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 He was somewhat withdrawn and our vet discovered a painful spot in his spine.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.

A few things to report

Another week in the country

That went very well - Binks settled down to being very much a rural cat. The weather (it was over Easter) was glorious and he spent most of it outside. The builders were next door but he has found a spot in the dell, a disused gravel pit to one side of the drive. This is always the spot that we thought he's inhabit. It is pretty much a wilderness in that it is virtually impossible for humans to reach it, so overgrown is it with gorse and bramble. Nevertheless there are spots of clear ground and rabbit runs are evident.

On the catches front, he had two voles, two mice (one of each survived) and a baby rabbit. The bunny was petrified but seemed to be unharmed but I'm not optimistic about its chances. I released it on the common and it hopped away but didn't seek cover - I have a feeling it was too young.

One thing; there is a lot of dry dusty ground around the house and Binks delights in rolling in it - he does this as soon as we arrive. What's he trying to do? Cover up his city cat scent? Is he happy to be there - it looks like it - or is he distressed?

Frank

I heard a squeak on the stairs. 'Oh no - he's got a bird'. Except he hadn't - he was on the landing with a dark marmalade cat.

Who naturally fled as soon as we approached. He was lost and bolted into the front room and proceeded to rush around, attempting mainly, to scale the book cases bring down small avalanches of books. He cowered. We got closer until he bolted out the door and ... up the stairs. Now it became a case of closing all the doors to rooms as we ascended until we had him cornered in the top of the house. More trashing the place. Eventually, he hid behind some stored furniture and sat on the radiator, panting and shaking.

I began to feel quite sorry for him. Some while back I remember the surgeon who fixed my shoulder having his hand in bandages. He had tried to get a feral cat out of his house and it had attacked him. The resulting wounds were infected and his hand blew up. His visit to casualty was 'the first time he had been in hospital' he said, fortunately he made a full recovery. Not thinking of that I tried to make friends and over a period of about 15 minutes, eventually he allowed me to pick him up. My guess is that he was once owned and is now living rough, he had lots of scars around his neck. When we got to the stairs he began to struggle and he rushed down with nowhere to go but out (the back door had been open). Binks was released and proceeded to sniff everywhere compulsively. He seemed to take it quite well.

'Frank'? I reckoned he was about the same colour as Frank Cooper's Oxford Marmalade. We saw him on the rooftops a few days later; he seemed to be quite friendly towards Binks - tail highish and with that lifting head behaviour that's usually seen between co-operative cats. Binks wasn't interested however and hunkered down so we thought it wise to make an appearance before a fight started.

Birds

He doesn't often catch birds - which is good. I feel much worse about them than rats and mice - even rabbits. But he had a blackbird a few days ago. This morning they were giving him the full works - the alarm call was being strident as Binks walked across next door's car park.

Some time since the last post...

Happy to say nothing amiss. Several anniversaries to record. farthest back was Binks' first Christmas. We read that some huge proportion (85%?) of pet owners give presents to their animals over the festive period but we did not - does that make us bad?

Another potentially sentimental day passed more or less unremarked upon - January 6th, a year since his arrival. Amazing how that time has flown. All of us have settled down into mini routines and those, fractal-wise, comprised of smaller and smaller repeated and reinforced acts; fast and slow coming downstairs, the morning visit in the bathroom after breakfast, the vocal greetings, the foot biting in the morning. Once it seemed that all anecdotes belonged to the 'old' cats but now Binks has his own.

We did the annual visit to the vets too. That was more or less without incident. The scariest - though played down - was that he has the slightest of heart murmurs. In the complete absence of clinical signs (shortness of breath etc.) , we were told not to worry. He is very active and the vet did say that it might well go away. He got all the injections as usual and was given a worming tablet about which, rather sheepishly, we had to confess we'd done nothing.

He had been rather unforthcoming on the prey front recently but he celebrated two days after his vet's visit by catching, killing but not eating a rat. Not a very big one but as Jean was at home on her own, she was grateful it was dead. Prior to that we'd had two blank visits to the country; it's been pretty awful weather (though, of course, it never snowed while we were there) and it is most likely the mice and voles are hidden away. You have to go back as far as December to find a score (two, one alive, one dead and (ugh..) trodden on). One day I'll add all these up.

