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Old June 29th, 2014, 06:34 PM
gaeila gaeila is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Tennessee, USA
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Smile On Buttering and Spaying Cats

Quote:
Originally Posted by Risky1 View Post
Ok...sorry but whoever says that a cats heat cycle is 3-4 days needs to put down the crack pipe.
But I have a solution.....
Step 1) Soften some margarine or butter in a dish.
Step 2) Put butter between every toe you can find on your cat....
Step 3) Go jump into bed and enjoy a good night's sleep.

Your cat will spend the rest of the night licking the butter from between it's toes and after the job will be exhausted from the task. Don't be surprised if she is snoring before you get into bed.

:
"3 - 4 days"
It is possible--almost anything is possible--but in my experience and according to most vet references, such short heat cycles are indeed uncommon. A week or longer is much more likely. So, yeah. Agreement there.

"But I have a solution.....

Step 2) Put butter between every toe you can find on your cat....

Your cat will spend the rest of the night licking the butter from between it's toes and after the job will be exhausted from the task. "

*WHOA!* Gotta seriously disagree on this much butter. Most cats can tolerate a little butter (e.g., to get a pill down), but that much butter can make many cats very ill. A college student told me how he buttered his cat in what he thought would be a amusing test of the cat/buttered toast paradox (Google it if you don't know about this purported source of perpetual motion.

The cat became extremely ill, and he wound up with a large vet bill.

The idea is basically decent--instead, I would recommend using one of the feline nutritional supplements like Tomlyn Nutri-Cal for Cats (or Kittens) which is even stickier, and thus should occupy the cat for even longer than butter.

Also, it is a very bad idea to have your cat spayed while they are actually in estrus (heat.) The surgery risks are increased, due to inflammation of internal organs. Better to wait until she's gone off heat at least a week.

Most vets do know this; but as with human doctors, 50% of all vets graduated in the bottom half of their class. Just sayin'.

Finally, if you search the Net, or some reference books (such as the otherwise mostly good "The Book Of The Cat"), you will come across advice to shut up a yowling estrus female with anything from a Q-Tip to a rectal thermometer. Inserted internally, to mimic mating.

THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA, for multiple reasons:

1. If you manage to properly mimic mating, anyone who has witnessed regular successful feline matings can guess the obvious danger. A female usually grrrs angrily during mating, and at "peak", she instantly shrieks, hisses, and violently turns and attacks the male cat with a furious spasm of flurrying teeth and claws. This is all extremely fast. Experienced studs know to instantly spring back and head for the hills. Alas, few humans have cat-like reaction times required to avoid attempted disemboweling by their (normally) loving pet. Gushing blood and interesting scars can result.

2. The "satisfied" female often violently jerks and contorts at culmination; with risk of breaking off and leaving part of anything inserted inside her. Can you say Big Vet Bill?

3. The Q-Tip solution is prevalent on the Web, and especially dangerous. Cotton can easily be left inside your cat, and this is Bad.

There's more, but that's enough for now. In general, sticking anything physical inside any of your cat's orifices except her mouth is a Bad Idea.

I apologize if this skeeves anyone out, but biology is a messy thing.

YouTube is rife with ignorance, titling perfectly normal feline matings as Rape, etc. ad nauseum. National Geographic's YouTube vid, with the charming title of "Barbed Cat Penis" is the most useful I found. However, their video of domestic cats mating is far less violent than average reality. The same vid also shows lions mating, and the lioness' violent reaction is much more like what I've observed in over twenty years experience breeding pedigree kittens. Our Tonkinese girls are far more loving, social, intelligent, and gentle than the average cat, but they still turn into miniature lionesses when mated.

It is true that a successfully mated estrus female does indeed shut up for at least several hours or longer. A few large breeders (which I am NOT) keep a "teaser Tom"--a male cat with a vasectomy, I kid you not--for the purpose of quieting females they don't want to breed that heat cycle. Such male cats still spray, so...not gonna work for most people.

It is also true that there is a method of using careful pressure on specific EXTERNAL-only portions of a female cat's hindquarters and abdomen which successfully mimics mating, and stops her yowling for a time, as if she had been bred. It's much safer than any type of physical insertion (except, obviously, one performed by a male cat! Unfortunately, the usual angry grrring, shriek, and striking snake murder attempt still happens, so it seems that barbed penis thing may not be the complete explanation for a female cat's violent mating reaction. Plus, still the problems of learning the technique properly--the exact pressure points and amount of pressure to safely apply; rapid flight to avoid lacerations when she is "satisfied." It requires practice, a certain amount of skill and speed.

And maybe a pair of elbow-length heavy leather fireplace gloves...

My husband likes to call a successfully mated female cat a Cuddly Cobra, because first there's a whole-hearted murderous attack, quick as a striking snake; fortunately this only lasts a couple seconds. Then there's a longer period of luxuriant rolling about, vigorous thrashing, and rabbit-kicking the heck out of innocent slippers, stuffed animals, or any human body part unfortunate enough to come into reach. All this rolling, thrashing, etc. is interspersed with brief hissing bouts and vigorous grooming of her personal bits. Which latter, BTW, are NOT actually touched at all in the external pressure point technique.

I suppose I really should make a video demonstrating this external pressure-point technique...even though it too, is only a briefly useful stop-gap measure, not a substitute for spaying. Apparently, over 50,000 folks think the Q-Tip thing is a good idea, judging by Google hits; far more than know of the effective external pressure points. Sigh...

*ANY* kind of artificial mating to stop a female's yowling should never be done for more than a couple heat cycles in a row, due to increased risk of all sorts of awful disease, including cancer. I can't emphasize this too strongly.

We only use the external pressure point yowl-stop for a queen who goes into heat when it would compromise her health to breed her. Sometimes a first heat can hit at only six months age! Sometimes a nursing queen can go into heat only two weeks after delivering a litter of healthy kittens! It would be quite unhealthy to breed a queen in such cases, but her yowling could indeed drive one to mental instability. Fortunately, the pressure point technique does work. Sometimes it quiets her for an entire night (yay!); sometimes it only quiets her for several hours (boo!); the result is the same amount of silence as mating with a stud, which varies quite a bit.

Nonetheless, spaying is the only safe long-term solution.

Yes, spay/neuter can be quite the budget hit. Here in the U.S., most Humane Societies offer very reduced fees if you're low income; I would hope much of Canada has similar programs.


Deborah

Last edited by hazelrunpack; June 30th, 2014 at 09:15 AM. Reason: No self-promotion, pls
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