08/22/2005: "Mystery Solved, Crisis Averted!"

Well, after being so worried and fussing over Lemoni for the past two days it turns out that naughty little Osiris is the one who ate the string! It came out tonight as one small tightly rolled ball of string and practically nothing else. (After boiling it for 10 minutes in hot soapy water) I measured it, I thought it was about 9-10 inches long but really it was 17 inches long and still in one piece! Also, it has plastic caps on both ends, like a shoelace and both caps were still intact.

I seem to have dodged a bullet this time. I'm not sure if I can get a spare string for my Powerball gyro, but if I can I'm only going to use the thing at work from now on. If I accidentally left it lying out again I might not be as lucky the next time and I'd never forgive myself if one of my cats suffered because of my absentmindedness.

Replies: 7 Comments

on Monday, August 22nd, Kasia said

I'm relieved! I was really worried about your cat! i have a question: is Lemoni a main coon or a Norwegian cat? She's beautiful! if I have a cat one day, it must look like her - al ot of long hair! :D

on Tuesday, August 23rd, RR said

Glad all is well :-)

on Tuesday, August 23rd, Elise said

I'm very relieved as well! As far as what breed Lemoni is, I'm not sure. She's a pound kitty, so probably a mix of some sort. I just did a google image search for Main Coon and many of the photos looked a lot like Lemoni, then while reading about the Maine Coon they mentioned that it's closely related to the Norwegian Forest Cat so I did an image search on that too and there were several photos again that looked just like lemoni. One thing is that she has a lot of hair on her head so she looks like she has a lion's mane.

Anyway, as you seem to already know, both of those preeds are long haired, you just have to make sure to brush them a lot!

on Wednesday, August 24th, holly said

Thank goodness! Now apologize to Lemoni for your unfounded accusation!

on Wednesday, August 24th, Elise said

I was actually giving Lemoni all this extra attention and love and poor Osiris is the one who could have been dying!
:O

on Wednesday, August 24th, Jackie said

E: So glad to hear that both your kitties - the wrongfully accused and the guilty party - are doine well, and the string has been recovered! As for my kitty that ate the felt mouse - well, she was old (about 10), and she got dehydrated after I brought her home, and hid in a closet refusing food & water. We took her back to the vet, who said she'd have to be on IV fluids and kept at the hospital, but she still might not recover. Since I couldn't afford all those vet bills, I had to make the tough decision many pet owners are forced to make - and had her 'put to sleep'. I really didn't want her to continue suffering if she wasn;t going to get better. :(
So - that's why I purposely left out the end to my cat story, until you revealed how your kitties 'ended up' (pardon the pun).

on Wednesday, August 24th, Elise said

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that Jackie! These are the first 2 cats I've ever had so it's hard for me to think of 10 as being "old" but I guess you're right. sniff sniff.

As for all the wierd things that cats eat, when I was doing some research on the string thing, I read why it is that cats eat these things. They have barbs on their tongues that point towards the back of their throat. Sometimes they're just playing with something and it gets caught on the barbs and the can only get it to move in one direction...down their throat!

It makes perfect sense. I'm just going to be more careful about what I leave lying around. Last night I threw out all their string based toys except for the ones that require me on the other end.