Gabby made a critical mistake today... please help...

OK lads and lasses, Gabby and I need your help and sagely advice,
PLEASE, only offer information that is beneficial. I do not need to
hear that I should have locked my child up or kept my kid from being
able to walk around in her own home.

After CatNipped suggested that we stop the roughhousing with Gabby,
we did. It also seemed that with a mix of the "crying Uncle" method
and a few other "scare tactics" or startling or whatnot, that she is
totally cool with NOT fighting and playing rough.

Well, Monday, Gabby started chasing down the dogs and playing more
roughly than what they wanted to. So we have had to get on her about
that. She immediately stops but of course goes back to it whenever
they walk past. She is REALLY attracted to their tails wagging.
Anyway...

Today Gabby did something she has NEVER done before, leaping-wise or
attacking. And that was that she leaped on the face of my 20 month
old as she walked past, tearing a long claw mark down her cheek.
Gabby leaped from the arm of the couch horizontally across to my
daughter's face.

Now, I will be completely honest with you folks... I considered
killing Gabby. Or at the very least, taking her to the pound where I
know they would have killed her after 5 days anyway. After I told
them we were getting rid of her for being problematic along the lines
of hurting one of us they would have euthanized her immediately.

Then I tried to be rational about it and thought:

1. We were making the mistake of playing with her in the first
place.

Although we do not think it is unreasonable to be able to roughhouse
with a cat. We have known cats that LOVE to brawl, but also stay
calm as can be when you are done.

Still, we could have helped reinforce that this behavior was OK.

2. She is still a kitten. She has not learned yet OR not calmed
down yet.

3. She WAS playing.

So, no sooner than I would hurt my own baby, I look down at the furry
baby snuggled up against my thigh and think, "I would love to bounce
you off a wall for this, but you're just a baby and that's not fair."

I am calm (well, calmer than before) now and could REALLY use some
proven methods to calm her bullying down. I say bullying, but she
really isn't being a bully... she is being a playful kitten.

Can anyone think of some methods to speed up the process of teaching
her when playtime is over?

A few notes:

1. She has PLENTY of toys.
2. She has PLENTY of things to climb on.
3. She expends PLENTY of energy.

Um... I may be forgetting something, but I think that covers a few
bases.

So... any help please? And try to be constructive and as positive as
you can be, please. I could have just given up on Gabby, but realize
I could have been part of the problem and I am willing to rectify
that.

Thanks, people. I appreciate your time. Oh, and here is what she
did to my 20 month old.

http://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?i...mistakefe9.png

That is the right side of the corner of her mouth, and I believe that
is a hair of mine going horizontally across it that I did not notice
until now.

Again, thanks...

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

On 10 Oct, 07:50, "-Lost" wrote:
OK lads and lasses, Gabby and I need your help and sagely advice,
PLEASE, only offer information that is beneficial. I do not need to
hear that I should have locked my child up or kept my kid from being
able to walk around in her own home.

After CatNipped suggested that we stop the roughhousing with Gabby,
we did. It also seemed that with a mix of the "crying Uncle" method
and a few other "scare tactics" or startling or whatnot, that she is
totally cool with NOT fighting and playing rough.

Well, Monday, Gabby started chasing down the dogs and playing more
roughly than what they wanted to. So we have had to get on her about
that. She immediately stops but of course goes back to it whenever
they walk past. She is REALLY attracted to their tails wagging.
Anyway...

Today Gabby did something she has NEVER done before, leaping-wise or
attacking. And that was that she leaped on the face of my 20 month
old as she walked past, tearing a long claw mark down her cheek.
Gabby leaped from the arm of the couch horizontally across to my
daughter's face.

Now, I will be completely honest with you folks... I considered
killing Gabby. Or at the very least, taking her to the pound where I
know they would have killed her after 5 days anyway. After I told
them we were getting rid of her for being problematic along the lines
of hurting one of us they would have euthanized her immediately.

Then I tried to be rational about it and thought:

1. We were making the mistake of playing with her in the first
place.

Although we do not think it is unreasonable to be able to roughhouse
with a cat. We have known cats that LOVE to brawl, but also stay
calm as can be when you are done.