We've been gripped by some sense of normality for weeks now. No catches, no unpleasant early morning surprises. What passes for cold weather in these globally warmed times has started and that's meant more lap residence.

A Week in the Country

We had a week in the wind and the rain. The cat-flap is now in the back door of the country retreat (at some pain to the builder who I'm sure views it as a good door ruined). Obviously we had every expectation that the house would be filled with mice. In fact he was reasonably abstemious; two on the first evening and two on the last. Each comprising of a one dead (gnawed) and an one alive (released). In fact the second brace were clearly voles - long pointy, hairless noses otherwise covered in grey/black velvet fur. They were quite beautiful and he's been suitably admonished.

And he has another trick too. Despite being restricted to the kitchen overnight, he has worked out that via the garage roof (well, timbers anyway, it's still not built), he can get onto our first floor bedroom window sill. There to miaow in the early morning. First time we were impressed and let him in and he settled immediately and slept late with us. Subsequently it's been a device to get us up for an early breakfast. So now we heartlessly leave him out there - with the double glazing and the covers over your ears you can hardly hear him...

Catching up

There have been quite a few developments and I've slipped behind.

Party People

We had a big do. Well big for us, where we fed about twenty people buffet style with everyone milling around in the kitchen (as they always tend to do). We expected Binks to beat a quick retreat, either upstairs or over the gardens but no. We had his platform put slightly out of the way (as much as anything else) but over to our side, away from the main throng. The result was that he maintained position on that - with a careful eye on the proceedings, happy to countenance even close approaches as longs as they didn't try to pick him up. I do think he's getting better with people.

Guests in the Country

And he had ample chance to prove this a few days later. We had a country weekend with guests. One of them is extremely fond of cats and wouldn't take shyness on Binks' part as an excuse. She employed the tried and trusted method of delivering cat biscuits on demand and gained a decent measure of friendship in return. Not quite completely; we stayed a day longer and as soon as they were gone he went out and caught us a mouse having been noticeably reticent ealier. And then another. We had to keep him in before we were inundated. Both escaped alive. I'll add them all up one day.

The Cat Hotel

Then there was our holiday. Binks got to stay in the cat hotel we got to go to Catalunya. We took him his platform to which he always turns for comfort and left him for ten days. The set-up was very efficient; each cat having a well sized run with a solid barrier at ground level and a closed area with transparent door. Favourite food supplied of course.

I must admit to be a little worried when we collected him; scared that he'd hold it against us but I'm glad to say he was pleased as punch to see us. More so than any of our previous cats who were perhaps more manipulative and noticeable grumped for a not inconsiderable time thereafter.

Rats Again

Then rats. Not immediately but first there was the neat pile of remains one morning. A head, a tail, two (back) feet and a unknown internal organ - well unidentifiable by me anyway. This is a bit worrying. There's the concern he'll get a poisoned one and also he'll get worms. Actually, that's almost certain.

Two days later there was a squeak as we sat listening to music late one evening. I looked up only to see Binks retreating from the living room. Downstairs in the kitchen he was toying with the still live rat. Smallish, but a rat nevertheless. I was concerned about getting bitten (and infected) so I got him and prey out the cat-flap. The rat escaped the jaws for a moment and was holding out behind cover in the garden. We tempted Binks in with biscuits and the rat cowered. We kept him in overnight and early next day I went out to check; the rat was dead, having moved only a few feet from where I saw it last. That casts doubt on some of the survivor statistics for the mice I guess. A day later he was nursing a wound in the cheek. I'm not sure if it was cat fight or rat bite; I think the latter is more likely. Maybe he'll leave them alone. I'm glad to say that it appears to be healing OK.

The Case of the Disappearing Cat

In order not to frighten the guests by live mice (or a naked Chris) running round the bedrooms in the middle of the night, Mr Binks was locked in the kitchen for the night with no access to outside. Awake by 7:30 I decided to go down and give him his freedom, only to find two guests already in kitchen indicating that although they hadn't seen the cat they thought they had heard a faint mewing and thought he was up with us. Logically he must still be in the kitchen, all doors were shut and there was no furniture he could hide under.

So where was he?

