The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Cats => Topic started by: plumseverywhere on May 17, 2012, 10:14:42 am
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Our lovely 13 year old cat, Tomsk, has just been run over and killed outside our house and in front of my 4 children who watched the whole horrible incident unfold. Had the first car to clip him stopped, there is a chance that the few after that continued to hit him wouldn't have been able to - he might have survived :'(
He is the 3rd of our cats to be run over. I have one cat left. Up till now I've taken a deep breath and thought that lightening really couldn't keep hitting us - the road isn't a massive duel carriageway or anything but the car users do tend to drive too fast.
My options now with Snowball - a)try and make her into an indoors cat - this is a cat who loves to hunt and is only 2 yrs old and has only ever known being free to go out
b) rehome her somewhere quieter where she is most likely to survive longer than here (this will be further heartbreak for my children)
c) hope that she's sensible on the road.
Really don't know what to do. My heart is saying we should let her go somewhere safer :'(
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Im so sorry that is so horrible....
I would be seeing if Snowball can adapt. many cats can and do, esp as they get older.
If that doesnt work then rehoming might have to be an option but I think the chances are quite good. And experts say that cats can adapt very well in most cases.
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That is so sad I know just how you feel as my young yard cat was killed outside my house on Monday morning, whoever killed him didn't bother to stop but just left him lying by the pavement where all the children walk to school.
This is also our 3rd cat that we have lost on this road even though it is a village where no one should be speeding, my other yard cat Maisie is quite lost without him.
It would be very hard to get Snowball to adapt I would think as you have young children, getting children to remember to keep the doors shut is so hard especially as the weather gets better.
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So sorry, how dreadful, and especially so with the children being there.
Our farm is on a supposedly single track road, which is a rat run. I have had cats killed here, so it happens on any road. My mum rehomed two of her cats here at the farm, but they were female and stayed put. Both adjusted and lived to a ripe old age.
I would look at it from the childrens point of view - its not nice if it happens again to your remaining cat, whether they see it happen or not. It may be upsetting for them to rehome the cat, but obviously preferable to not having it at all.
Probably the cat would prefer to stay where it is, and may well survive. Alfie was here 14 years, and crossed the lane regularly, although she sensibly walked along the stone walls to get from A to B. Yet her brother was killed within a few months of me getting him.
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Such a quandry :-\ Tomsky who died today, along with his brother Toby who died about 6 months ago were both getting on a little in years. Prior to them being run over, I had noticed a change in their personalities - they both suddenly became more homely, more affectionate, wanting to sleep on our beds and not going out as much. I do wonder if their age had something to do with them being less road savvy?
The children are aged 5, 7, 9 and 10 - all girls, all love their cats. They are almost 'used to' seeing the farm animals die off and in their short lives we've had 2 goats, 2 lambs and 3 cats die in very sad circumstances (unexpectedly/road deaths or in the goats cases quite young and suddenly). I think though the cat today will have hit them hardest (ouch, didn't intend that pun :( ) as they spent all of their relaxation time snuggled up with a purring Tomsk or Snowball.
I am starting to find myself thinking that we should keep Snowball, I agree that letting her go would be wrong for the children's wellbeing. I will keep her shut in at night though with a litter tray so I am at least trying to reduce the risk. I don't think she would adapt to being in all the time and there is no way on earth I'd manage to keep windows and doors shut with my brood - and if Snowball was kept in, the chance to be gone with an open window might mean she is reluctant to come back knowing she is to be shut up again :-\
Thanks for listening everyone - horrible day, have taken Tomsky to the vets to be cremated as the fox dug Tomsk's brother up before and that was doubly awful. I hate this road so much!!!
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So sorry :'(
We live on a one track lane where you can walk for an hour and not see a car and yet my friends cat was run over last year and killed and another one of her cats dreadfully hurt on the road the year before so nowhere is completely safe. Both accidents happened at night.
We guess that maybe they get dazzled by the lights and being so quiet up here maybe they dont have much road sense.
Try keeping in at night if you dont want to part with her ( it might be hard for your children to accept). My cat was used to partly surviving herself up here and was gone I am told for weeks on end. When we took her on we wanted her in at night and she has adapted to this really well and it is now her routine.
Hope your children are okay .... poor things.
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sorry to here about your cat plums, my house is next to a fast road and i dread finding one of my cats flattened, so far weve been lucky but they do like to cross over to the fields opposite, even tho theres 100acres of woodland nest to the house for them to play in, maybe try to encourage it to stay in a bit more, at least it will reduce the chances.
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I remember as a child having acres (not ours, someone elses!) next to our house and still our cats would roam in the opposite direction...One cat was killed on a main road a good 15 minutes walk away ::) That dread you mention Deepinthewoods is what I've felt since the first one was killed, morbid this will sound but as I open the curtains each morning I check the road to see if my cats have survived another night.