Still, we could have helped reinforce that this behavior was OK.

2. She is still a kitten. She has not learned yet OR not calmed
down yet.

3. She WAS playing.

So, no sooner than I would hurt my own baby, I look down at the furry
baby snuggled up against my thigh and think, "I would love to bounce
you off a wall for this, but you're just a baby and that's not fair."

I am calm (well, calmer than before) now and could REALLY use some
proven methods to calm her bullying down. I say bullying, but she
really isn't being a bully... she is being a playful kitten.

Can anyone think of some methods to speed up the process of teaching
her when playtime is over?

A few notes:

1. She has PLENTY of toys.
2. She has PLENTY of things to climb on.
3. She expends PLENTY of energy.

Um... I may be forgetting something, but I think that covers a few
bases.

So... any help please? And try to be constructive and as positive as
you can be, please. I could have just given up on Gabby, but realize
I could have been part of the problem and I am willing to rectify
that.

Thanks, people. I appreciate your time. Oh, and here is what she
did to my 20 month old.

http://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?i...mistakefe9.png

That is the right side of the corner of her mouth, and I believe that
is a hair of mine going horizontally across it that I did not notice
until now.

Again, thanks...

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

First off, I would like to point out that Cindy has given you some
excellent advice there. If you clip her claws, soft Paws is a very
good option.

Cats, like humans, make mistakes too- the trick is to get them to
learn from it. Much easier said than done obviously.....

I'm not sure if you would consider the next thing I'm about to
mention, but it is worth asking you. Have you thought of getting a
play mate for Gabby @ all? The chances are that if you decided to get
another kitten of roughly the same age, that she will be far more
interested in him-her, & will pay far less attention to you all when
it comes to playing rough.

Now, not everyone would agree with me, but I think it makes perfect
sense, as long as you can afford to take on the responsibility of
course? Personally, I would choose a kitten that is slightly bigger
than she is, to teach her the lessen about someone bigger might not
let you away with naughty- pants syndrome. Felines love company, but
mostly it is always on their terms. I think this is the best way to
calm her down. Gabby is just a very high spirited cat with too much
time on her hands by the sound of things, so she goes looking for
something to do...

What do you think?

Also, thank you for not sending her back to the shelter. Gabby
deserves a second chance

It's worth a thought though!!
Best Wishes & good Luck,
Sheelagh "o"

Response from "cindys" :

Lost, I don't keep up with all the threads, so please forgive me
if this is repetitious.

It is totally OK sweetheart, thanks for the taking the time to help
me at all! I appreciate it.

When my now-15-year-old-son was about nine months old and just
learning to crawl, he crawled up to Alex the cat (who was sitting
on a chair) who immediately gave him a huge scratch across the
face, narrowly missing his eye. I thought I was going to have to
give Alex back to the no-kill shelter where we adopted him, and I
phoned them right away. This is what they explained to me
(although this would not be the same for you since your daughter
is older):

They said the cat sees this small human (my son). The cat
recognizes it as some sort of an animal that is about its size but
not one of its kind, and its seeks to dominate. I don't know if
that is really true. I think the more likely reason the incident
occurred, in our case, was more because my son was eye-level with
the cat and the cat took my son's approach (and staring) as a
challenge. At any rate, the shelter recommended that I get Soft
Paws.

You know, this makes sense to me. However in Gabby's situation, I
just think she went from the point of being scared of everything in
this household to attacking everything in this household because of
how comfortable she feels.

It was almost as if our warm and loving care of her made her TOO
relaxed and easy going. So much so that we now have to feel the
wrath of the energetic kitty monster.

A few weeks ago, I saw a discussion about Soft Paws on this group,
and IIRC a poster was saying he or she didn't like the Soft Paws
because they kept falling off because the cat's claws were too
long. Someone else advocated clipping the cat's claws instead. I
was too busy to post a follow-up then, but I will do so now: When
you use Soft Paws, the assumption is that you will clip the cat's
claws before putting the Soft Paws on. It is not an either/or, but
a both. The cat's claws take about a month to grow out again, so
the Soft Paws need to be reapplied monthly.

