On Dec 20, 4:46 pm, "David McCracken"
wrote:
Hi everyone:

I haven't posted in this forum in a long while, but have always found it
full of great people with much knowledge and love for cats. So I
immediately thought of this newsgroup when I wanted to share this
perspective about cat ownership.

One of my two 10-year-old cats suddenly became ill over the last weekend and
she's been in the hospital for the last few days. The vet says her immune
system is attacking her red blood cells and platelets, so they've put her on
steroids and IV fluids. They've stabilized her enough that I'm about to
pick her up in about a half hour. She stopped eating once she got to the
vet, so their hope is that she'll start back up once she returns home and
gets back to her routine. Otherwise, she may be returning to the vet and
spending the holidays there.

What I really want to discuss is what I've had to endure over the past few
days with friends and co-workers as I deal with my pet's health crisis. I
suppose I could be imagining much of this, so bear with me. My general
impression is that most dog people or non-pet owners don't seem to
understand the need to, for example, stay home from work babysitting a sick
cat. I get the feeling as though cat ownership is less valid of an excuse
to be at home vs. a sick child or even a sick dog.

Jokes typically come up when I discuss how much I've already spent on my cat
(about $700 this week). Someone had commented that they're not even sure
they'd spend that much on their own child, let alone a cat. I realize they
were just ribbing me about it, but you know what they say about there always
being a shred of truth behind every joke. On some base level, I think they
were actually being sincere. I should point out that these are otherwise
good co-workers with whom I get along fine.

I'm wondering first if this is just my imagination...if other cat owners out
there have felt the sting of this stigma. Perhaps people just have a hard
time linking a 6 foot, 2-inch, 235-pound male to two little kitties instead
of, say, a Doberman.

Would appreciate any thoughts or experiences.

Thanks again and happy holidays.

unfortunately i have had to endure simliar, as have a couple of my
friends.
When i was working as a teacher I had to take my old cat at the time
(jasper, bless him) into the vets sometime between 8 and 8.30am at
their main surgery in the next town. for most people this would not be
an issue as they woudl just roll in to work a little bit later but
obviously with teachign and schools everything works to a strict
timetable and the kids have to be supervised at all times and if you
are gong to be late you have get your missed lessons covered and have
a damn good excuse for doing so (for example , you have just died or
something). Anyway i asked if someone could cover my morning
registration period for my tutor group which woudl start at 8.35 am
until 8.55am as i could not guarantee that with all the rush hour
traffic around at that time that i would be in school in time. when i
asked the assistant head for this he looked at me as though i had just
landed from mars or something, and repeated "you want someone to cover
your morning registration whilst you take your cat to the vet!!!!! are
you having a laugh??!!!", and i had to point out that the cat could
not very well take itself to the vets so i had to do it and i had to
drop him off in that particular window of time. Basically i was made
to feel as though i was aksing the earth of them and when i got back
to school by 9am after much stressfull rushing about and going through
red lights to get there, i was really made to feel as though i had
really 'let the side down' by a number of people for just not being
there for some poxy 20 minute registration time (which for the
uninitiated is just when you call the register and read out notices to
your class, no actual teaching occurs).

What made me more annoyed was that for the next 3 days of that week
another woman in my dept took the rest of the week off whilst we had
to cover her lessons for her, and why? cos her snotty nosed kid had a
cold and so of course she has to stay at home tolook after him. when i
raised an objection i was told 'it is a sick child and you could not
possibly understand'. remember that the woman herself was not ill,
just her smelly kid.


it happens time and again, and it ****es me off, how else was jasper
supposed to get the vets in time to be sedated for his op and dental?
he had to be there as early as possible. how dare they give me grief
over that, but the *******s did.

another time, i had a phone call form my dad tellign me that he had
jusy had to take tegan (childhood cat, my chocolate tortie princess,
had her since she was a kitten) to the vet as she had thrown up blood
and that they had found a massive tumour in her stomach and they were
advising to have her put to sleep the next day. Well that was a no
brainer for me, i just rang up the school and told them that i would
not be in the next day because I had a sick cat and was going to take
it to the vet to be put to sleep, i was not going to ASK for
permission to take the day off, i was goin to TELL themn that was what
i was going to do, SOD 'EM!!!!! i had to take the day off anyway cos i
had to drive down to my dad's place and then on to the vet's and I
wanted to spend some time with tegan to say goodbye and even if they
had done it in the mornign there was NO WAY i woudl have gone back
into school to deal with all those nasty little hooligans in there
inthe state i knew i would be in, i woudl be a wreck. if it had been a
human family member then noone woudl have said anythign and i woudl
have probably been allowed the week off or something, but with a cat,
who to me and my dad and brother was as much a part of our family as
anyone else and who we had had around for 17 years, is often
considered nothing to get worked up about, apparantly. If i had asked
for the day off to go and say goodbye they woudl have said 'no', which
is why i just told them that i was going to take it, no argument.

in the end I am glad i did because tegan got a stay of execution and
when i went into the vets she perked up and i persuaded them to let
her live for a bit longer (ok we did string it out too long inthe end
but she did not need to be put down that day, her quality of life was
ok at the time). yes i got some vicious comments the next day but
quite frankly they can **** off, and i took great pleasure in tellign
them how much more valuable a creature and individual little Tegan was
compared to some of the lowlifes i had to work with and teach in that
school and that i woud have no qualms in doing the same again, and
that she had contributed much more love to the world around her than
some of th destructive humans i had ever encountered in my life.

I pains me to say it but you really are not alone, i have encountered
such arseholes myself, but now i just ignore them cos they are all
******s basically and have their priorities all wrong. these are the
people who say that cats are aloof and unfriendly, well they obviously
have not spent any time in the company of a cat as they woudln't come
out with that crap if they had.
i could call my cats many things (mad, deranged, bonkers, greedy,
dopey, loving, insane, playful, adoring) but never aloof.

keep your chin up mate, we are here for you and we do understand what
you are goin g through

purrs to your poor little mistress, hope she gets better soon
bookie