Return of the Revenge of the Son of Saying Hi to Josiah!

[Kaida]

Greetings from down under!

Thanks guys.

Congrats Saber!

And my nets gone again. Yup we went and used up our data allowance. So I'm not relying on net at uni (which is where I am now).
I also have one week left of work and then I'm full-time student. And already have catchup work to do because i missed my first lecture and tutorial for one of my courses due to an error when i was enrolling. Which took a couple weeks to sort out.

Anyways must go. Have to go home and start working on this catchupstuff.

[Blivsey]

Howdy!

Anyway, I think my cat needs to get her claws trimmed, or removed, mainly because I'm starting to get a bit tired of her poking into my skin enough that a little blood comes through when she play bites me while I pet her.

Fun fact: you should never put a cat through declawing ever. You might equate it to losing a fingernail or toenail, but that's not what it is at all. In fact, it's more like removing the segment of the finger with the nail on it. Really.

Onychectomy, popularly known as declawing, is an operation to surgically remove an animal's claws by means of the amputation of all or part of the distal phalanges, or end bones, of the animal's toes.

In other words, a cat has to deal with intense pain when declawed. Even worse, it has to learn how to do everything all over again, minus those toe bones.
Long story short, simply clipping a cat's nails is a far, far better solution.

/rant!

So I've been a bit under the weather recently. Trying to get better, but it's been the same cruddy throat for the past week. I don't let it get me down though~

Later!

[Josiah]

Hi! I'm off to Jacksonville today after work so I don't have to wake up at 3 AM tomorrow morning and drive 90 minutes to the airport. Paying for a hotel room is worth it. Besides, the hotel lets me leave my car there while I'm gone as considering the cost of parking at the airport, it pretty much evens out anyway. And since I'm hardly ever in Jacksonville except on Saturdays for services (when I can't go shopping or anything since it's shabbat), I can take advantage of being in the big city (shopping, restaurants, etc.).

Oh, nice find with the TV, Silver!

[PoikSpirit]

Oi.

...In fact, it's more like removing the segment of the finger with the nail on it. Really...

Hmm... I didn't quite know that. That's rather unfortunate, but makes sense. I always heard that if you get them at an early age, it's not as bad for them, and that after a certain age, you shouldn't even bother. That being said, the cat we have, and the rescue cat that lives in my apartment at school are both clawed, and we don't even clip the nails of the cat we own. That means that people in my family have scars from the cat, because they aren't terribly bright about cats, even though we've owned them all of most of our lives.

Speaking of our monster cat, he's snoring rather loudly, and it's kind of adorable. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I call him a monster because he can look comfortably up onto the table with his hind feet planted firmly on the ground. Also, since he was a rescue cat, I've theorized that he is part wildcat of some sort. That doesn't make much sense, though, because he's pure white and doesn't have signs of albinism.

Oh... And if you haven't noticed, I'm ridiculously addicted to caffiene as usual, and that may alter the length of my posts.

[Silver]

Yeah. If you get the cat declawed while it's young, it's not so bad for it, in that they'll be able to adjust to living without claws because they hadn't yet properly adjusted to living with them. The surgery's still more drastic than most people make it out to be, but so's getting them fixed, and we make them go through that anyway...

Another thing to note is that a declawed cat is an indoor cat. No exceptions. Taking their claws is taking their only self-defense mechanism and also their means of escape from most potential predators. Seems obvious, but a surprising number of people overlook that.

[Neo Zanther]

Hi.

Ya, as much as my dad keeps saying I should declaw my cat, I won't even if she's an indoor. Being nearly 3 she's gotten use to them and I also just feel that declawing just isn't right for a cat (same with fixing but I had no choice in that matter, if they are an indoor cat) and so ya, I'll just live with the claws, and potential damage they could do to me and other things in my appartment (really need to get her a bigger scratching post, she grew a lot bigger then i expected when i first got her). Ya, it can be annoying when she jumps up to my lap and doesn't quite make it and those claws come out but I've learned to deal with it (most of the time)

[Saber Knight]

Hey.

Another thing to note is that a declawed cat is an indoor cat. No exceptions. Taking their claws is taking their only self-defense mechanism and also their means of escape from most potential predators. Seems obvious, but a surprising number of people overlook that.

Yeah, that's probably why my grandpa's cat died... I was only 8-ish at the time, so I didn't realize what a stupid decision letting the declawed cat outside was. On that note, both my cats have their claws, which we never trim because we're bad people. But all I do is get pricked a bit sometimes when they're on my legs and streching. Nothing serious.

