What follows in my personal tribute to Quentin Bloxam, a dear friend and Gerald Durrell apprentice, who who finally retired yesterday after dedicating many decades of noble service to saving endangered wildlife from extinction.

Though by no means a saint, he may yet be destined for celestial glory as he was and remains one of the most enjoyable and inspiring people to cross my path. The planet’s natural wonders are safer for his tireless devotion, though now that he is retired I dare say the world’s supply of fine wine is in genuine peril. Cheers, Q!

“Having had the good fortune, due to no great ability on my own account, to be published in one hundred and fifteen countries I am constantly both delighted and appalled to find that everywhere I go the name Quentin Bloxam goes before me eliciting the most curious reactions: Women clutch their ovaries and sigh, furious Cossacks draw swords, police officers frantically load pistols, monks scramble to bolt their cellar doors and startled altar boys leap back and cross their ecclesiastical vestments twice, and twice again.

Even before he attempted to steal silverware from Buckingham Palace, Q was far too much of a scoundrel to be considered for a knighthood, though perhaps not quite caddish enough to join the peerage. Mores the shame. Not since Francis Drake has Britannia had such a magnificent brigand in her service. And such dark times as these call for brigands.

For many decades Q’s passionate exertions have brought great acclaim. In defence of wildlife and wild places Quentin has swum oceans, traversed deserts and stormed jungles, bars and cloistered nunneries without flinching. He is, standing here before us, as renowned a champion of Durrell’s living legacy as any that has ever or will ever walk the face of this green earth.

For all his primate savvy and feminine acuity, Quentin Bloxam is a man’s man. Silver tongued, quick with his fists and always thirsty. It’s no secret that, in the event of his untimely demise, donating Quentin’s liver would qualify as a malicious act. Were it not for the fact that every summer he foolishly believes England can win The Ashes he has all the makings of an Australian Prime Minister.

It’s hard to imagine a more capable and engaging fellow. Though often happily bemused, he never seems ruffled or out of sorts and thus is a boon when great tasks are at hand. Rough and ready, coifed, rakish and eagerly committed to the kind of devilish roguery that vestal virgins find so offensively charming, Q is a formidable ally when he chooses to use his powers for good.

In 2003, when we joined forces for the Australasian promotional tour of Priceless; The Vanishing Beauty of a Fragile Planet, a book dedicated to the memory of The Trust’s charismatic namesake, Q proved invaluable when it came to building bridges between disparate wildlife groups and uniting rival zoos. His potent allure was shameless and I soon came to accept that the excited crowds awaiting our public presentations had no interest whatsoever in my existence. Indeed it’s fair to say no other European entity has so overwhelmed natives of the Pacific since smallpox. Our public obligations presented a relentlessly gruelling schedule, however Q remained energetic and light-hearted throughout, indeed the only time I ever heard him complain was to the effect that he was being stalked by a nymphomaniacal posse of Czech supermodels.

Needless to say, Quentin’s robust and amenable veneer masks a great vault of hard-won knowledge. He is an insatiable student of life and a venerable teacher. Whether he be knee deep in iguana guano or molesting a member of the royal family, Quentin is always a gentleman.
He is also a creature of tremendous appetites, tireless good humour and astonishing inventiveness, yet curiously old-fashioned enough to value timeless traditions and thus is only very rarely found unconscious in public. One wonders how he will adapt once released into the wilds of retirement. Is the civilized world ready for a Quentin Bloxam with time on his hands? I think not.

Of course I could go on and on about Q’s many amusing mishaps, diplomatic disasters and life threatening faux pas. I really could. Such as the time he almost expired after becoming lost on a well watered island no bigger than a football field, and then there was the night strange sirens were knocking on every hotel door in Melbourne hoping to discover his whereabouts, and who can forget the countless acts of drunken indecency at sites which, as a result, have subsequently been consecrated to both Dionysus and Priapus. But I will abstain from such unsavoury jousting, for as soon as Quentin Bloxam walks out the door, and for the rest of our lives, we swinish braggarts will crow that we knew this man and so, instead of crowning his platinum pate with shameful japery, I propose a more solemn toast -

I raise my glass to the man behind whose hairy chest beats an enormous British heart still largely free of tropical endomyocardial fibrosis.
A bona fide original and a great inspiration, whose intoxicating joie de vivre and profound compassion for God’s forgotten creatures marks him out as one of Gerald Durrell’s true heirs. My dear friend, Quentin Bloxam.”