The only cupboard he had shown an interest in was the one under the sink with access to the back of the kitchen units, certainly a mouse hunting ground, but the door was shut. However, when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So I opened the door. There sat Binks in the washing-up bowl. With a plaintiff mew and a single bound he was free, to wait by his biscuit bowl for breakfast. Looking back he must have pulled at the door till it opened enough for him to wedge it with his head and then body. Once in, the door has one of these hinges which snap it shut once it is nearly closed. Unfortunately it doesn't say much for his intelligence that he did not realise he only needed to push against it to get out again.

It's been while so I thought I'd try a bring you up to date. First off the catch details; two weekends in the country and each yielded the same; three mice. One deceased and one brought to the bedroom in, to all intents and purposes, the middle of the night. The remaining one seems to have escaped whilst being carried across the kitchen. On weekend one it got behind the fitted kitchen. This meant Binks was obliged to sit behind the units for long periods to no avail. We didn't see the critter. That is until Sunday morning when studying the papers, out it popped and made a bee-line for the wood-pile. We fooled it into a paper bag and arranged its release. Binks? He was asleep upstairs the whole time.

We had guests last weekend and they were most amused. The escapee was under the sofa this time or more accurately, clinging to the upholstery at the back. It was a simple matter to pull the furniture away from the wall and prod the cowering creature into the paper carrier bag. We're getting quite good at this. And there were birds too - in London. Both midweek; first time a wren which seemed to escape and Tuesday, a young blackbird. The latter was pursued by its parent, screeching. All this at about 10:00pm. Binks is quite willing to release his prey - it seems a sure thing that they're for us - and I managed to get the bird into yet another paper carrier after it wouldn't or couldn't fly away. I released it around the front where the blackbirds congregate. Binks didn't seem interested in going out again once we had our present.

Insecta

As I have a feeling 'Red, in Tooth and Claw' could run and run, let's call a halt though, in the interests of accuracy, we may have to keep discreet count of the wildlife in order to verify or defuse the statistics widely promulgated.

So it's a single mouse, tiny and alive although traumatised. I think that the field mice/voles freeze when disturbed as a defence against their more usual predators, hawks. I didn't hold out much hope for this one as it seemed paralysed even after a chance to recover in a paper cup. But on release to the wild it was gone within ten minutes. I don't think we should count the escapees.

But down to insects. We have to be honest - he has fleas. All these seem to come from visits to the country and they may not be cat fleas. They are relatively easy to pick off his ears as there is very little fur there and they stand out against the white. Maybe the fleas parasitise the voles. Most likely they live in the long grass waiting for a passing warm blooded creature (though I havn't been bitten myself and cat fleas really like me). If it stays like this - easy to control manually - we needn't treat him with chemicals. I'm glad to note that they don't seem to affect him as badly as some cats.

And Moths. Last night he brought in a rather beautiful moth. At least it had been once. It was clear-winged and so almost certainly a Narrow or Broad Banded Bee Hawkmoth. This is not the first moth he's brought back, an Old Lady appeared a month ago or so - he seems only to bring the large ones indoors. Both were nominally alive and although I put them out into the garden, I didn't hold out as much hope for them as I do the mice.

Moths are well represented on the web; the pictures above come from UK Moths which is excellent. For hawkmoths there is the marvellous, authorative yet somehow eccentric, Sphingidae of the Western Palaearctic. He doesn't have pictures for the Narrow Bordered Bee Hawk but there are pictures for the Broad along with intimidatingly precise information.

Red, in Tooth and Claw (III)

Ah. Spoke too soon.

This morning it was a rat. Dead. By the kitchen door to the stairs. The looks to have been a certain amount of disruption upstairs in the front room on the rug. These are not pictures I particularly want to fix so let's move on.

We've never really had a cat that caught rats before (let's not kid ourselves, in London they say on average you're only ever twenty feet away from one). It's just that unless instructed, cats don't catch - much less kill - rats. According to Roger Tabor's The Wild Life of the Domestic Cat they have to be taught to catch and kill them by their mothers and only a small proportion do so even then (preferring human handouts to the danger of killing a biting creature with your teeth). I wonder, where did he learn?

Red, in Tooth and Claw (II)

This post got delayed so the final toll could be established.

