A neighbour and I found a comatose cat in the street outside our houses this morning. We assumed it had been hit by a car, but it was not dead. Since neither of us could cope with the thought of leaving a suffering animal to die we took it to the vet.
To our surprise the vet said that it had been poisoned. And the probable culprit was people using permethrin products or other similar stuff to treat their box bushes. Who knew?
Anyway he thinks the cat can be saved, so that’s good news. The bill is not likely to be quite such good news, but we’ll deal with it. Especially as the person we think feeds this cat seems to have phoned the vets earlier but put the phone down when she was told that the person bringing the cat in has to pay the bill!! Human kindness, eh?
Anyway, do please be careful about permethrin products near cats.
That product has been removed but its in loads more, including flea treatments for dogs and stuff for human clothing to deter ticks, and cat flea collars!!
We had a thread ages ago talking about Box and the pest which attacks it … and the need NOT to use chemicals.
Diligence and time are needed to eliminate the caterpillar - with no pollution or side effects.
there is also a biological environment-friendly solution which can be applied several times in the year - without threat to man or animals. Folk really have got to stop using chemicals - OK, an easy fix but chemicals have too much danger for the rest of the wildlife (and ourselves in some cases).
Or putting up blue tit nesting boxes… went to a lecture by the forestry department and they recommended that individuals encourage as many blue tits as possible as a breeding pair can get through 500 caterpillars a day! So we’ve done that ( plus the bacillus).
Trouble is that ticks carry diseases such as Lyme…so pretty risky for a dog and its humans. I tried all the natural approaches but pooch still had live ticks on him. And live ticks on dog means live ticks crawling around the house and attaching themselves to us! But we don’t use permethrin…
Just as deadly are slug pellets. Some time ago a number of cats had died in my small neighbourhood, some I managed to save by getting to the vet quickly. An injection will save a cat if given soon after the pellets have been eaten.
The neighbour responsible was unknown despite me knocking on all doors. So I wrote a letter to all of my neighbours, by recorded delivery, explaining the problem but added a rider - that if after having read my letter, cats continued to die from slug pellet poisoning then I would assume that whoever was the culprit was doing it on purpose, and that I would prosecute.
The neighbour owned up thank goodness. Said his own cat never ate his slug pellets. About 8 cats in the neighbourhood were affected, 5 cats died.
Sorry to lower the tone… my dog “Duc” just farted . When I’m in the bureau he plonks himself down right next to me.
So just to say, that they can poison us too.
Duc (Duke in English) Well camouflaged…
I know our Mairie displays notices about water restrictions, but not sure if they also display the health warnings about our rivers/lakes. Might be worth having a word with your neighbours, if you’ve not been following Local News.
There are definitely no water restrictions here.
But I will check with neighbours and the notice board outside the Marie in regards to any possible health risks.
When I’m in the bureau he plonks himself down right next to me.
