduled veterinary appointment this past Friday (for a periodic procedure that was intended to try and fix the problem) and when I dropped her off I told the front desk that I wanted to talk to the vet about another home. Unfortunately, she didn’t know of anyone.

For the first time in my life, I chose to leave a pet at the vet even though she was ready to come home. “I think we both need a break for the long weekend,” I told the vet. “But don’t worry. I will come and get her.”

I’ve already contacted the original adoption agency, since the terms of my contract state that I have to contact them before giving her up. They, of course, tried to talk me out of it: adopting a pet is a lifetime commitment. I ended up sending a very long email with a bulleted list.

It’s been a year and I don’t have anything left to try, I concluded, so unfortunately the decision is non-negotiable.

It has also been absolutely agonizing. Due to the problems and the fact that I won’t just take her to an animal shelter to drop her off, I’ve kept her confined to the bathroom for all but a couple of hours each day. That’s no life for a cat, and as an animal lover I know that continuing such a confinement on a long-term basis will traumatize the animal.

The adoption agency contact made a reference about finding her a home in a barn and, after thinking about it, that seems to be a very good idea. Paris is healthy and has plenty of life left in her ; it’s just not a lifestyle that I can manage anymore.

It’s still going to hurt, though. My other cat Emily is upset and clingy; I’ve been giving her a lot of extra attention the last few days. I’m not planning to adopt another cat right away although I know I will eventually. For the moment, we’re just going to get through what we face right now.

“I’ll be calling in an order next week,” I mentioned. “I’m just trying to decide about the fabric. I want something pretty but with a nice tight weave.”

You must have pets, she answered.

“Yeah…?”

Put the swatches down on the floor and let them play with them. Then see what they look like after a day or two.

“They’ll probably be shreds. My cats have their claws.”

Mine do too. I always suggest people do that. You can decide which ones will work best then.

Long pause. I had so not thought about that.

“Can I get your name for when I call back last week?”

The swatches I already have are on the floor in the living room right now (and Emily has indeed adopted one). The other set will go down as soon as I manage to get to the post office; they’re likely already in my p.o. box but the toe situation means I haven’t made it there recently.

And heck, yes, I took down her name…

Thanks for sending me the information about my cats’ new microchips. I’m going to find the information in your setup e-mail very useful, since I had been wanting to have them chipped for some time before finally being able to get it done.

However, you may wish to talk to your e-mail people about proper targeting. The “thank you” coupon down at the bottom of the e-mail was a nice touch. As a cat owner, though, I’m not going to find a discount offer for FetchDog* particularly interesting.

In addition, you may wish to talk to them about the fact that I had the microchipping done on March 30. Today is April 17. There is ample research showing that a response time of three weeks is not particularly useful when it comes to creating an incentive for recipients to take any sort of action.

To be fair, you may not have gotten the information right away. But I have a hard time believing my vet waited that long to send it in. That being said, if that really is the cause, I’d suggest re-negotiating submission times or methods with them. It’ll do you both some good.

Bottom line? You have a great product. But with respect to e-mail marketing, this is a massive fail. I hope you’re not paying your setup people too much because they are doing a lousy job of cross-selling.

Remember, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if customers don’t know about it or don’t know why it’s so great, you’re not going to successfully sell it. And if you don’t successfully sell it, well, what’s the point?

Sincerely,
-C.

* “the ultimate destination for beautifully designed dog products”

George Bailey has never taken a step in his life, but that could soon change because of a groundbreaking surgery by North Carolina State University veterinarians.

The tuxedo cat was born a year and a half ago with only part of his hind legs. His owners said he made up in personality what he lacked in physical size. “George Bailey is the runt of the litter, so he’s very small. But he fights, knocks around. He doesn’t know he’s this little bitty runt,” Al Simmons said.

But the Simmonses wanted to make his life a little easier, so they called Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little at the N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine to do something that had never been done before – attach a prosthetic paw to the cat’s actual leg bone.

The surgery is so rare it’s been performed on just 70 humans worldwide. [Text continued at site.]