February 11th, 2010

Scoundrels united! Quentin ‘Q’ Bloxam and BTG in the midst of the 2003 Australasian Book Tour for PRICELESS: The Vanishing Beauty of a Fragile Planet.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 10:07 am and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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For those cynics amongst you who dare to doubt my clinical objectivity, here are the results of an independent study published in New Scientist Magazine. Cat fanciers prepare to choke on your fur-balls…

THE world is divided into “dog people” and “cat people”, each passionately believing that their preferred pet is superior. Until a decade ago, there was very little scientific evidence either camp could muster to support its claims. Then animal behaviourists became interested in dogs and unleashed a pack of ingenious experiments testing canine capabilities and cognition. Recently, researchers have started doing similar work with cats. Could it be time for that showdown?There are obvious pitfalls in trying to use science to resolve this perennial dispute. Every pet-owner knows their furry family member is special – a unique being with its own talents and foibles. Yet scientific research tends to look at species as a whole and deals in averages and trends when attempting to quantify their characteristics. Then there is the thorny issue of comparing two very different animals. Some might argue that the whole venture is doomed to failure, but here at New Scientist we like a challenge. So we have pitted cats against dogs in 11 categories. It’s a winner-take-all competition with “best in show” being awarded to the pet that prevails in the most categories. Let the fur fly…

1. BRAINS

At 64 grams, the average dog brain is far bigger than its feline equivalent, which weighs in at a mere 25 grams. But then the average dog is much heavier than the average cat. If instead you measure brain mass as a percentage of body mass, cats win by a whisker.

Felophiles should not gloat yet. In general, smaller mammals have slightly larger brains relative to their body size than bigger ones. This means cats’ brains are exactly the mass you would expect for their size, whereas dogs have slightly more upstairs than you would predict.

On size alone, then, the results are ambiguous. That is perhaps all to the good, because brain size is not a reliable measureof intelligence. In fact, if you want to assess smarts you are far better looking at behaviour than crude neuroanatomy – more on that later. However, there is one anatomical measure that gives a pretty good indication of information processing capacity: the number of neurons in the cortex, or executive brain. Here cats trounce dogs, with 300 million neurons compared with a piddling 160 million (Trends in Cognitive Science, vol 9, p 250).

WINNER: CATS
RUNNING SCORE: CATS 1 – 0 DOGS

2. SHARED HISTORY

Several research teams have compared DNA from dogs with that of grey wolves, their closest living ancestor, to try to pinpoint the date of domestication.

In the first study of this kind in 1997, Robert Wayne’s team at the University of California, Los Angeles, came up with a date of 135,000 years ago. Since then, the entire dog genome has been sequenced and Wayne now believes his date may be a little premature. Nevertheless, given the discovery of archaeological remains of dogs dating from 31,000 years ago and the large divergence between dog and wolf DNA, he still suspects that domestication occurred at least 50,000 years ago.

Other DNA studies, however, suggest domestication could be more recent. The latest analysis, published in September by Peter Savolainen at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, comes in at 16,000 years. It also points to an origin south of the Yangtze river in China and speculates that the first dogs were not working dogs, but destined for the dinner table (Molecular Biology and Evolution, vol 26, p 2849).

Our knowledge of feline domestication is also fuzzy. Evidence from ancient Egyptian burials and hieroglyphs indicates that cats were popular in homes from about 3000 BC onwards. However, the synergy with humans probably stretches further back. As soon as our ancestors began farming, their grain stores would have become magnets for vermin, and therefore cats. In 2007, comparisons of the DNA of wildcats from across the globe with that of domestic cats confirmed their origins in the Fertile Crescent east of the Mediterranean, the cradle of agriculture (Science, vol 317, p 519). What’s more, cats seem to have wormed their way into our homes and hearts from an early stage, as evidenced by a 9500-year-old burial of a kitten alongside a human on Cyprus. While impressive, it still leaves Felix looking like a newcomer compared with Fido.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 1 – 1 DOGS

3. BONDING

The bond between a dog and its owner is remarkably similar to that between a parent and child. A secure baby behaves in a characteristic way in strange situations: it is courageous and happy to explore while its mother is around, becomes distressed when she leaves, will settle with a stranger in time, but has eyes only for mum when she returns.

Dogs put through the “strange situation” test respond in the same way. That is probably no surprise to dog people, who often cite unconditional love as their pet’s more endearing quality. Are cats so very different?

Adam Miklosi from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, whose group did the work with dogs, tried this experiment with cats – but they were having none of it. The lab setting was very upsetting and stressful for them, presumably because cats tend not to leave their territory. Nevertheless, Miklosi suspects that cats bond with their owners in much the same way that dogs do – if only he could persuade them to take the test.