Am going to keep Snowball in at night, Husband has bought nice food for her to tempt her not to wander and we will pamper her and never again will I moan if she knocks my stuff off the shelves in her quest to climb the walls or when she badgers me for toast/marmite as I'm trying to eat my brekkie!
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As I am out quite early travelling from one field to another - I have noticed that if you are going to see a dead cat in the road, its early morning. I think they tend to cross the road at night when its quiet, and then when coming home, hit a bit of traffic, and thats when they are likely to be hit. I think keeping the cat in at night, may be worth trying.
Quite often cats dart into the road, and if they kept going they would be ok ...but they see a car, and run back.
The near misses we have had with cats doing this. I was convinced we had killed a ginger cat one morning, and made hubby stop......seems cat ran behind the front wheels, and by a whisker got out before the back wheels got him ....phew!!
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I'm so sorry :-*
I think you just have to hope that Snowball has survival instincts because it's highly unlikely she'd adapt to never going out.
I have two young cats who are house cats - they never did go out, as they were still too young, when the last of the outside cats was killed on the road - so i decided that then. They are fine, because they don't know any different but there's no way any of my already-going-out cats would have put up with it - they dived between your legs to be out of the door and as someone else said, with young kids around, it would be far too stressful trying to keep her in during the day.
Mum and Dad call their cats in to be fed at night and then shut in – I do think that's worth trying.
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She is SO staying in at night!! Doesn't help that she's a black cat (hence the name Snowball) and I worry that being black, she's more likely to get run over? we've had 2 black ones run over at night, today was a ginger one in daylight :-\
Roxy, your observations are useful. Not that I am overthinking it all or being morbid, but I feel it helps to make sense of what's happened and try to gain understanding of normal cat behaviour and how we can control that in terms of their safety.
I never want to hear my children screaming as they were this morning as it all unfolded.
I do have to say though, as you mostly know I moved my girls from one school to a new one. Today has really proved that we made the right move. I phoned the head to say our cat had been killed in front of the children, that they were still comign to school but I wanted to let them know so they were forewarned if the children became upset.
Anyway....All of the teachers gave the girls hugs, the head herself came out to the playground and led my 7 year old in by the hand very gently, a prayer was read out in assembly for "anyone who had lost an animal...rainbow bridge etc..." and the 2 eldest were given special time to draw pictures of Tomsk and talk about him if they needed to. Wow! So pleased that they are obviously so cared for there :)
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Good - that's what a caring school should be like :thumbsup: I'm so glad you moved them and it's working out :thumbsup:
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So sorry to hear that Plumseverywhere. Its terrible when you lose a pet in any circumstances never mind such horrific ones. We live in the middle of nowhere but still lost our 3 year old Charlie to traffic at school run time. I don't know how you will manage to keep Snowball housebound with you having four children and the school summer holidays looming. Good luck with that if thats the route you decide on.
When we adopted from cats protection it was on their condition that we kept the cats in at night. We followed this rule then with our other four rescued litter and when we moved to the farm to get them in at night we rang a bell for feed time. They soon learnt that this meant tea-time and no more playing out. It still works with all of them. Perhaps Snowball could be trained in this way even though she is 3 (our old girls of age 9 soon got the gist). You could then ring the bell a few times during the day to make sure she is still close to home and give her a treat when she arrives.
I hope your girls are coping ok this evening. :cat:
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So sorry for your loss, and that you all had to see it. But wonderful handling by the school.
I would say in-at-night, out-in-daytime is the best compromise for everyone :)
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My mum used to ring a bell for our cats when I was a child! Brilliant idea, will do that. Very 'Pavlov's dogs' but it works! Thanks for the reminder :)
Girls are having baths with some of mummy's lavender bath sherbet so I'm keeping everything crossed that they go to bed as relaxed as humanly possible considering. Fully prepared for some bad dreams though and we shall deal with them if/when they arise I guess x
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Sorry to hear this it's horrible I know. We had an unlucky start with cats, our first cat just keeled over and died at a year old, the second one, again a year old who never usually went as far as the main road, got run over and killed, we discovered her whilst in the car with all 3 children, she was still fairly 'whole', I got out of the car to see if she was alive and a car narrowly missed me and went over her again, it was horrific, I took the children back up the drive and went back with a shovel, it was really distressing. The children were really good and got over it quickly, we then got 2 more cats (2 in case we lost another) and 8 years later we still have both, cats are all different and your remaining one may not venture that far, the bell is a good idea my friends mum used to do that too, all the best x
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Awww, lavender bath time should help them sleep better. Hope you don't have too upsetting a night with them. :)
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Children slept really well. My 7 year old India had lots of tears just before bedtime, she was shaking, sobbing and asking lots of questions. It was hard to know how to answer some of them as she is little and also as it was straight before bed - Rainbow bridge helped!
