Our journey to Cape Town was going to be done in 2 parts; the first a drive and flight to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, then after a week long stay there with Glenn’s parents we would start the journey into South Africa. With the plan for the cats and Jemma being packed off on a plane to Windhoek so there would be enough space in the car to pack everything, we needed to find a sedative to give the cats for the flight (although it probably would have been a good idea to give Jemma one too). Having no luck at the vet and quickly running out of ideas with Katima not exactly being the hub of civilisation, someone had suggested we give them a small dose of valium. We thought it would be a good idea to test this out before the flight. The night before they were due to fly we got hold of some from Brent, the pharmacist that Glenn worked for, and gave it a go.
We split one pill into quarters and surprisingly easily got the cats to swallow a bit each. Thinking the hard part was over we let them wander round the house for a bit, having blocked off all their possible escape routes. It seems valium doesn’t work that well on cats. Henry (the tom cat) decided he didn’t like the feeling very much so turned his frustration into anger, attacking everything in sight; the sofa, Oscar (the female cat), our legs, in fact anything that came within reach. After many scratches and a good half an hour we put him on the bed and Jemma lay with him trying to calm him down. I sat with Oscar in the living room while she waddled around with lazy back legs looking as if she was drunk. Having tried to jump up onto the table 3 times with no success (she kept jumping upwards instead of across), she decided to make a break for it and jumped head first into the window. With a loud clunk she fell back down to the floor looking slightly dazed, it was definitely a sight to see. Amazingly she went for the one window in the living room that had glass, all the others were made of mesh and she probably would have gone straight through them.
Meanwhile Henry was slightly dozy laying on the bed with Jemma, chewing a toy bird. When the wings and tail had disappeared from said bird, we were trying to work out where they had gone only to realise that Henry had actually swallowed them. Having removed the bird from Henry’s grasp we brought Oscar onto the bed too, to see if we could get them to go to sleep. I lay stroking Oscar while Jemma was still with Henry. They started to doze off, but at the slightest noise would wake up and attack anything within reach; me, Jemma, each other, they weren’t too fussy. Realising this obviously wasn’t working to plan, we decided to separate them and take one of them to bed with us each. I took Henry while Oscar still roamed about the house for a while. I got into bed taking Henry with me, and tucked my mosquito net in all around the mattress as usual. For a few minutes the plan seemed to be working as Henry dozed off on my lap. Oscar, who was still wandering around decided to get onto Jem and Glenn’s bed so took a run up and made the jump. She missed, hitting the bed head first as she had done with the window. After a little help and now safely on the bed she settled down for a while.
Henry by this point had woken up and was attacking the moths and beetles landing on my net from the inside. He kept jumping up and going for the bugs but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to catch them. Having seen what he had done to Jemma’s net as a kitten and with no wish to spend the next few nights with huge holes in mine, I kicked him out. He didn’t seem to mind and continued to take his aggression out on the bugs. I finally fell asleep but was rudely awoken in the middle of the night by Henry jumping onto my net again trying to catch a moth. He was right above my head and ended up hanging there for a few seconds until I managed to unhook him and shoo him away. If you’ve ever seen the ‘Simon’s cat’ videos on youtube you’ll understand what I mean when I say he looked exactly like a sketch from one of them. It was not a restful night. So if you ever need to sedate a cat for any reason, don’t bother trying valium; I’ve still got the scars to prove it.
We split one pill into quarters and surprisingly easily got the cats to swallow a bit each. Thinking the hard part was over we let them wander round the house for a bit, having blocked off all their possible escape routes. It seems valium doesn’t work that well on cats. Henry (the tom cat) decided he didn’t like the feeling very much so turned his frustration into anger, attacking everything in sight; the sofa, Oscar (the female cat), our legs, in fact anything that came within reach. After many scratches and a good half an hour we put him on the bed and Jemma lay with him trying to calm him down. I sat with Oscar in the living room while she waddled around with lazy back legs looking as if she was drunk. Having tried to jump up onto the table 3 times with no success (she kept jumping upwards instead of across), she decided to make a break for it and jumped head first into the window. With a loud clunk she fell back down to the floor looking slightly dazed, it was definitely a sight to see. Amazingly she went for the one window in the living room that had glass, all the others were made of mesh and she probably would have gone straight through them.
Meanwhile Henry was slightly dozy laying on the bed with Jemma, chewing a toy bird. When the wings and tail had disappeared from said bird, we were trying to work out where they had gone only to realise that Henry had actually swallowed them. Having removed the bird from Henry’s grasp we brought Oscar onto the bed too, to see if we could get them to go to sleep. I lay stroking Oscar while Jemma was still with Henry. They started to doze off, but at the slightest noise would wake up and attack anything within reach; me, Jemma, each other, they weren’t too fussy. Realising this obviously wasn’t working to plan, we decided to separate them and take one of them to bed with us each. I took Henry while Oscar still roamed about the house for a while. I got into bed taking Henry with me, and tucked my mosquito net in all around the mattress as usual. For a few minutes the plan seemed to be working as Henry dozed off on my lap. Oscar, who was still wandering around decided to get onto Jem and Glenn’s bed so took a run up and made the jump. She missed, hitting the bed head first as she had done with the window. After a little help and now safely on the bed she settled down for a while.
Henry by this point had woken up and was attacking the moths and beetles landing on my net from the inside. He kept jumping up and going for the bugs but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to catch them. Having seen what he had done to Jemma’s net as a kitten and with no wish to spend the next few nights with huge holes in mine, I kicked him out. He didn’t seem to mind and continued to take his aggression out on the bugs. I finally fell asleep but was rudely awoken in the middle of the night by Henry jumping onto my net again trying to catch a moth. He was right above my head and ended up hanging there for a few seconds until I managed to unhook him and shoo him away. If you’ve ever seen the ‘Simon’s cat’ videos on youtube you’ll understand what I mean when I say he looked exactly like a sketch from one of them. It was not a restful night. So if you ever need to sedate a cat for any reason, don’t bother trying valium; I’ve still got the scars to prove it.
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