SimplyCats Vet Clinic Blog

We would like to wish all our customers and web followers a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year !

Don’t forget that we still have raffle tickets available here at the practice at £1.00 per strip – all proceeds going to our local branch of Cats Protection. Lots of great prizes to be won, including electric guitar and amp, large cat scratching post, signed Sunderland football, chocolates and many more!

We teamed up with our sister company, SimplyHorses for a Christmas night out. Everyone enjoyed their meal at Melanzana Durham and a few drinks afterwards.
Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks to the generosity of local companies and some of our clients,we have amassed a great selection of prizes for the ongoing Autumn Raffle! All proceeds are going to help the local Durham branch of Cats Protection. If you can, please pop down to the surgery and help the cause by purchasing your tickets, priced at £1.00 per strip.
Many thanks.

At this point, there is no closing date for the raffle – we will keep it going until as many tickets as possible have been sold, in order to help as many needy cats as we can.

We are pleased to announce our July winner of a £10.00 voucher is Poppy Wilson !

Our kitten lineup is as cute as ever! These three all started their vaccination course within the month of July and one lucky kitten will win a £10.00 voucher to spend on any product or service here at SimplyCats. Book your cutie in for August and be in with a chance of winning!

The Young ones competition is held every month here at SimplyCats. Every kitten who comes into the surgery to start its course of vaccinations has their photo taken and is entered into the draw to win a voucher for £10.00 to spend on any product or service here at SimplyCats. The entrants so far are pictured above.

Dubby has been naughty again….Caroline’s son had his 9th birthday tea. Luckily only family members were present to see him jump on the table via the chair and steal a ham sandwich and take it to his lair underneath the chair. He would not part with it and hid further under the table as Caroline tried to reach him. He is pictured above re-emerging from underneath the table as he licks his lips after finishing his tasty snack !!! We’ll hold off for a weigh in at the moment as he finished off with part of a slice of battenburg cake stolen about 20 minutes later

Katie can sometimes be really mean to Dubby and Maisey. This time it was Dubby’s turn to be blocked out of the sun’s rays streaming in through the window. Dubby nudged her gently with his head to try to share the sunny patch, but she stood up, hissed and swiped her paw over his head!
From previous experience, dubby decided to cut his losses and go for the shadier position instead, while Katie made herself as long as possible to keep him right at the edge!

A few days ago we held a client evening in Durham, aiming to educate our client owners of older or geriatric cats on the best nutrition and healthcare for them.

It was a very informative evening with a talk first by Louise from Royal Canin to discuss the nutritional requirements for the older cat. This was then followed by a presentation from our resident vet, Sarah Middleton on health problems associated generally with the older cat. A lot of the symptoms described by Sarah rang true with some clients…some having ongoing problems such as renal failure or diabetes and they were able to ask further questions that they may have forgotten to ask during a consultation. They in particular found the evening very informative and it made aware the need to monitor their pet’s progress by regular check ups with the vet.

We had a ‘buffet break’ which was kindly sponsored by one of our drug reps – Mick from Novartis.

This was then followed by our Registered Veterinary Nurse, Penny Dyer who introduced her new nurse clinics aimed specifically at the geriatric patient.
As with all our client evenings it is a great opportunity for like-minded people to congregate in an informal manner and we would welcome suggestions from our clients for future topics that they would like to see covered in evenings such as this.

One of our clients had a cat called Iffy due to give birth at any time. Watching her closely for signs of labour, her owner phoned us to say she had started with her labour.
After some hours had passed, poor Iffy had given birth to two kittens but was growing steadily tired.
Iffy’s owner brought her down to SimplyCats to see if there were any other kittens still inside. After an examination and ultrasound it was determined that there was at least one other kitten left still to be born.
As Iffy was so tired and had not progressed within a certain timescale, it was decided that she should undergo a caesarean section.
The kitten was born, very weak and cold – and unlikely to survive due to being in distress whilst inside Iffy.
Iffy was, however, an excellent mother who recovered quickly and was able to feed successfully all three kittens. At her post operative check we took some photographs – the kittens are SO CUTE!

As you can see from the picture, Caroline’s fat cat – Dubby had a great Christmas dinner. After a couple of glasses of wine and his willpower dulled, Caroline’s husband fell victim to the ‘feed me’ face and threw down a yorkshire pudding onto the floor. Dubby immediately leapt onto the pudding, steadying it with his paw.

He actually looked rather funny as he tore off strips, much like a lion on the savannah eating its kill !

To follow he ate a sprout in one lick….needless to say Caroline had a few sharp words to say to her husband as she looked in the litter tray later on…..ewww

The moral of the story is “if your cat is on a special diet, don’t feed him extras, such as yorkshire pudding and sprouts as

a) he will put on weight and
b) you would not like to see / smell the litter tray afterwards, and
c) cats are not meant to eat human food”

We have a selection of Pet Odour Eliminator Candles on sale at SimplyCats in time for Christmas. They are great for all household pet odours. The enzyme formulated candle attacks and removes the odours when burning – and left unlit without the lid on provides a gentle scent to refresh any room in the house.

Available in a variety of scents and colours such as festive ‘Mulberry & Spice’, ‘Creamy Vanilla’, ‘Watermelon Slices’, ‘Pineapple & Coconut’, ‘Clothesline Fresh’, ‘Vanilla & Rose’, ‘Hot Apple Cobbler’, ‘Fresh Strawberries’ and ‘Lavender’ – they burn for approximately 70 hours and are great value at £9.18 each. Buy one for yourself and one for a friend for £16.00 and SAVE £2.36 !

We had an unusual customer the other day in the back yard at SimplyCats – a very hypothermic snow cat. It remains in quite a critical, frozen state, but will hopefully make a full melted recovery if we ever get a thaw!!

Caroline’s youngest cat, Maisey enjoys ruining a game of ‘pop up pirate’ by patting the dice and playing pieces away from the board with her paw – but the question is – is it really Maisey or some strange alien cat in disguise???

Taliah enjoyed dressing up as a witch for Halloween. She looks so cute !
If anyone has any cute pictures of their cats, send them attached to an e-mail to: caroline.pallister@simplycats.net and we would be pleased to include them in our future publications and on our website blog.