Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [85]
All proper books contain long lists of substances, from mothballs to marijuana, that can poison a cat, making the human dwelling sound like a feline deathtrap, but actually my vet sees very few cases of poisoning. It’s true there are plenty of things that could poison a cat if the cat ate them, but mostly the cat doesn’t. What does happen is that something gets on the paws or the fur and the cat licks it off: whatever goes outside on a cat will get inside. Garden sprays and dusts, weed killers and insecticides are especially lethal, and we might ask the neighbors to let us know when they’re going to be killing things in the vegetable patch or on the lawn so we can keep our cats indoors for a few days, or until it rains hard. And there may be spilled things in our own basements or garages, like engine oil or kerosene.
Poisoning is instant illness: the cat, well a few minutes ago, suddenly retches, slobbers, totters, and dilates or pinpoints its pupils. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ask a cat what it ate. A half teaspoon of ipecac will make it vomit, or a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide and water. (Many books suggest salt on the back of the tongue, but salt can have a toxic effect and is very strongly disrecommended by vets.) However, as with humans, we do not induce vomiting for petroleum-based products: paint, paint thinner or remover, kerosene, gasoline, benzene, fuel oil, floor wax, lighter fluid, or furniture polish. Or with corrosives like lye, washing soda, Drano, ammonia, metal polishes, or grease solvents. Or for strong acids or pine oil. For these, give milk or water.
If it might be insect repellents or the neighbors’ garden poisons, carbon tetrachloride, or moth flakes, give water only, no milk.
For car antifreeze, mysteriously appealing to cats, and windshield deicers, one source says vodka in milk is the treatment of choice.
If you spot the culprit on the paws or fur, plunge the cat into an immediate bath.
And, of course, you rush to the vet. Only, as with small children, these things happen with diabolical regularity on Sundays, late at night, or on Christmas morning, and finding the vet who’s on emergency standby, or even rousing your own vet’s answering service, can take a lifetime. A cat’s lifetime. Those of us in the centers of civilization can at least hope that someone, somewhere, can be found to help. Country folk, though, should keep first-aid supplies on hand and fresh, remain alert, stay calm, think fast, and, when possible, drive like hell.
We should remember to think external for cat poisoning. To clean up spills. To lock cats away when disinfecting or polishing or painting or exterminating or dealing out death in the garden.
The list of poisonous plants is dismaying, and most lists make little distinction between leaves that kill at a glance and those that, if the cat eats the entire bush, roots and all, may give it a stomachache. Every Christmas we’re warned that the whole festival is poisonous, the holly and the ivy, mistletoe, poinsettia, Christmas cherry, the works. (The tinsel on the tree is bad news too.) This year the little black cat ate some poinsettia to no ill effect; my vet says it’s really more an irritant than a poison. Mistletoe berries, though, fall readily on the floor and make intriguing toys, and we might just shuck them off before we hang the spray.
Bored cats indoors may take up plant eating for entertainment or, some say, because they need vegetables. Toss them a sprig of parsley or a carrot top and get rid of the ivy, the philodendron, and the avocado plant (which is probably dreary-looking anyway; they usually are). Replace with ferns. Cats and kittens that gleefully use the dirt in the pots as an in-house outhouse are sometimes discouraged by stockades