SO this week is going to be insanely busy for me with rehearsals and the fact that I have three tests (AP Chem, AP BC Calc, Survey of American Film), an in-class essay (AP English) and an oral exam in Spanish V. Oh, and we still have crazy Fest rehearsal schedule. And I have a jazz band concert tonight. Brilliant!

[Silver]

It is possible to train cats to not use their claws on people or furniture, but it's kind of a pain. Those "Cat Away" sprays that they sell don't really work, and the alternative is covering your furniture in foam/sticky tape (which supposedly cats don't like putting their claws in, so they'll eventually stop clawing certain places because they associate it with the unpleasant foamy/stickyness. My cats didn't seem to mind clawing that stuff though...). Really it just comes down to punishing them whenever they use their claws inappropriately. Spraying them with water works. The drawback is that by the time you've taught them to stop, your furniture's already full of holes...

And it certainly doesn't make you a bad person for not trimming their claws - you'll never have a mouse problem if you let them grow.

[PoikSpirit]

There's much more reason to fix a cat than declaw one. We just got our poor cat (in the apartment) fixed to stop his spraying habit. It also made him less vocal, which our third roommate was about ready to throw him off a bridge about (he wouldn't actually (as far as I know) but I still really don't like our third roommate right now).

But the real reason to spay and neuter your pets has to do with the mass euthanizations done to keep dog, cat, etc. populations in check.

[Silver]

It is a bit unfair to the cat (or dog) itself, though. It has to go through a rather invasive surgery, and it's not like it needs it to survive*, just because we don't want to have any more cats (or dogs) roaming around. And I don't imagine being cut open and having your baby making parts played with is a particularly fun experience, especially when you don't get any say in the matter. And hey, the overpopulation of household pets isn't nearly as much of a problem as the overpopulation of humans is. But are we going to start requiring people to get fixed?


*I say this, but one of my cats actually had a uterus infection and would have died if we didn't get her fixed... but that's the exception. And in that case, it is possible for cats to get infections in the distal phalanges, in which case getting them declawed is the best thing you can do for them.

[PoikSpirit]

This is going to be too philosophical for the RotRotSoSHtJ thread if we continue, but I agree with your sentiment, but stand by my statement for the practicability of it. That is, until we have a better choice.

Also, I'm not going into my opinions on eugenics. But I will state that human overpopulation and house pet overpopulation are probably around even, you'll just see less from the house pet overpopulation because of mass euthanizations such as those in gas chambers. But we aren't going to euthanize humans. For many reasons. Quite a few of which have logical reasons that I can stand behind. If you view euthanization as an inherently good or neutral thing, then perhaps I can agree that human overpopulation is worse.

And whatever you do, if a philosophy teacher tries to show you Earthlings, run.

On a lighter note, I'm annoyed that they voted in Dream Arceus instead of Dream Ditto. I've been waiting for the Dream World Ditto since it was announced, and it might get me back into the series. That is, if I don't die of being overworked.

[Josiah]

Hi! I've never had a cat or dog so no comment on that. But Poik's mention of the Pokémon Dream World reminds me that I really should start playing it again...

[PoikSpirit]

Oh yeah. After owning Black for most of a year now, I finally got around to beating the first gym last month!... I helped start a Pokémon league on campus even though I rarely play... They've been bugging me to actually play so I can join in the tournaments, which is the only reason I made some time to play.

Well, I've had my one cup of coffee for the day... And hot cocoa just to see if I can get some Placebo effect... And I don't know where my advil is... This caffiene detox is going to be horrible.

I seem to like ellipses today.

[Blastotoise]

Hi!

In non cat related news, I'm really excited for Borderlands 2 and Assassin's Creed 3. Also I'm on spring break for the next week with nothing to do at all except play WoW, LoL, and Runescape. Gonna be fuuuuuun

[Marluxia]

Oh dear God. I have finally made the descent into pure chaos. It is so terrible a thing to experience, I wish never to feel it again.
By this do I mean it was found out that I was bi-sexual, and because of that has caused me to go into stress induced mental incapability? Oh heeeeell no. I just went on 4chan for the first time. I'm sure that a few of you have gone on there at least once. Some of the lesser visited boards are quite docile actually, but the "random" board, Im going to have nightmares. Forever.