I actually may have been in that conversation... haha.

In fact, I did check into those nail slip-ons. However I never got a
definitive answer if I remember correctly on whether or not Gabby
would still be able to use her scratching areas. I was not sure if
she would be able to hook into the things she needed to for
stretching and whatnot.

And if she WAS able to, then how was that proving that she could not
still scratch US?

I think after yesterday's incident though we are going to go for it
anyway. Oh, and Gabby's claws WERE cut when this happened.

I put Soft Paws on Alex for a couple of months (they had to be
replaced a few times). I'm not saying this is in lieu of using the
other training techniques that you discussed with other posters on
this group, but it is a nice insurance policy. If the cat
scratches again, the scratchee will not be injured. I think that
once Gabby gets a little older, she will be much less wild, and as
your child gets a little bigger, Gabby will not see her as an easy
target. I really think the situation will improve.

One thing that you should never consider (and I mention this only
because I considered it at the time of the Alex incident) was
having the cat declawed. I was ignorant then and did not know it
was a multilation and could lead to much more aggression (such as
biting) down the road. Fortunately, I had signed a no-declaw
agreement with the shelter, and that prevented me from having Alex
declawed at the time. Thank God! The Soft Paws worked great, and
we only actually needed to use them for a short time. The vet
showed us how to put them on. The vet can even put them on for
you, if necessary. Alex is now over 16 years old, he still has his
claws, and he doesn't scratch or bite, and my son is 15 years old,
and everything is fine.

Oh God no. Everyone here put me straight to the point on declawing.
I thought it was simply a matter of removing a nail like on humans.
I did not realize it was amputating a knuckle. FORGET THAT!

In my experience (of having quite a few cats) two years old seems
to be the age when a cat calms down significantly.

Oh man... another year and a half of this!? HAHA! (That was a
nervous laugh.)

Good luck. Please keep us posted.

Thanks, I will, Cindy. Have a great day.

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

Response from "Sheelagh o" :

snip

First off, I would like to point out that Cindy has given you some
excellent advice there. If you clip her claws, soft Paws is a very
good option.

Yeah, enough research for me... I am going to try them out.

Cats, like humans, make mistakes too- the trick is to get them to
learn from it. Much easier said than done obviously.....

I'm not sure if you would consider the next thing I'm about to
mention, but it is worth asking you. Have you thought of getting a
play mate for Gabby @ all? The chances are that if you decided to
get another kitten of roughly the same age, that she will be far
more interested in him-her, & will pay far less attention to you
all when it comes to playing rough.

Ugh... I just knew that was going to be a suggestion. Sadly, that is
not an option for us. See, Gabby was not supposed to be our cat.
She was a stray that we found just 25 days ago!

The only animal refuge we have in our vicinity was full, we have NO
no-kill shelters, and the pound was the only other option. The pound
euthanizes ALL animals after a 5-day period of no adoption.

We really hated to see SUCH a beautiful critter get killed. She was
this poor, little, helpless, crying baby that we found under one of
our cars in a rainstorm.

That is how Gabby came to be our 80th or so member of this family
(about 50 of those are snails), and the ONLY cat. We used to think
of ourselves as an upper-middle class family until we got to the
point that animals ate better than us.

So despite not having the room, because the new kitty would have to
be an indoor one too, we simply cannot handle inviting another of
these bundles of furry madness into the house.

Just in general though, too, I think one cat is enough. We just have
to explore other areas. It may not be the right choice, but it is
the choice we currently have to make.

Now, not everyone would agree with me, but I think it makes
perfect sense, as long as you can afford to take on the
responsibility of course? Personally, I would choose a kitten that
is slightly bigger than she is, to teach her the lessen about
someone bigger might not let you away with naughty- pants
syndrome. Felines love company, but mostly it is always on their
terms. I think this is the best way to calm her down. Gabby is
just a very high spirited cat with too much time on her hands by
the sound of things, so she goes looking for something to do...

We could afford it most likely, but not emotionally. I have to think
of my other indoor critters too. To think, I was initially worried
about my doggies posturing toward her. Come to find out they only
wanted to have a thorough sniff and they were done with her. Now a
few weeks later she is terrorizing them.

