Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

@Kikapu - beautiful specimen! Just the right amount of scruff with great colour and markings. What a pose, hey - lovely, lovely!

Thank you GIG.

He is a 2-year-old Siberian Forest Cat, and as an outdoors cat, that's where he spends most of his time, in the nearby woods.

[Sotos]

How exactly do you know if a cat has trouble with furballs?

[Get Real!]

How exactly do you know if a cat has trouble with furballs?

You just grab his balls and if they’re fluffy they gotta go…

[Tim Drayton]

How exactly do you know if a cat has trouble with furballs?

Coughing.

[Tim Drayton]

So sorry to hear about the loss of your dear cat and companion, Tim. It takes me about 2 years before I can talk about a deceased pet without bursting into tears so I can understand your present emotional turmoil. Stay strong and give your other cats extra hugs - do you think they are missing your cat too?

Anyway, that anti furball stuff sounds like some bathroom drain-cleaner. To dissolve the hair in the stomach it must have some very strong enzymes or nasty chemicals. How safe is it? My cat's usually good at throwing up after eating some grass and that does the trick!

@Kikapu - beautiful specimen! Just the right amount of scruff with great colour and markings. What a pose, hey - lovely, lovely!

Well, no, it doesn't dissolve the hair it breaks the furballs up into individual hairs and they then come out when the cat poos. I can testify to seeing hairs of his colour appearing in the litter box, but not as many as I would have liked to see.

The main active ingredient, apparently, is Malt Syrup/ Petrolatum, described on the company's website as a "combination of natural ingredients that gently lubricate the system giving a mild laxative effect that removes the furball and reduces the likelihood future blockages."

I only have one other cat, and I wish I could give a more romantic reply, but the truth is they were never friends. They were first introduced when one (the one now deceased) was eight weeks old and the other six. They just fought all the time, and thankfully they were to young to hurt one another too much, until they finally established their separate territories and went their own way. Having said that, I came home on Monday, the day after the decease, and found the surviving cat sitting on a chair where he would not normally be facing the front door, so perhaps he was waiting for the other one to come back. There is a lot of debate about whether cats understand death and mourn, and I think the scientific view is that they don't, although plenty of cat lovers say different.

[Tim Drayton]

Having said the above, I have just returned home after going to the bank, and the surviving cat came running up as the front door opened - at a time of day when he is always fast asleep in his regular hiding place. Perhaps he thinks the other one has gone out and is waiting for him to come back. It is hard to be sure, and I think it is better to avoid the trap of anthropomorphising cat behaviour.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Oh, sorry, Tim - you wrote 'dissolve' and that conjured up a different meaning for me. It sounds like the fur is dispersed i.e. whatever holds the fur into a ball is sort of melted away by the petroleum (lubricant) which makes it easier for the individual hair/fur to be expelled. Yeah, the ingredients sound safe enough.

And, as for surviving pussy-cat, I don't think we have to call it anthropomorphism to accept that animals can have feelings of attachment and feelings of loss. Why do we miss someone, after all? Simply because they were part of our environment and then they are missing and our environment is changed and so we feel anxious for the familiar. It's us who are more similar to other animals than we care to believe. Feel free to give extra reassurances and cuddles to surviving cat. You'll feel better too.

Anyway, still feeling pain for you and your sadly departed cat (and that's because it reminds me of my losses and not because my environment has been changed in the way yours has right now - I guess this extra level of sympathy/empathy is the more human quality ).

[supporttheunderdog]

very sorry to hear of your loss. They are so much part of the family. When I walk the dog I am still looking for three that just vanished.

[Tim Drayton]

very sorry to hear of your loss. They are so much part of the family. When I walk the dog I am still looking for three that just vanished.

Thank you very much. Painful as it is, you have to look on the bright side. This was my cat who goes out every evening, and I had long been bracing myself for the sticky end I expected him to come to outdoors, with me possibly being unable to even find the body and get closure. Instead, he settled down on a settee for a good sleep on a warm, sunny afternoon and never woke up again. It was almost certainly his heart and he looked so relaxed and contented that he obviously felt nothing. That's the way to go - and a couple of weeks before his tenth birthday, so he was spared old age. I had always planned to bury both my cats right on the top of Petralona, the hill towering up above the Sfalangiotissa convent that I can see from my living room window. And I did just this, and can now gaze up there and remember him. You hear of people whose cats get so old and decrepit that they have to be put to sleep. I couldn't bear that. There are a lot of positives.