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Suck. Our family cat has cancer. Euphrates has been looking too thin, and my mom took him to the vet. The vet said he had cancer, probably in his digestive system, and it is not very treatable. So… she’s going to let him sleep upstairs with them which he usually isn’t allowed to do.
I got on the internet and researched natural remedies right away, of course.
I’ve found a few websites that talk about natural cures for cats. Some of the most doable recommendations from the site Animal Cancer:
- feed them flax seed oil
- feed them fish oil
- provide wheat grass for them to nibble on
There is also an herbal remedy that seems like it might be good on this site.
Euphrates usually hangs out in the basement. I think he’s the low man on the totem pole out of our two cats and one dog. He is beautiful and regal looking. He gets a ruff around his neck in the winter.
He is a simple tabby, but his face is beautiful because he has three colors on it: yellow fur, a pink nose, and light green eyes. He likes to be held like a baby, loves to be loved, and will start drooling when you really love him up.
Send some good thoughts his way, please! I know he’s just a cat, but he’s part of our family and we love him.
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Via Laura Moncur at Pick Me! who said it made her laugh out loud. Me too.
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I was listening to an interview with Peta activist Dan Matthews today on the radio. (I’d link to it if I could find it for you!) He recently wrote a book about trying to bring animal cruelty issues to the public called Committed.
It’s an interesting issue that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I’m not sure yet if my life is matching up with my values. I’m still working it out. And like Alicia Silverstone says, it’s not all or nothing.
Here’s a list of what I think of animal rights and what I do:
Eating
I think that it is ok to eat animals and animal products, but not ok to be cruel to them. I don’t think raising or eating factory raised animals is ok.
What I do: I only buy fish or birds to eat. I try and buy “organic” “free range” birds and wild caught fish, but it’s really hard to tell how the animals were actually treated. It might be easier just to be vegetarian. I eat eggs but only “cage free” eggs. I buy eggs from birds raised on small farms when I come across them, even if they cost more.
The book In Defense of Food has reasonable and balanced guidelines for eating in a way that is healthy for us and the earth. He doesn’t advocate vegetarianism, but does advocate eating heavy on the vegis and light on the animals. This is more of an ecological way of looking at animal rights rather than caring about individual animals as much, but he is against eating factory raised animals.
Animals I wouldn’t eat even if I were starving. They are part of my tribe.
Hunting
Watching animals die at factories on Peta is like watching animals die on the discovery channel. It’s a harsh world in some ways, but should we contribute to that? With our human ingenuity we have really pushed cruelty over the top when it comes to killing other animals, simply due to efficiency. To bring our behavior more in balance with the rest of nature, I think we should at least be as ineffective as other predators and hunt for food we eat. (We, like wolves, are predators- see our forward facing eyes and motions.)
What I do: My behavior isn’t in line with this belief because I don’t hunt. I did go hunting with my dad and older brothers when I was a kid. They taught me how to shoot a gun. I loved hunting until they actually shot a deer. Then I cried and cried and cried.
Food I didn’t have to hunt for.
Clothing
I’m allergic to wool. I have very few shoes. A couple pairs are leather. I keep my shoes for so long (decades) that I don’t feel bad about that. If everyone had my shoe habits, very few cows would need to be killed for leather. So, I guess moderation is my general principle here. I’d definitely be willing to buy shoes made out of other materials too.
I think it’s alright to buy any kind of animal made products at a thrift store because buying them at a thrift store doesn’t contribute to the industry that makes those products.
Pets and feral animals
I have a friend who is a vegan AND a biologist. She thinks that feral cats should be killed because they upset the native bird population. It’s an interesting way of looking at the issue. As a biologist, she is looking at the population as a whole, but as a vegan, there must be some concern for the individual animals. (I think it can be successfully argued that you can raise and eat meat on small farms and other ways that are in balance with the environment.) Interesting.