I on the other hand, woke up and struggled - 3am woke up sobbing! Am glad it was me and not them though.
As for Snowball...she stayed in, she slept on Milli's bunk bed. Unbeknown to me she came into my room during the night and vomited mouse/rat/rabbit insides all over my bed :o I didn't know about it until hubby got up, opened the curtains and said " you do NOT want to see what Snowball's done!!"" - blood everywhere, you can guess what I panicked had happened (that she'd been hit...) until we found lumps of furry sick - YUK!!!! Can't win with these cats ;D
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Oh so sorry to hear that sad story, plums :bouquet: :-* :-* {{{{{{hugs}}}}}}
A vet friend of mine told me that of all the RTA cats he sees, 90% of them are black, and 90% of the remainder are tabby - light / brightly coloured cats are less likely to be hit. Since hearing that I have always put silver luminous collars on all my cats, and have been especially vigilant about replacing lost collars on the black ones. I have only ever had one killed at night - he was black and had lost his collar. ::) The silver luminous ones are by far the most visible, the yellow ones much less so.
If Snowball adapts to being in at night, and you adapt to her indoor nighttime behaviour ::) ;), that sounds like a good plan. Otherwise, I'd fit a silver luminous collar. I know a lot of people think the collars are more trouble than they're worth but I have never had any problem with them, provided I always get the right type. Which is, ones with an elasticated piece and a proper buckle with a prong that goes through a hole in the collar. The ones with a slidy buckle don't stay on five minutes. Obviously, if it is to have a proper buckle it must have an elasticated piece so the cat can slip it if it does get caught on something. The right type can be hard to find, most of them have the slidy buckles, so when I had cats I would buy 6 or more collars when I did find the right ones!
However, if the accident happened in daylight, then keeping her in until the school run is over may be the only safe solution.
More {{{{{hugs}}}}}
Sally
x
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Thanks Sally :) Again, it helps to hear stat's - it makes me feel that I can be proactive following a sad event. I'm not able to just sit back and trust in fate, if that makes sense, I need to DO something.
We've had the reflective collars before but I bought the ones without the prong bit that buckles it, we weren't sure if the 'mad cat lady' was removing them as she lost 3 in 2 weeks! I'll re-invest in another with the prong.
We will keep Snowball. After we no longer have her though in the years to come, no more cats. I shall invest in a collie (when the girls are older) and preferably one that decimates rats!
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my cats go out at dusk and are back in at dawn and spend the day sleeping, theres much more traffic here during the day but hardly any at night so i figure they are much safer that way round
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my cats go out at dusk and are back in at dawn and spend the day sleeping, theres much more traffic here during the day but hardly any at night so i figure they are much safer that way round
Same here re the traffic. Every day is a lottery. They have no roads for a mile and hundreds of acres in one direction - but where do they go? Up our track and out onto the one road :cat: :cat:
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Agh! now I'm all confused as to which is the best way about it :-\ Now I think of it, the road is quieter at night time, in fact the dog fox sits in the middle of the lane at about 3am just admiring the stars (not that I'm insomniac or anything ;) )
Have just ordered a super dooper silver reflective collar via amazon. Got one with good reviews from users so hopefully will be a step in the right direction.
I think what Roxy said is true in our case though, Snowball wanders off at night when the road is quiet but by 4am the Polish farm workers are shooting up the road to the local picking fields and it gets busy, this is probably when Toby got hit.
I guess we'll have to do our best and really, really hope.
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And we now have a grieving cat. Snowball will not leave us for more than 2 seconds to have a quick wee and is back in the house meowing and following Tony and I everywhere. We dont mind of course, but just feel so sad for her. Had a sheep or goat died, we'd have let the others see the carcus so they reduced the stress (being prey animals) perhaps should have let snowball say goodbye too. Oh dear. Lots of cuddles for her then :)
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Oh, poor Snowball :bouquet:
When my old dog Horace died, his best pal Jacob the cat missed him at least as much as I did; if anything was more disconsolate than me for quite a while - a couple of weeks, I think, maybe longer.
And one of the cats I had that was killed on the road (motorway in broad daylight) was looking for his brother, who'd been killed the week before (on a suburban street, again in broad daylight) when we'd been visiting family.
Delightfully, however, when my now ex-hubby made his first visit back to what had been the marital home, a month after leaving, the dog and both cats ignored him completely. Good dog! Good cats! 8)
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;D now THAT'S made me smile! thank you
Sad though about the cat killed looking for his brother. You see those Youtube video's showing animals trying to help their hurt friends on roads sometimes, I've often wondered if they are true or staged but I think animals are definitely as tuned into emotion as we are.
