Mr Binks: 6th June 2001 – 10th September 2015

Our lovely cat developed a tumour in his chest, either on lung or heart or both, and we decided to spare him further suffering.

The photo is from his last 'public appearance' when he starred in an email I wrote to a bridge group. I was pleased it elicited several soppy replies.

That was April and his health was robust until June. His annual check-up that month went OK but his teeth needed descaling. During that procedure his jaw was broken and wired. The restorative process and removal went well but he began to seem off-colour. He was somewhat withdrawn and our vet discovered a painful spot in his spine. Pain-killers cheered him up but once the course was over he started to relapse. Then suddenly, on Sunday 30th August, he went blind.

We took him to an emergency vets next day (a bank holiday). It was easy to see without instruments both his retinas were detached and they were convinced he had hypertension. But despite readings taken with two different machines his blood pressure was within normal limits. Nevertheless we took a prescription to lower blood pressure (Amlodipine) and hoped for some reattachment.

He coped with his loss of sight with characteristic intelligence and responded to audio signals, tinking food bowls, consistent calls for direction, many of which we had learnt with our last blind cat. He returned to the regular vets on Thursday for another blood pressure check and some blood samples to test kidney function. Both were normal for a cat of 14 years. That was worrying good news, something had to be quite seriously wrong. We stopped the Amlodipine and would return for another check in a week's time.

In retrospect Binks declined sharply yet still kept sufficiently to daily routines for us not to be frightened until the Monday. He was now sleeping 20 hours a day, on Tuesday he had some favourite food but on Wednesday he wouldn't eat. He was breathing with difficulty Wednesday evening and we took him to the Thursday appointment; we could tell our vet was worried. An x-ray revealed a trachea bent out of shape by a growth beneath and a lung filled with fluid. His chest was causing him considerable pain. It was likely he had a secondary on his spine.

We took him home and had a few more hours in the sunshine on the garden bench.

This blog has moved

Yes, from its home on www.dubiouslogic.com.

Mr. Binks is alive and well (and asleep upstairs, taking maximum advantage of what solar gain there is).

I decided to keep it may take a bit of work to get the formatting back.

Just a new year mention to say that Mr. Binks is absolutely fine - here's a pic that I used as a Christmas card for my mum - she was thrilled, but then she's a complete softy for that sort of thing.

Wow! Has it really been that long?

Spawn of Satan

We went away for the evening, staying over with friends. We've done this a few times. In early instances we locked Binks in with a litter tray but as he got older we just made sure there was some food down for him and pledged to be back a good time the next day. This would be about the third time we had left him for the night in London.

When we got home we found quite a scene. Binks didn't greet us at the door and on checking upstairs I found evidence of 'territorial marking' on the stairs - I'll leave it at that - and a strange black cat asleep in our room on the bean bag Binks normally uses. The foreigner seemed more-or-less unperturbed and I closed the door as our cat came down from the floor above - emboldened by hearing my voice no doubt. We stowed him away and 'dealt' with the intruder. That amounted to try to grab the scruff of his scrawny neck, failing and then chasing him out, downstairs and through the cat-flap.

We had to clear up the stairs and wash the bean bag cover, complete with a deluge of min-polystyrene balls as it had burst last time we did this (years ago). Binks was jumpy for the first hour or so and keeps looking towards the door. That was three or four days ago and he's now back to his relaxed self and there's been no sign of Satan's spawn.

Blogger changes have made me tentative to update but the template looks OK, my temerity was misplaced. So, what's been happening?

With summer here the catching season is upon us. That's true in both town and country. With fledgelings about, the city is still full of prey but that said, Binks has not been so prolific, accounting for only two. The blackbirds outside are ever vigilant and their warning squawks are audible even above the roar of the traffic. In the country it is rabbits. On one visit he got a poor specimen that had myxamatosis; though not yet having developed the worst of the symptoms, its senses were clearly compromised. Binks had it by the scruff of the neck and dropped it when confronted on the immediate inside of the cat-flap. I suppose I should have put it out of its eventual misery but I just can't do that sort of thing, so I walked it across the common in a paper bag and released it. It was quite lost.

The next rabbit at close quarters was in even worse shape - on the grounds that it lacked a head. That morning the kitchen was a scene of carnage. There was the headless rabbit, a dead mouse and the attempts to eat the rabbit had caused the cat to throw up. It was just as well that we hadn't had breakfast. All this was deposited on the rug. He has a thing about rugs.

So, 2 rabbits and a mouse, before that the standard brace of mice/voles, one alive and one dead. I'm beginning to get concerned about my promise to go through and add up the prey.