What is REALLY funny though was watching our ferrets and our rabbit
KICK THE CRAP out of Gabby. Gabby thought she was slick and that
Sweet Pea (one of our rabbits) was a pushover. After leaping onto
the rabbit, Sweet Pea spun around and pummeled her mercilessly with
her paws. Gabby and Sweet Pea politely sniff each other in passing
now and that's that.

Odo and Podo (the ferrets) like to fight in pairs or rather, you
cannot pick on one without the other coming to the defense. Gabby
soon learned she was no match for 2 adult ferrets as well. Again...
we have nice, calm, polite sniffing of each other and that is all.

However, my poor puppies are FREAKED out by this constant attack. At
first they played with her, well, at least Pudge did. But Gabby just
kept getting rougher and rougher and now they want nothing to do with
her. They literally run off or run to me and there goes Gabby
chasing them down.

What do you think?

I think it sucks that we cannot find her a suitable playmate. I do
not totally believe Gabby is bored by any means, I mean, she has TONS
of people and animals to play with who actually like her. She is
taking advantage of my dogs though and now my youngest daughter.

I really wish we could do another kitty, but I already know what the
family would say, especially since we had a HUGE talk about what to
do with Gabby in the first place. We agonized over keeping her.
Finally we made the plunge and initiated her into the family so it is
our obligation to make things work, I am sure you know what I mean.

Also, thank you for not sending her back to the shelter. Gabby
deserves a second chance

Hehe... you are welcome. I am not ready to boot her just yet. Like
you said, Gabby deserves another shot. Although I am not sure how
many more times of scratching someone in the face I am going to
tolerate.

Thanks a bunch, Sheelagh "o". As always you have been most helpful
and helped me to bring some things into perspective.

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

On 10 Oct, 19:09, "-Lost" wrote:
Response from "Sheelagh o" :

snip

First off, I would like to point out that Cindy has given you some
excellent advice there. If you clip her claws, soft Paws is a very
good option.

Yeah, enough research for me... I am going to try them out.

Cats, like humans, make mistakes too- the trick is to get them to
learn from it. Much easier said than done obviously.....

I'm not sure if you would consider the next thing I'm about to
mention, but it is worth asking you. Have you thought of getting a
play mate for Gabby @ all? The chances are that if you decided to
get another kitten of roughly the same age, that she will be far
more interested in him-her, & will pay far less attention to you
all when it comes to playing rough.

Ugh... I just knew that was going to be a suggestion. Sadly, that is
not an option for us. See, Gabby was not supposed to be our cat.
She was a stray that we found just 25 days ago!

The only animal refuge we have in our vicinity was full, we have NO
no-kill shelters, and the pound was the only other option. The pound
euthanizes ALL animals after a 5-day period of no adoption.

We really hated to see SUCH a beautiful critter get killed. She was
this poor, little, helpless, crying baby that we found under one of
our cars in a rainstorm.

That is how Gabby came to be our 80th or so member of this family
(about 50 of those are snails), and the ONLY cat. We used to think
of ourselves as an upper-middle class family until we got to the
point that animals ate better than us.

So despite not having the room, because the new kitty would have to
be an indoor one too, we simply cannot handle inviting another of
these bundles of furry madness into the house.

Just in general though, too, I think one cat is enough. We just have
to explore other areas. It may not be the right choice, but it is
the choice we currently have to make.

Now, not everyone would agree with me, but I think it makes
perfect sense, as long as you can afford to take on the
responsibility of course? Personally, I would choose a kitten that
is slightly bigger than she is, to teach her the lessen about
someone bigger might not let you away with naughty- pants
syndrome. Felines love company, but mostly it is always on their
terms. I think this is the best way to calm her down. Gabby is
just a very high spirited cat with too much time on her hands by
the sound of things, so she goes looking for something to do...

We could afford it most likely, but not emotionally. I have to think
of my other indoor critters too. To think, I was initially worried
about my doggies posturing toward her. Come to find out they only
wanted to have a thorough sniff and they were done with her. Now a
few weeks later she is terrorizing them.