Last weekend was at the country venue and on Saturday morning we discovered a mouse outside the front door - dead. Binks ingored it and so did we - slightly wrong-footed to find ourselves with no means of burying it. That state of affairs persisted until he tried to take it indoors. That was an easier experience compared to the live one he brought to the bedroom in the early hours of next morning.

Curiously he didn't seem to mind attempts to take it off him or even being summarily dumped in the bathroom. There's virtually no furniture in the room I'm glad to say because, though starting near the door, the mouse ran away from it and around the perimeter. There was nowhere to hide and pursued by two humans it completed the circuit and was out the door and down the landing. Eventually, at the top of the stairs, I caught up with it and fooled it into a carrier bag. Mouse thus captured I dressed with brevity and wandered outside blinking in the early dawn to release it away from the house.

Binks was released from the Bathroom. He didn't seem to mind - it clearly takes a lot to upset him. He took a few sniffs at the spot where he had released it and then settled on the bed for the rest of the morning. The whole episode seems to reinforce the idea that he only catches them for us.

Back to London and on Monday morning the front room is carpeted in feathers. This time from an unfortunate blackbird. Is he glad to be back and this is a present? Every morning since, the first of us down has looked hesitantly around the door in the front room (where they're found according to current modus operandii) but fortunately we've not seen any more.

Red, in Tooth and Claw
We more than half expected that this would happen but the 'mouse' incident may have led us into a false sense of comfort.

This morning we came down to a house filled with feathers. Pigeon feathers it seems for the remains of the poor creature were in the front room. But there was evidence on two more floors - CSI would have had field day (but I'm glad to say, no bugs as far as I could tell). Binks was pleased as punch and has seemed even more vocal and assertive since.

We had thought that a white cat (with a bit of black) would be warning enough but maybe not.

The Longest Day

Today was always going to be be difficult.

Last solstice I, we really, lost Eric our cat of seventeen years. During that time - a period that eclipses all but a few of my friends and even Jean and me, Eric and his sister had been my companions. Jean brought Samson, her own cat with her and for many years we were three cat household, at least one (and probably two) more than the unbiased thought decent. They grew old and two of them died in 1998; Eric was the tontine cat. In his last year he was not well and was blind for the last fifteen months.

I could see this coming for weeks but nothing looks good on the page - either sentimental or mawkish - and the real experience was neither. I'd just like to give some measure to our decision to adopt another cat and what he means to us.

Hurrah! New Cat Diary comes of age

I chased the links through Google today and there is one. After a bit of work with the advanced search (which seems to require the full filename) I found,

Tuesday, April 23, 2002
look what was in the recently updated queue when I logged out of Blogger!....... and I had to log back in just to tell you about it...
posted by comatose kid at 4:10 PM archived

Unfortunately.. That dates from when the link (at 'look') was to .htm before I got the server side includes working (*.shtm) and so the link will be broken. Also comatose kid has moved and doesn't have his archives working. So the link has vanished but it was a nice sentiment. I wonder if it was the 'brinkster.com' / Binkster thing that so attracted him? Maybe not - he seems a regular cat guy and a much better photographer of felines than me...

As a coda to that, the Kid has just got his archives working so maybe I could get him to correct the link...

"That cat's fallen over again"

I kind of like this shot. I know it's out of focus and all, but it has the right feel for when he comes up to you. That's par for the course if you're attempting to do anything on the floor like read a newspaper. The photo comes out of one of those very-mini digital cameras you can get at Tesco. (I'm glad I wasn't expecting too much as the quality is not very good though the convenience and the concept is fun.)

He's really the most laid-back cat when he's around us but nervous as anything with other people. Now that something approaching summer is here, the neighbours are out in their garden most evenings and that's enough to put him off going out. The result is that he semi-mopes around the house. He's fine when you're playing but not when you're busy with anything else. The result is 'cat help'. Eventually this tires, well pretty soon reslly and he has to lie down. There appears to be nowhere he won't choose and anytime he comes in from outside it seems to be as much as he's able to to get to us before flopping.

Happy Birthday!

Binks is one - today. I'm not sure if that's a real birthday but that's the one he's stuck with now. It appears on his rehoming forms but conforms very much to the estimate of 'seven months old' back-dated from when we adopted him.

I think he deserves a catnip mouse.