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Lovely. :-)
It's always a pleasure to stroke a cat.
Heīs constantly expecting strokes, canīt get enough. :)
Lovely. :-)
It's always a pleasure to stroke a cat.
Glad Karlsson is well his way to full repair. Next step; fit a cat flap to the shed?
If the DM is to be believed; Hundreds of black cats are being abandoned by their owners because they don't look good in selfies.
Oh and where did the name Karlsson come from, please? Just interested...
The name is from a Swedish film about a boy who can fly and lives in the roof of a house and gets up to all sorts of shenannigans, "Karlsson from the roof". Itīs very popular in Germany, the boy eats anything he can get hold of so when I saw Karlsson tuck into the food we gave him I immediately thought of the name. :)
People abandoning black cats because they donīt look good in selfies?? Whatever next!
Last edited by Andy H; 11th March 2015 at 10:56.
Thanks for the info re:Originally Posted by Andy H
...I hope I found the right one.
Thatīs the one!
Yuk.
They are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/10695...665?banner=pwa
And one of them is black. ;-)
Thanks, much appreciated. Beautiful cats.
Last edited by pluseditor; 13th March 2015 at 20:17.
My daughter rescued a very small kitten - an urban, feral runt - one arctic winter's night 15 years ago. She - the cat, not my daughter - now lives with us.
Her longevity seems attributable to two causes. Her ability to self-heal after being run over by a car - the vet considered amputating her right rear leg, but she can now walk, run and climb trees and fences as well as ever - and her food, which has protected her teeth.
Many cats, fed on 'wet' food, lose their teeth in old age and this contributes significantly to the terminal decline of their health. So, not only for old cats, but for all, I recommend ...
Last edited by Tinker; 15th March 2015 at 03:05.
Great looking cats and lovely pictures, thanks.
Karlsson is really feeling at home now, Mrs H went to feed him yesterday and sat down with him, he jumped on her lap and started purring. Thatīs a good sign in my book.
Good advice Tinker, cheers.
Lovely cat and a great selfless act of kindness you've performed. He should improve leaps and bounds with care.
We have two now, both from rescue homes, and they are doted on. One tip is to stay clear of supermarket wet food, it's not good, full of sugar and cereals which don't help dental, weight or digestive systems. Only exception to this is Butchers, which we use but we buy alot of ours from the internet now. I have to respectfully disagree with the poster above, but in general I believe wet food is better for cats than dry as they get a lot of their water intake from it, but dry is helpful for keeping teeth clean. We just sprinkle a little dry on their wet food.
We use (wet) Bozita, Animonda Carny, Butchers
and for dry we use Applaws but Orijen is good also
You can also consider mice bought from pet shops, and chicken wings (uncooked) as the bones do the same job as dry. Also worth looking for cheap offal from supermarkets, it's often cheaper per kg than wet food and is pure meat, which is pretty much the best you can give a cat. (don't cut it up too small as larger chunks help exercise jaw muscles and helps replicate eating in the wild, which is why mice (obviously) and chicken wings are good for them)
Ours eat live mice and mole rats all the time. We try to convince them that eating birds is not nice, but sometimes they can't help themselves...
I agree, they need wet food to get most of their water. Of course they also drink water directly, and some (goat) milk, but the natural way is through their food. Given the number we have, we use supermarket wet food but add good quality dry food to balance it. And they get our scraps: meat, chicken, ham, cheese... often snatching it directly from a plate (even if they have their own). We live 'hyper rural' in France amongst woodland and hedgerows with very few neighbours and some 6000 square metres of terrain (not counting the surrounding fields) that needs constant patrolling against rodents that would otherwise become an infestation (mole rats, hamster size, especially - they dig tunnels or use empty mole tunnels to pull veggies down from below in the garden and can even kill young trees by gnawing away all the young roots.) An expert on rodent infestations in agricultural areas once told us that wild predators like weasels and hermines (and wild forest cats) are the only way to keep them under control (forget about poison, you just kill the hermine that will eat a thousand or so mice per year so then you will get a real infestation), but these don't venture much further than 50-60 metres from protective hedges, so in very large fields, rodents proliferate in the middle... When we asked what to do near human habitations where the wild predators keep their distance, the answer was 'you need cats'.
They are fantastically effective. A few years ago, I observed a mother cat (now no longer with us, although all our cats but one are her offspring) walking towards the front porch where we had just set out a plate with food, and on the way there she lashed out into a stand of plants to her right, pulled out a mouse which she took in her mouth, and walked on to the plate, where she consumed the mouse along with the food we put out (I mean, a civilized cat eats her mouse from a clean plate... the Whiskas is just seasoning). It took her hardly a second to catch. She didn't even stop. ;-)
Haha! Fantastic skills, and it sounds an idyllic place for cats to live and roam. You are absolutely correct that cats are very effective killers and are very good at pest control when allowed to and as we live on the edge of a town, ours do manage to catch mice, baby rabbits and the occasional bird. And just like yours, ours get fed very well from the table too, I do enjoy picking a chicken carcass for them to devour. I think a lot of problems arise from cats that don't have the opportunity to hunt.