This has some exciting implications for human medicine. Prosthetic limbs, while being a Godsend for almost all who wear them, are not easy to handle. They are also prohibitively expensive, to the point that most health insurance plans will only cover one prosthesis for any given limb in a lifetime. This obviously can create problems in the case of physical changes that affect the fit or usability of the prosthesis.

The insertion of a prosthesis such as this, designed to stimulate the growth of natural bone, would revolutionize prosthetic technology because the bones of natural limbs change along with other physical changes in the body. While this type of prosthetic surgery may still never completely replicate the actual limb (standard prosthetics do well, but there are significant differences), it holds much more promise for those in need of prostheses – particularly children.

Since it was the last weekend before Lent, I decided to give myself a treat on Sunday so I went to early Mass and then drove west to take pictures. I ended up a few miles into West Virginia before I turned around, and was gone from my apartment about thirteen hours. I’m not usually gone that long, but I do have enough fifteen- and sixteen-hour days that such a period isn’t infrequent either, and I’ve never worried about leaving Emily alone that long.

So you can imagine my reaction when I got home to discover her tangled up in her dangling mouse toy.

She liked to get up on the shelves next to the door and dive down after the toy, and apparently she managed to do it in just the right way to wrap the string completely around her left hind leg. The toy itself caught on the leg in a manner similar to the way that heavy weights are used to anchor otherwise unsecured ropes. The end result was that Emily ended up hanging from the toy by that leg, and was unable to free herself. Fortunately, she could put her front paws on the floor.

By the time I got home, she had apparently decided yelling didn’t help. She didn’t start making any noise until she heard my footsteps in front of the door (she usually starts as soon as she hears my footsteps coming up the stairs), but when she did the noise was a loud yowl of obvious pain. Everything within reach inside had been pulled down onto the floor, which meant I could only open the door about six inches the first time I tried.

That was enough for her. She squeezed herself through that six inches, howling – now that someone had finally responded – and obviously very panicked. She was also fighting in the way of a trapped animal, so it took me several seconds to unwind her. It took about a good minute more to shift things around enough to completely open the door. Once I got through, a second look at her left me panicked: she was trying to get up and the leg kept collapsing underneath her. When I tried to feel it for possible breaks, it hurt her so much she actually bit me. Needless to say, there was an immediate trip to the emergency vet service.

She was lucky. According to the vet’s estimate she’d only (!) been hanging for two or three hours, and circulation had not been entirely cut off. She also had not broken the leg, but it was horribly swollen – the source of the pain – and probably also sprained at the hock. We were sent home with a painkiller/anti-inflammatory to treat it and a mild sedative to keep her quiet (since this is the same kitty that was running laps around the apartment four hours after being spayed). Sunday night she slept on the bathroom floor; apparently the cool tile felt good against the swollen leg.

By Monday, she was walking on the leg though with a bad limp and considerable pain. That night she simply could not find a comfortable position anywhere. Last night she was feeling better enough to make a short running dive at my ankle, but it got aborted with a loud painful meow. (I’ll admit I wasn’t really sympathetic as it was her own fault.) Today she is walking normally, but she is still much more sedate than usual and she won’t go near the door where the dangling mouse used to be.

Emily’s the third cat I’ve had, all since kittenhood, but this is the first time I’ve ever had one injured in a household accident. I felt a little bit like a bad cat-mom, but the vet reassured me that no one can ever foresee everything in advance – and I did immediately get medical help, even though I had to ask for a payment arrangement. Still, it made me worry…what if it had been her neck or if she hadn’t been able to put her front paws on the floor? What if tissue had started dying? I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep Sunday night.

Like I said, she’s doing much better, but I still keep going over the apartment with an eagle eye. I thought I had successfully catproofed it (tightening cabinet hinges so that they aren’t easily opened, tying up dangling cords, etc.), but this is ample evidence that cats can be like children: no matter what you do, they’ll always find something to scare grey hairs onto your head. I’m just thankful it turned out to be minor.

(And if anyone’s wondering, the pictures were not uploaded until last night. There were more important things going on.)