I think it is horrifying to kill feral cats. I think a good thing to do with them is to catch them and spay or neuter them. Growing up, we adopted stray cats that wondered into our yard and spayed or neutered them. Last year my mom caught feral cats in her neighborhood in traps, got them spayed or neutered, and then released them back into her neighborhood. So, when it comes to these cats, I think of them as individuals, but when it comes to hunting, I’m ok with hunting for food because I’m thinking of the effect on the population overall and how it balances out ecologically.
I’m not saying either of these ways of thinking are better. I’m just thinking through this and noticing these interesting inconsistencies.
Feral cat in my mom’s backyard, neutered but not killed, and still on the prowl.
Animal Testing
Cosmetics: Absolutely not ok with me. I try and make sure I only buy things that haven’t been tested on animals. To survive, I can understand eating other animals, but for the sake of looking cuter?? No way.
Medical testing
This one is tricky. There is A LOT of lab work being done on animals in research centers and universities. I would never do this work. Does this make me a hypocrite for using the medicine that comes out of this work? My Granddad is on three medications for Alzheimer’s right now. I’m glad this medicine exists. It seems likely that it was tested on animals. What do you think about using this medicine?
I went to a lecture at the university I was working at. What they found out was facinating and might help humans a lot, but when I heard how they figured it out using lab animals, I wanted to cry and retch. After seeing that presentation I thought, maybe it isn’t so tricky. Maybe the sum total of what we’ve gained by dissecting creatures physically and dissecting reality into it’s component bits in our Western intellectual tradition does not equal what we would have if we lived and thought more holistically.
Granddad who I love very much who is helped by medication probably tested on other animals.
What do you think about these issues? I would love to hear from you.
Thoughts? Insights that makes any of this more clear? Any of your own inconsistencies that you notice?
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You knows bout I can has cheezburger, right??!! :) :)
I hate to steal their picture, but not enough not to do it. This one just made me laugh this morning. Now go to their site, so I don’t feelz bad bout stealin. k!
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Don’t you just love interspecies friendships?
This is what happens when you have to turn to the internet for TV.
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Every week when I make the shopping list, Sophie insists that I make her a ‘Sophia is Great’ list.
Check out French Toast Girl to see the cat.
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I was going to write a deep post about how sometimes people get overwhelmed with the problems in the world and don’t do the little things because they can’t do everything. But, I am on an unfamiliar computer and it took me forever to upload these pictures, so I’ll just get to introducing the cuteness that started these thoughts.
This is Pi. I found this little kitten outside on my mom’s picnic table a couple days ago. It is part of the posse of feral cats in the neighborhood, and we think it got abandoned because it was sick. My mom told me to get it out of the house immediately, but it had taken me 20 minutes to catch this wild cat and I wasn’t going to just put it back out in the cold. (It was very cold.) I took slow motion hunter like steps towards it until I was close and enough to reach out and grab it. I think I only caught it because it was sick. I brought it inside, and it was flattened out to the floor and scared. As you can see, it warmed up to me pretty soon. Pi was falling asleep in this picture.
I think I was there for it’s first human induced purr. I pet it’s back a couple times and it was like it’s motor started for the first time. It looked surprised. It started purring this loud purr that didn’t quit the whole time we had it. Eventually, after I started crying, my mom came around and let me keep it in the house and helped me find some people to help it. (I am a stranger in a strange land on Christmas vacation.) I don’t think this kitten had ever eaten food besides nursing so it took it awhile to eat the cat food and cream of wheat we gave it.
It was very happy to be held, and very sad if I ever left the bathroom where we kept it, (so it wouldn’t pass along whatever sickness it had to our cats). Sandy, the cat healer and rescuer, took it and assured me she would heal it up and then find Pi a home. Most of the animals we’ve had have been rescued and were/are part of our family. I hope Pi has a nice life. Whoever gets this playful and loving kitten will be lucky. Oh yeah, and just because you cannot save all the stray cats in the world doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and save one.
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