Even the most besotted owner will admit that cats like their independence. Evolution is to blame. By nature, cats are loners. Dogs, meanwhile, are descended from pack animals and have an instinct to affiliate, and domestication has changed the focus of this instinct. Give a 4-month-old puppy the choice and it will choose a human companion over a dog. It seems they just can’t help but love us.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 1 – 2 DOGS

4. POPULARITY

Arguably the ultimate test of whether an animal makes a good pet is how many people actually own them. Here cats are clear winners. Although worldwide figures are hard to come by, recent studies show that in the top 10 cat-owning countries there are almost 204 million felines. Pet pooches in the top 10 dog-owning countries number fewer than 173 million.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 2 DOGS

5. UNDERSTANDING

Rico the border collie is famously able to understand over 200 words (Science, vol 304, p 1682). He’s a clever boy, but even dogs with more limited comprehension can often recognise and respond to dozens of commands and requests for objects. And words are not the only channel of communication open to them.

Pooches can follow human pointing gestures, such as an outstretched finger or a nod of the head, to find food. That may not seem impressive, but chimps struggle to do it. Dogs also hold eye contact with humans – which wolves tend not to do – and use gaze alternation to bring objects to their owner’s attention. They seem predisposed to inspect our faces for information, reassurance and guidance, according to Alexandra Horowitz who studies animal cognition at Columbia University in New York, and whose book Inside of a Dog was published in September.

However, Horowitz provides a cautionary tale for anyone tempted to overestimate their dog’s level of comprehension. Her experiments revealed that a pooch’s characteristic “guilty look” does not in fact signify an understanding of transgression, but is often simply produced in response to a scolding, regardless of whether or not it has been disobedient (Behavioural Processes, vol 81, p 447).

Cognitively speaking, cats are similar to dogs, says Miklosi, so you would expect them to have similar patterns of behaviour and abilities. A big difference is that they are not compliant or motivated, making them devilishly hard to work with. Nevertheless, Miklosi’s team found that Felix is just as capable as Fido when it comes to following pointing gestures to find food. However, if the food is hidden and impossible to retrieve, dogs are far more likely to solicit help from their owners by gaze alternation, whereas cats mostly try in vain to obtain the reward for themselves (Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol 119, p 179). Understanding that humans can get you what you want may seem like cheating, but add to this the dog’s superior vocabulary and eagerness to engage with its owner and it is only fair they win this one.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 3 DOGS

6. PROBLEM SOLVING

“Cats don’t understand string theory” ran the headlines earlier this year after an experiment showed that if you offer kitty a choice between two pieces of string, one with a morsel of food at the end, they often fail to pull on the string attached to the reward (Animal Cognition, vol 12, p 739). Before canine-lovers crow… dogs do not pass the test either.

What’s more, neither pet can use figurative cues to find hidden food. In other words, they don’t understand X marks the spot. On the positive side, both are pretty good at retrieving bits of food from stashes placed at various distances from each other and from themselves. Although they employ slightly different strategies, their choices about the order in which they visit sites is efficient and logical (Behavioural Processes, vol 73, p 22).

Not much else is known of cats’ problem-solving capabilities. Dogs have been subjected to far more testing, and have often failed to shine. In fact, there is a long-standing view that dogs are dunces compared with their wolf cousins, whose brains are a third bigger. One classic study showed that wolves learned to open a door with a complicated catch simply by watching another wolf do it, whereas dogs failed to master the catch even after years of seeing the door opened and closed.

But Miklosi, along with Jozsef Topal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, suspected that a dog’s partnership with its owner might be making it appear more stupid than it really is. The more intimate the bond, they reasoned, the more likely a dog is to relinquish its powers of independent thought and action to its owner.

Their suspicions were confirmed when they tested a variety of dogs on a task in which they had to pull on the handles of a plastic dish protruding from underneath a wire fence to retrieve some food. The most highly bonded dogs performed worst – but their success rate improved as soon as their owners encouraged them. The researchers conclude that dogs are not poor problem solvers, per se, but tend to favour a collaborative approach.

