Paging Mr Stinkwheel. Paging Mr Stinkwheel.

[LustyLew]

I really hope you can help decipher this history I got for my rescue cat.

Looking at the note - she was preggers?!

I didn't know. Can the unborn be aborted?

Just curious really...

Cheers!

[grr666]

What did you rescue it from? A big dog? Kids with an air rifle? A river? Or do you mean you got a free cat that nobody wanted?
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Currently enjoying products from Ford, Mazda and Yamaha
Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[LustyLew]

From a reputable rescue/charity based in London...

[stinkwheel]

Pretty common. You get a lot of stray/ferral cats in to be spayed, you often can't even touch them, never mind decide if they are in kit. So they get anaesthetised and spayed, pregnant or not.

Spaying removes both the ovaries and the uterus. If they were in kit, the kits are removed at the same time still inside the uterus. This isn't as nasty as you might think. For one thing they are anaesthetised with their mother. For the other, the blood vessels that supply the placenta are clamped off so they die of hypoxia. This isn't the same as suffocation because they have never drawn breath, there is no gas in their lungs.

Suffocation is painful and distressing but that's caused by a build-up of carbon dioxide in the lungs which causes discomfort, this can't happen if there is no gas in the lungs to start with. Hypoxia is a comparatively gentle and peaceful way to go. You can see examples of people becoming hypoxic on videos of pilots doing high altitude training to show them why they need to keep their oxygen masks on (there was a fairly famous one with James May utterly failing to do a kiddies toy where you put square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes before the assistant forced him to put his oxygen mask on) they start behaving like they are drunk then pass out. It's also how they kill rats and mice for feeding to pet reptiles, by putting them in a chamber full of inert gas so they get no oxygen but can get rid of the carbon dioxide.

So there's no animal welfare issue there, there may be an "animal rights" issue. You can argue about the ethics of effectively euthanaising unborn kittens. You can also counter that with the ethics of adding another six unwanted cats to the one you already have.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[LustyLew]

Thank you, really informative!

I did expect they'd have not gone full term, or it'd have been noted I guess.

Definitely not a "pro-life" nutjob and totally understand the choices these places need to make to do their part in population control.

[stinkwheel]

To decypher your clinical notes.

After the description. She was 3.29kg. No abnormalities detected on a clinical exam. She was heavily pregnant. She was anaesthetised with a combination of medetomidine, ketamine and butorphanol and spayed. The anaesthetic was reversed with atipamizole after the operation.

She was given Meloxicam (a painkiller), Stronghold (a flea treatment), profender (a wormer), I think it says tricat (flu and enteritis vaccine), and betamox (an antibiotic).

The one thing I'd question there is giving the betamox which shouldn't be necessary following a spay operation unless there was a break in aseptic surgical technique or an underlying infection elsewhere that was being treated (which I'd expect them to have noted). Some practices do this routinely and it was common practice 20+ years ago but is usually because they are having a problem with post op infections. That should be a sign they need to review their surgical procedures and find out why rather than applying a "sticking plaster", I have never given antibiotics to a routine cat spay and I've done many hundreds.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[virus]

I came here to solely to suggest calling for Dr Stinkwheel not Mr but it seems the good man isnt too fussed about being called the wrong thing... Probably on account of being called much worse things than Mr in his time
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own: 81 xs1100g...
owned: 85 rat CG (sold), 91 GS500e (stolen), 84 gsx400f (scrapped), 81 z250 (siezed, siezed, scrapped), 83 cb250rs (sold), 84 gpz750r ratfighter (killed) 84gpz400 (sold), '80 cb650 ratfighter (wrote off) 95gsx6/12f ratfighter (killed) 91 xj900 (sold)
stinkwheel Well I just had my hands up a pigs fanny. Which makes your concerns pale into insignificance.

[stinkwheel]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Apparently rabbits can reabsorb foetuses if environmental conditions suggest it’s not a good time to have kits.

Not helpful unless there’s doubt as to the animal’s species, I just thought it was interesting. How big were its ears?

[virus]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

And dentists.

[Ste]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Lisa needs braces.

[Ste]

Dental plan.

[MCN]

[stinkwheel]

[MCN]