Sigh …
[Editor: CC is relaxing in the shade dappled by sunshine. She has loosed the bounds of the rope when outside after proving that the only thing that would be on the end of the rope would the collar she slipped over her head. Her staff finally gave up.]
[Note: The problem at the Ark seems to have been resolved as my shields did not go up when I visited today.]
On-line Opinion Magazine featuring annoyed rumblings from the leading edge of the Baby Boom firmly tied to a reality-based world.
Established: 21 November 2004
The opinions expressed in Comments are those of the individuals making them. Truly absurd comments and opinions are subject to being cruelly mocked, but "flame wars" will take place on someone else's dime.
Your first comment, all comments with extensive links, and random comments that the software decides it doesn't like for no discernible reason will be held for moderation.
[Be aware that for unknown reasons the software rejects comments shorter than 15 characters, so if you want to leave a short comment fill the gap with periods ........]
15 comments
Her staff finally gave up.
that’s how the fluffy black dog was with collars, harnesses, crates, kennels, and fences. he was pretty good at undoing gate latches and wriggling out of collars, but if you made it difficult for him, he somehow just managed to de-materialize out of whatever restraint and re-materialize just on the other side of it.
so i gave up and taught him to follow voice commands and hand signals when we were out in public and kept him in the house when he couldn’t be directly supervised.
Sox had the strangest reaction I’ve ever seen. If you put a collar or harness on him, he just flopped on his side and didn’t move while it was there. I don’t have any idea why, but he acted like he was paralyzed until you took it off, so I had to give up on flea collars.
We had a German Shepherd who would wear her collar, but it didn’t stop her in any way. Even a choke chain had no effect. She would snap chains and ropes if she wanted to do something, and could climb most types of fences. She was territorial, so she wouldn’t leave the property, but she roamed the entire 22 acres.
don’t have any idea why, but he acted like he was paralyzed until you took it off,
i’ve often wondered if it’s related to this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070513093614AA5H1Pe
curmudgeon cat was like that with harnesses, but he was ok with a collar. except flea collars – i tried them, but he kept getting them off somehow, and they didn’t seem to work anyway, so i gave up on those and just used advantage slightly more often than recommended. also, he enjoyed swimming in the bathtub and would even put up with medicated baths when the flea allergy issues flared up, so why annoy him with the collar?
not to mention that i’ve had enough pets get their collars caught on things over the years that i just don’t do collars any more, except for those occasions that require leashes.
speaking of leashes, curmudgeon cat did quite well on a collar and leash for going places – much better than in a carrier. he screamed nonstop if he was locked in a carrier (he thought they were wonderful hiding places as long as the door was left open for him to leave when he wanted to). i always figured he associated them with his trip to the pound (which is where i adopted him from).
and it was always fun to see the looks on people’s faces when i was out walking with my dog-in-cat-suit.
I assume that it is probably related to the ‘kitten grip’ but Sox must have been particularly sensitive to it.
Yes, a cat on a leash is a rather rare phenomenon, but carrier hatred unfortunately isn’t. I have known people with cats who would jump into the carrier, but I have never lived with one. Yes, as a defensible place to take a nap, no problem, but when the door closes it is apparently the clash of the gates of hell and must be protested.
Trips to the vet are the only time my car radio is really loud. 😉
Trips to the vet are the only time my car radio is really loud.
if you pick the right radio station, the cat screams blend right in. 😈
I’m not sure I want to listen to that particular radio station, Hipparchia :). The 900 mile long trip from Phoenix to Mountain View when I moved here to the Silly Cone Valley was loud enough with The Mighty Fang howling non-stop the whole trip. Adding the kind of music that has lots of howling and screaming would have driven me *completely* over the edge!
Lily had a problem with collars. She escaped them regularly. Then one time she apparently got her collar caught and turned over a food-bowl rack… two metal bowls, both full, in a heavy steel frame.
Fortunately, after the first few episodes of, uh, collar‑a, Stella started using break-away collars, so Lily lived to see another day. But she didn’t stop escaping collars. Finally Stella gave up. The cats, mother and daughter, look somewhat similar; if I can’t tell them apart at a given moment, I remind myself “Lily is the one without a collar.”
The boys have all had high, piercing tenors, so I go with the bass to attenuate them, Hipparchia.
Yeah, Badtux, just me and Koshka in the cab of a Toyota pick-up evacuating from Opal for 18 hours while the winds were howling, the rain was coming down in buckets, and electrical substations were exploding all over. 900 niles with a howling cat is a very tough row to hoe.
CC will accept the collar as long as it isn’t attached to anything, Steve, but Koshka would get out of them, even if it meant leaving some hide behind. You have to catch at just the right moment to convince them it’s normal, apparently between 6 and 8 weeks old. After that it’s a crap shoot.
You’ll notice that you never see a picture of The Mighty Fang with a collar on. That’s because he slips out of them like a greased kitty and I finally gave up. Luckily he doesn’t do that with the puppy harness when I take him on walks. (Puppy harness because cat harnesses aren’t big enough for him). Mencken, BTW, thinks his collar sucks but because he thinks *everything* sucks, he doesn’t give it any special attention compared to everything else in his environment, and certainly not enough attention to duck out of it. Same deal with the 900 mile trip, he howled for about 5 minutes “man, this drive sucks!”, and finally concluded yeah, it sucked, but no worse than the rest of his life sucked, and spent most of the rest of the drive sleeping.
When you are a confirmed pessimist you have the satisfaction from being right after you state the problem.
I had the same harness problem when I tried to convince Sox to wear one – none of the cat harnesses was even close, so I bought a small dog harness which produced the same effect as the collar – paralysis.
Floating shoulder blades really make cats world class escape artists. You have to nearly choke them to get a collar they can’t get over their heads.
I’m not sure I want to listen to that particular radio station, Hipparchia
me either, but on that 900-mile drive through the middle of nowhere you didn’t have all the drivers at every stop light looking daggers at you for torturing poor helpless screaming-for-mercy kitty cats.
I guess I must be lucky. Kaylee enjoys riding in the car (although she doesn’t much care for going to the vet) and Koshka’s “howling” requires one to have one’s hearing aid turned all the way up to hear.
Property is like Koshka, if she isn’t within inches you don’t know she’s vocalizing, but Excise has a piercing tenor. Fortunately Excise has an attention span measured in milliseconds, so neither is as bad as their predecessors.
I’ve never known a cat that enjoyed riding in a car, so Kaylee is rare individual.
When I was a kid we had a big orange tomcat that loved riding in cars. We’d get in the car, and he’d hop in with us and ride between us with front paws propped up on the dashboard so he could look out the windshield. (This was back in the days when cars had bench front seats).
That was the last cat I’ve encountered that enjoyed riding in cars tho…
Maybe it’s orange, as Kaylee is a calico 😉