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I couldn't agree more about grieving pets. We had to have our 15 year old golden retriever Martha put to sleep on Monday :'( and our 12 year old golden retriever Toby has been absolutely lost since then. It breaks my heart to watch him searching for her. She was put to sleep in her favourite grassy spot in the sunshine and we let him nuzzle at her body but he still doesn't seem to have grasped that she is gone. Bless him he is so confused as to where to pee now as he always waited for her to go and then he went on the same spot as hers. He's done that all his life. Just keeping our fingers crossed that he doesn't give up on life and we try to keep him as occupied as possible when he is not sleeping.
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Really sorry to hear that :(
Helen
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Really sorry Luckylady :( Its so hard isn't it?
I googled 'grieving pets' earlier and came up with some websites that give advice on how to help a pet deal with grief for one of their companions. It mainly said what I am sure you are doign already (as are we) - to give them some special food, lots of love and affection but also a chance to have private time if they feel the need to be alone for a bit. I so wish we'd let snowball at least see Tomsk, it might have helped her to understand but then, in the confusion on the road she might actually have seen what happened, I don' tknow.
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I'm not sure that animals see the carcase of a dead friend as the dead friend. Certainly when I brought home the body of my cat who had been shot dead, the dogs showed no sign that they recognised the limp black body as their friend Brendon. Which I have always thought may indicate that animals perceive personality / existence differently - and perhaps more accurately - than ourselves.
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Thanks plumseverywhere. Toby seems to be coping ok and I think we are doing right by him - everyone knows their own pet best don't they?
We have always allowed our horses to see the body of one of their herd members (we've had to have 3 put to sleep in last 2 years - that'll teach us to take on other peoples oldies!). They seem to accept their loss sooner this way otherwise they go round screaming for them for days. Horses have big separation issues.
When one of our cats got run over a few months ago, as I brought her body down the farm drive, her three siblings came from different corners of the farmyard to greet me as if they knew. When I laid her body down they were straight in to clean her up before we buried her. Quite amazing I thought. Animals clearly have their own way of dealing with the loss of a companion and we owe it to them to try to figure out how best to assist them. We are doing our best for Toby as I am sure you are for Snowball. Hope your four girls are coping too. :)
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So sorry for such a traumatic loss plumseverywhere, and for the loss of Martha, ladyluck.
A very upsetting time for all concerned :bouquet: :bouquet:
cpd encouraged I went on a pet bereavement course which went into depth about helping pet owners and other household pets.
The one thing that was shown to help through most animals was allowing them to see the body. This also helps with children. It helps both come to terms easier than the deceased being there then disappearing. They still bereave but it helps them recover from this state correctly.
It also helps to change routine slightly sometimes.even simple things like feeding in a different bowl in a different area, going for walk out of normal routine etc.
Hope this helps in some way. ((hugs))
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Thank you mummyshaz :bouquet:
The course you went on sounds really interesting and helpful actually - I'm wondering if its something that I could perhaps try to do?
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I've just twigged something today! Perhaps its not that Snowball is clingy because she is grieving - its because WE are! she has picked up on our sadness and is comforting us. :)
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I second plumseverywhere's thank you to mammyshaz and apologise to plumseverywhere for tagging on to her thread with my loss when it is about yours. :bouquet:
The course does sound very interesting and has given me food for thought also.
Plumseverywhere you have a very good point about Snowball's clingyness. :cat:
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luckylady - please don't apologise, if this thread has helped us both then that's doubly good! x
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Thank you. :)
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How terrible for you and the children. We are a bit of the road but our cats over the years did wander down. Cars speed up and down but the cats learnt to get off the road quick. maybe your older cats were not hearing 100 per cent. I have my old Burmese sitting next to me just now , she is 16 and quite deaf. I keep thinking she will pass away in the night but still going even although she is now thin and no longer grooms herself. Cannot bring myself to take her to the vet and have another animal put to sleep.It would be hard for the younger cat to lose its freedom. I shut my lot inside at night not just for cars but also foxes.
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Oh Sabrina, I love Burmese cats - they are so beautiful (and talkative?!) I think you've hit on something with the hearing. I guess that at 13, Tomsk (and his brother who was also hit) had less than perfect vision and hearing. I know what you mean about having them PTS - having to make that decision is so hard, we had to with an old girl who developed asthma and I spend days feeling so guilty that I'd chosen for her life to end before she was terribly ill but the vet said she'd have to stay indoors (she was semi feral) and take medication that would make her feel poorly, so really the decision was made for us :'(
Enjoy every day with your lovely Burmese, as I am sure you already are, sounds like she is much loved and cared for xx