We've inherited a second cat ... from my wife's brother, Idiot Boy, and his wife, Dog Face, who paid Ģ2,300 to ship a mongrel dog to Oz, but left their RSPCA rescue cat with us. The cat is ugly, myopic, paranoid and stupid ... just like Dog Face.
She, the cat, arrived in poor condition. A switch from ALDI's dry cat food to PURINA has produced an almost immediate improvement. If I liked Idiot Boy, I'd send some to Oz for Dog Face.
My experience is that cats thrive on good quality dry food. (They must have constant access to water, of course.)
Adding dry food to wet doesn't clean their teeth, however.
Currently I have a cat that suffers from IBS, which the vet put down to an intolerance to some of the ingredients in some modern cat foods, but we have now managed to stabilise her on mainly James Wellbeloved food with the addition of some fresh fish and she's virtually got a normal digestion now and a lot happier. Cheaper foods do see to have some fillers that cats can be intolerant to and it can be difficult to find something that suits them, especially when, like my cat, they are more of a bird watcher than a bird eater. Her hunting skills aren't all they could be, that's for sure.. :-)
Karlsson has got the runs at the moment. I put it down to the, pretty cheap and nasty wet food heīs getting. Weīre going to get some Animondo Carny tomorrow, that seems to be quite good.
Runs? Probable cause - erratic diet.
Solution? Dry food!
As I suggested above.
Cats have iron guts and it's unusual for them to get the squits. Possible obvious causes are 1 toxins, 2 illness and 3 diet change. Probable cause is 3.
Last edited by Tinker; 16th March 2015 at 11:29.
Not true actually as the commonest associated problem with diarrhea in cats is dehydration, which can exacerbated by an exclusively dry food diet, though obviously a cat should always have access to clean water. ... Any digestive problems like these that persist should be treated by a vet as there are a plethora of potential causes that need to be eliminated ...
Great to see another mad bugger take on a cat in need
Please get him neutered, it will help stop unwanted litters in your area but will also quell the "wanderlust" and keep him closer to home.
It does also greatly help reduce unwanted smells.
Heīs getting proper meatier wet food now and hasnīt done a No 1 for hours, looks like itīs getting better.
Weīre waiting on him to get stronger before we have him neutered, but we are getting it done.
Good news.
Speak to your local cats protection league they will pay for the snip.
Not in Germany they wonīt! :) But itīs only about 60 so no great expense.
Here he is turning his nose up at my Seawolf.
Doh :)
What are the opinions on feeding him raw meat? I gave him some raw chicken this morning and he wolfed it down, (no pun intended :)
Why bother? Raw meat's unnecessary for a domestic cat and there are dangers from fine bones and from potential infections.
Cats don't need variety. A good 'professional' cat food will serve a cat well all its life.
This cat obviously loves me! :)
Hehe, yes.
I once went to stroke my neighbour's cat who was sitting in the sun on my garden lawn. As soon as I touched him he flipped onto his back, sank his teeth in to my hand, and attached all of his claws to my wrist and arm. I was able to pick him up, upside down, hanging off my arm by his teeth and claws.
He was, of course, being affectionately playful. Ouch!
But it's weird how, when I scratch and bite the neighbours' cat, also just being playful, it's suddenly a "police matter".
That really is weird! :D
Good looking cat. His collar gives me a great idea... Bond NATO collars for pets. I'd buy one.Here he is turning his nose up at my Seawolf.
What a lovely thread. Keep us all updated!
Quick update on Karlsson. Heīs filling out, slowly but surely, after 6 weeks with us. Running around and jumping over fences. Heīs still a bit wary of coming into the house when the dogs are there, but theyīre all getting to know each other slowly. Heīs had an eye infection the last 3 weeks and is just getting over that with the help of eye drops. He lets us put the drops in without protest, which helps.
He looks a lovely lad, well done for saving him.
He's a handsome cat, isn't he? These last photos show how neglected he really was when he adopted you.
Karlsson is currently at the vet, getting the snip. He was in a foul mood this morning, due to not being fed since last night. No doubt heīll be in an even worse mood when I pick him up later! :)
Don't encourage him to eat frogs.
Kevin eats frogs. He catches them in a local stagnant puddle.
Kevin has two default positions; position 1 is the stagnant pond, position 2 is on my lap, regurgitating masticated frogs and dripping stagnant pond slime.
Don't encourage him to eat frogs.
I will refrain from encouraging him to eat frogs from stagnant puddles or ponds. :)
I'm so glad that Karlsson is doing well, hopefully he'll still be talking to you after today....
Weīre in the middle of registering him. Any idea what breed he is?
Wiki: "The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes 22 cat breeds that can come with solid black coats." So, good luck with that!
I'd try a local cat club or the like as I think it will be a difficult task from photographs. Maybe a DNA test?
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