What is REALLY funny though was watching our ferrets and our rabbit
KICK THE CRAP out of Gabby. Gabby thought she was slick and that
Sweet Pea (one of our rabbits) was a pushover. After leaping onto
the rabbit, Sweet Pea spun around and pummeled her mercilessly with
her paws. Gabby and Sweet Pea politely sniff each other in passing
now and that's that.

Odo and Podo (the ferrets) like to fight in pairs or rather, you
cannot pick on one without the other coming to the defense. Gabby
soon learned she was no match for 2 adult ferrets as well. Again...
we have nice, calm, polite sniffing of each other and that is all.

However, my poor puppies are FREAKED out by this constant attack. At
first they played with her, well, at least Pudge did. But Gabby just
kept getting rougher and rougher and now they want nothing to do with
her. They literally run off or run to me and there goes Gabby
chasing them down.

What do you think?

I think it sucks that we cannot find her a suitable playmate. I do
not totally believe Gabby is bored by any means, I mean, she has TONS
of people and animals to play with who actually like her. She is
taking advantage of my dogs though and now my youngest daughter.

I really wish we could do another kitty, but I already know what the
family would say, especially since we had a HUGE talk about what to
do with Gabby in the first place. We agonized over keeping her.
Finally we made the plunge and initiated her into the family so it is
our obligation to make things work, I am sure you know what I mean.

Also, thank you for not sending her back to the shelter. Gabby
deserves a second chance

Hehe... you are welcome. I am not ready to boot her just yet. Like
you said, Gabby deserves another shot. Although I am not sure how
many more times of scratching someone in the face I am going to
tolerate.

Thanks a bunch, Sheelagh "o". As always you have been most helpful
and helped me to bring some things into perspective.

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

OOP's Ouch!!
I deserved that one Lol )

Sorry, next time I will think a little harder before responding. I
have 5 kids too, so I know what you mean,
Sheelagh "o"

Response from "Sheelagh o" :

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

OOP's Ouch!!
I deserved that one Lol )

Aw, it's OK, Sheelagh. I did not mean it in a bad way. I just thought
it was funny.

Sorry, next time I will think a little harder before responding. I
have 5 kids too, so I know what you mean,

Wow. You are in the same boat as me. I have all girls, how about you?

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:18:43 -0500, "-Lost"
wrote:

Response from "Sheelagh o" :

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

OOP's Ouch!!
I deserved that one Lol )

Aw, it's OK, Sheelagh. I did not mean it in a bad way. I just thought
it was funny.



I think we've all forgotten what it is like to be a kid getting
scratched. I'm 35 years old, and I grew up with cats and dogs, so
scratches are routine for me. I looked at the photo and thought, well,
that's not too bad. A scare, but not really horrible.

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:15:33 -0400, "cindys"
wrote:


and Molly hates him. What did we need him for ????" But all I can tell you,
16 years later, is that he is elderly and has arthritis and chronic renal
failure. He spends the majority of his day sleeping in the corner or on a
chair. I would give anything to see him swing from the chandeliers or chew
through an electric cord just one more time.


I was just telling my sister the other day how much I would give to
have Kira bite me again. It has been almost a year since she died, and
I would gladly accept her worst behavior, just to have her back again.
I miss all the good times as well (of course!). But the bad parts
don't seem bad at all after they are gone, and you can't have any of
it back.

I will never really understand the big attraction to kittens. Everyone ants
a kitten. OK, they are cute. They are also holy terrors with more energy
than they can use in a day, rarely sleep, ruin your stuff, cut and scratch
you and generally just get into nothing but trouble. Now you know why
mother cats kick them out after about the 12th week.

My youngest cat is about 16 months old now. I got her at age 6 months. She
ruined about 1000.00 of my things, she turned my hand into a toy and caused
me many deep cuts. She terrorized one of my older cats. She kept me awake
all night long. She almost got killed several times, including a fall from
a high tree.

She is just now starting to calm down. She seems to like human touch more
and more. She misses me when I am away and is the first at the door when I
come home. She bites less, she scratches less. It's showing some promise
but for a while there I was considering making an oven mitt out of her ass.

