sticky eye
June 28, 2005 l Comments Off
Occasionally a hamster may get a sticky eye where the eyelids are fused together and older hamsters may be prone to ’sticky eyes’. This is often because a hamster may have something it its eye such as a piece of dust or it could be because the hamster’s cage is placed in a draught or could be a symptom of a cold or allergy. The closed eye should be wiped with a small piece of cotton wool soaked in luke warm water. This is usually sufficient to open the eye but if not the eyelids can gently be pulled apart.
If a hamster has recurring problems with runny or sticky eyes or the eye appears cloudy the hamster could have an eye infection. This can be treated by mixing half a cup of sterile (boiled and cooled) water with a teaspoon of boric acid powder (available from a chemist or pharmacy) and using an eye dropper to bathe the eye twice or three times a day. If the hamster does not show improvement within a couple of days veterinary advice should be sought as antibiotics may help.
Poor Napster’s begun to have this problem. You should have seen the look he gave me when I had to wipe his eye yesterday…
A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.
love is
June 26, 2005 l Comments Off
sacrificing yourself for another’s comfort.
for a bright white smile
June 17, 2005 l Comments Off
C.E.T. Oral Hygiene Chews for cats are made from freeze-dried fish, provide an abrasive texture for removal of plaque and contain the C.E.T. Dual Enzyme antibacterial/antiplaque system.
They look and feel like packing peanuts. But the girls wolfed them down today so I guess they can’t be too bad…
How an entry about hamster tunnels turn into a rant on packaging…
June 11, 2005 l Comments Off
So I had to go to the pet store yesterday. Bought the cats their high-quality organic canned food (yes, we recycle the cans), bought a bag of recycled paper pulp bedding (environmentally and economically friendly), and purchased several plastic tubes for the hamster’s cage. Heck, I even bagged it all in canvas bags.
Now, the hamster’s cage isn’t really a “cage” so much as it is a converted Tupperware bin. Cages tend to be poorly designed, and decent sized ones are ridiculously expensive. A bin cage? $10, plus the time it take to drill holes in the lid. Anyway, there’s my plug for bin cages…
(Napster’s bin sits atop the rabbits’ cage)
I noticed that Napster had been attempting to burrow in the bedding, a natural behavior, but he had little success. Just my luck I manage to find these tubes at the pet store that actually fit a larger hamster (FYI: tubed cages are designed for dwarf hamsters, not Syrians) So I bought several of different sizes and shapes and began crafting my idea for a tunnel system.
I wish I had thought to take photos of the tunnels before they were covered, but here’s a photo of the completed habitat:
You can see the tubing there, poking through the substrate. The key to designing a Syrian-friendly tunnel system is lots of exits. Turning around in those tubes tends to be very difficult and they could potentially get stuck. In Napster’s simple set-up, there are three exits:
Okay, so there’s the new set-up. When it was all said and done, I was left with one very happy hamster…and a pile of packaging.
So much for my low-ecological impact day.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, packaging. The bane of any recycler. No matter how much you try to avoid excessive waste, there’s no getting around the fact that manufacturers will package their items in completely useless (and non-biodegradable) materials.
Case in point: I have to order more hamster food. The only place I can find this particular food is online. Napster only gets the best (spoiled twerp), so I suck it up and pay the extra $$ for shipping. In about a week, a box will arrive on my doorstep, with 6 pounds of hamster food in it – and packing peanuts (the cardboard box itself is not an issue, the cats will love it)
But what am I supposed to do with packing peanuts?
Throw them away, of course.
At any rate, I’m gonna mull this over some more, there has to be a way to break out of this terrible cycle of waste…
well…
June 10, 2005 l Comments Off
I think I just crossed the line between “cat owner” and “cat slave” (I’d like to believe it wasn’t crossed a long time ago, but anyway…)
Yesterday, I was in the shower, and heard Stephanie crying. Even over the running water and whir of the fan, she seemed loud. So I responded with the usual cooing and such. But she kept crying.
I could hear Dad, the only other person home, yelling, “Shut Up!”.
But Steph remained loud and insistent. I ran through my mental checklist: She’s hungry (nope, not anywhere near dinnertime). The other cats got out (nope, there’s no way). She sees a bug (no, that’s a different sounding vocalization, d’oh!).
It sounded like she was right outside the bathroom door.
Rrrrr-ooow
“Shut Up!”
rrrrr-OOOOW
“Shut Up!”
ro-ro-ROW
So I climbed out of the shower, conditioner in my hair and shave cream on my legs, and opened the bathroom door. Stephanie sauntered right on in. I climbed back into the shower, but this time, I left the curtain open a smidge. I finished up my shower with Stephanie sitting right there on the toilet, watching.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I cater to my cats’ every whim, even in the shower. There is no help for me.
A Few Reasons Why Cats Are Better Than Dogs
June 3, 2005 l Comments Off
By Jade, Grade 6, Cincinnati
I disagree with those who say dogs are best. Cats are better than dogs.
1. Cats don’t bark
2. Cats are dogs with a college education
3. Cats rule, dogs drool
4. Cats are smarter. You won’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow
5. Some cats have been trained to “go” in the toilet
6. Cats live longer. My cat is 17 in people years. The oldest cat was 36 in human years
7. Cats are the cutest creatures in the world.
the mighty huntress
June 1, 2005 l Comments Off
So Beeper killed not one, but three baby chipmunks today. The old girl’s got more spunk than we gave her credit for…
The kids were upset, naturally, and I gently reminded them that this is what comes with having an outdoor cat. It’s one of the reason my cats will never go outside unrestrained. I also said that we couldn’t be mad with Beeper because she was doing what came naturally.
Honestly, if a partially deaf and arthritic 15-year old cat can catch and kill an animal, that animal wasn’t destined to live for long. And I told the kids as much: there are far more predators that those babies would have encountered in life, and unfortunately, they were killed sooner rather than later. Most chipmunks in the wild live no longer than a year or two.
But, still, it was disheartening to have to dispose of those three tiny bodies. Hopefully Mama Chipmunk will get a clue and not build a nest in the middle of the yard next time.
