Yeah, a lovely guest post by Jill Spain at Christmas Pie Crafts. Jill and I have been doing the blogswap thing - it's a lot of fun and I've met loads of new people. We'd both like to do more blogswaps, so please do get in touch. It doesn't have to be on dogs and cats; Jill is a crafty lady too. To read more of Jill's stories and see her beautiful handmade cards, please pop over to her blog and show your appreciation. Thanks, Jill, now over to you.
Thank you Lesley for inviting me to post on your blog – almost needless
to say, my post is about my cats.
MAN AND MEDICINE (BETTER KNOWN HERE AS CATS AND PILLS!)
I grew up with cats, dogs, budgerigars and hamsters; Richard came from a
cat-loving household and as we both loved cats we decided that when we lived
somewhere secure and road-safe, we could have one.
We moved from a flat on a busy road in Carshalton to a house in a quiet
road in Worcester Park. Off we went to
the RSPCA at Chobham to ‘buy’ a cat; for some reason I had it fixed in my mind
that we would come home with a large ginger boy cat - what did we adopt? A female tabby cat called Tessie, aged 18 months. Apparently Tessie had been there for a long
time, three months in fact, but when we saw her we fell in love with her
immediately and couldn’t understand why she had not been snapped up immediately.
Although we had both grown up with cats, being ‘owners’ of one was a new
experience for us and we were completely unprepared for the first week that we
had Tessie! Thank goodness we were on
annual leave the week she moved in because the first few nights were pretty
sleepless. She howled, meowed and ran around
the place like a mad thing – she was clearly very distressed and there was very
little we could do for her. Twice we
thought she had got out! Frist time we
found her rolled and hidden in the bottom of floor-length curtains; second time
was in a hi-fi unit – she had managed to get behind one of the numerous pieces
of gadgetry that Richard had.
Not long after Tessie arrived, we took her to a vet for her second anti
cat-flu jab. When it was Tessie’s turn
to go into the surgery, one of the assistants came out and called ‘Jessie
Spain’! Jessie! How insulting, her name is Tessie. Jab given and advice received that worming
might be a good idea. Once we had got
Jessie, sorry Tessie, home, we nipped out to do some shopping and buy some
worming tablets. The guidance on the
packaging said give to the cat one hour before their meal time. Dedication thy name is Richard! The next day Richard set the alarm clock for
one-hour before Tessie’s normal feeding time – it hadn’t occurred to him that
she could really wait for her meal and he could administer the tablet when he
got up at his normal time. Oh well, he
learnt as the years went on.
The fun began. He picked Tessie
up and placed her against his shoulder.
Imagine the scene; cat clamped to shoulder in one hand, tablet in the
other hand. Let battle commence. He spent about 20 minutes trying to get the
tablet into Tessie’s mouth, keep her mouth closed, tickle her under the chin/throat
to encourage her to swallow; he lost count of the number of times he retrieved
the tablet from his shoulder, his face, her face, the floor. Oh the joys of pet ownership! Eventually the thought struck that as she was
likely to be hungry, let’s crumble it up in her food – this worked, we think. There is every possibility that all of the
crumbs of the tablet were secreted in the inside of her mouth and when our
backs were turned, she spat them out!
Tessie had a very long and happy life with us – she lived to be nearly
21 and as with all animals we were very, very sad when we lost her. Today we have two cats: Jazz (many words have been written about him recently on my blog) and Daisy, a tiny, teeny tabby
cat. Daisy reminds us of Tessie in that
she is very intelligent and not that keen on tablets! The good news is that the flea treatment we
have to give them now also includes worm treatment. Thank goodness, because pill pushing is
flippin’ hard work.