She will outgrow the worst of it in a year or so. Really that's all that
will work. I always tell people this, get an older cat especially if you
are elderly or if you have children. Don't engage her in rough play. If
she gets rough, walk away. She will make the connection to roughness and
playtime being over.

And whatever you do, keep her and your child apart. Never allow them alone
together unsupervised. And there is never too early a time to teach
children that cats are not toys and they must not be handled roughly.

Paul

On 10 Oct, 20:18, "-Lost" wrote:
Response from "Sheelagh o" :

I do think its funny though that no one has said, "Oh, your poor
daughter, is she OK?" It's only, "Give the cat another shot!"
HAHAHA!

OOP's Ouch!!
I deserved that one Lol )

Aw, it's OK, Sheelagh. I did not mean it in a bad way. I just thought
it was funny.

Sorry, next time I will think a little harder before responding. I
have 5 kids too, so I know what you mean,

Wow. You are in the same boat as me. I have all girls, how about you?

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

Katie 21,
Luke 18,
Ross17,
Jack14,
Tilly 11
So a girl @ each end & 3 boys in the middle....

All girls..?!!! Wow, that is a lot of weddings you have to save for
( in the UK it is traditional that the Bride's parent's have to foot
the bill, but not always)

I have one @ University (Kt) Having just finished her 1st degree, she
has just started on a Master of Arts, in social health care. A very
expensive venture, & another fund to pay towards, Lol,. The elder boys
are @ college doing A'levels, & the younger two are still @ school.
All worth while though. The best thing you can give your child apart
from love, is a good education & morals too.

I haven't forgotten what it was like when they were little either.
Both Jack & Tilly were extremely premature. Jack was born @ 26wks
gestation @2LB 6 OZ, & Tilly was born @ 27 wks @870GRMS., so it felt
like they were little forever- but like everything, it passes so
quickly, & as most other here say, you don't realise how lucky you are
until you don't have it anymore. That applies to family, children,
pets & friends & all the things that make life what it is today.

Gabby will slow down over the next 6 months or so, & become part of
the furniture so to speak. She is @ the toddler stage in kitten -
hood. It won't last forever, & you will look back & laugh about this
one day )

Most of my cat's are pedigree cats, simply because I used to breed
cats. One day I woke up after a very difficult period with my cats. we
went through Ring worm, then I had a vet tell me that after operating
on one of my queens, that her eye's & nose were running because she
was looking for attention. In actual fact, she caught cat flu @ the
veterinary surgery, came home with it, & passed it on to all of my
other cats including a final litter of kittens. The kittens died, &
the vet bill came to a total of over $2,000!! Needless to say, I
changed vets after liberating Lilly (seal point birman with flu), &
took her straight down the road to another vet, as well as the rest of
the cats, to make sure there were no other problems.

I missed breeding, but knew I had done the right thing- Breeders are
part of the problem (But IMHO I think it is the kitten mills that are
the greatest problem- not the dedicated breeders who do things as they
should be done.) If someone wants a pedigree cat, they are going to
get one whatever you say to try & convince them that there are
millions of cats out there crying out for homes. It's human nature I
believe.

I don't regret it, & when talking about the experience on this group,
Wendy proposed that it might be an idea to take in pregnant queens
from cat agencies (mainly the Cat Protection League). I took her up on
that, & I've never looked back. Most months it was a struggle to break
even, but now I get support to care for cats-moral & financial, which
makes it all a lot less stressful too. I have taken on 2 full time
moggies though. Ringo the orange tabby, & Lucy(fur), who is the black
cat. Ringo owns Ross, & Lucy(fur!!) owns our daughter, Tilly.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sheela...FELINEFAMILY02

Here are a few photos of the cats, so that you can visualise them if I
speak about them.

PS: Yes, I did sue the vet, & she made me an out of court settlement
last week. The money was helpful, but knowing that she has been banned
from practising as a veterinary surgeon is even better. She nearly
killed every cat we have, & they are close family members..... Someone
has to stand up for their rights, so I did!

Sheelagh "o"