The full genius of this strategy is only revealed when you consider seeing-eye dogs. In their collaborations with blind owners, they often take the usual canine role of junior partner, but when the need arises they step in to solve problems their human cannot master. Chalk one more up to the small-brained wolf.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 4 DOGS

7. VOCALISATION

Shared ancestry means that all mammals tend to produce the same kinds of vocalisations to convey certain meanings. For example, they make sudden sounds with rising or rapidly fluctuating pitch to attract attention or demonstrate arousal, motivation or readiness. Both cats and dogs play on this mammalian mutual understanding in their vocal interactions with humans. Analysis of cat miaows reveals that they contain acoustic patterns that grab our attention. But the vocal repertoire of cats is quite limited and their calls tend to be idiosyncratic, so they are often interpretable only by their owners.

Dogs have far more vocal flexibility. They can vary the length, range, pitch, frequency modulation and tonality of their barks and they use this ability to produce characteristic barks in different situations. Even someone who has never owned a dog can make a good stab at telling, simply from its barks, whether it is lonely, aggressive or happy. Miklosi’s group, who made this discovery, point out that other adult canids, including wolves, rarely bark. He suggests that during the course of domestication dogs may have evolved their elaborate vocal repertoire especially to communicate with us (New Scientist, 12 June 2004, p 52).

That’s clever, but complexity is not everything. After all, no matter how much you love your pet, the barking or miaowing can get on your nerves. It looks as though cats may have found a way around this, though. A study published earlier this year reveals the subtlety with which they can use their crooning to ensnare us. By embedding an urgent high-frequency miaow into a blissed-out purr, they produce a sound that brings out our nurturing side. Karen McComb from the University of Sussex in Falmer, UK, who analysed these “solicitation purrs”, suggests they work on a subliminal level in much the same way as a baby’s cry, which has a similar frequency range (Current Biology, vol 19, p R507). For their guile, cats get the cream.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 3 – 4 DOGS

8. TRACTABILITY

Dogs are easy to train because we have selected them to be so. They have evolved to fit into our homes and meet our needs, and they find it easy to learn and obey our rules. They are especially skilled at cognitive tasks that require cooperation and sharing information to achieve a goal.

While other animals such as chimps and dolphins learn by emulation – watching another individual carry out a task and then trying to achieve the same result – dogs learn in the same way as human infants. This process, called pedagogy, entails implicit teaching, with the dog attending to cues such as eye contact, gesture and vocalisation, and then directly imitating the actions of its master (New Scientist, 23 August 2008, p 33).

The most basic way to train a dog involves reinforcing the behaviours we want to encourage by giving Fido a titbit of food. Cats can be taught using rewards too. “They respond to stimulus and reinforcement,” says Miklosi. But since no one has really tried training cats, we do not know the full extent of their abilities. Although there may be fewer ways to do it, they can probably achieve similar ends to dogs, Miklosi believes. “But dogs really want to do it. They are more interested and take it more seriously.”

Besides, even without explicit instructions dogs naturally pick up the rules of domestic behaviour. This happens through play, according to renowned animal behaviourist Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado, Boulder. He argues that the function of rough-and-tumble play is to develop a rudimentary sense of morality, and that such interactions with their owners allow dogs to test the limits of what is acceptable in a domestic setting. Dogs win paws down.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 3 – 5 DOGS

9. SUPERSENSES

Smell, sight and hearing are the most important senses for both cats and dogs. Having created endless breeds of dog to capitalise on their various perceptual talents, we should expect them to outperform the less highly selected cat – and they do show some quite amazing abilities. A bloodhound’s nose, for example, contains 300 million smell receptor sites compared with just 5 million in humans. Its sense of smell is up to 100 million times more sensitive than yours.

However, while a dog’s keen nose is legendary, cats are no mean sniffers either. In fact, because there is so much variability among breeds of dog, the average cat, with its 200 million smell receptors, actually has a more acute nose than the average dog.

Neither Felix nor Fido can match us when it comes to visual acuity, but their ancestry as nocturnal hunters has left them with some impressive visual abilities. Both have a faster “flicker-fusion rate” than we do, meaning the cells in their retinas take more snapshots of the world per second than ours, giving them superior sensitivity to movement. The main reason for this is that their eyes contain many more rod cells than cones, which also explains their poor colour vision. On the up side, rods are particularly good for seeing in low light. Here, once again, cats have the upper hand. Felix can see in light levels six times as low as we can, while Fido’s limit is thought to be about five times ours.

Add hearing to the list, and cats score a hat trick. Their auditory range extends from 45 to 64,000 hertz, far wider than that of dogs at between 67 and 45,000 hertz.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 4 – 5 DOGS

10. ECO-FRIENDLINESS

Cats love wildlife – in the UK alone they kill more than 188 million wild animals each year. But dogs are no bunny huggers. They have been implicated in the decline of the rare European nightjar, they disturb ground-nesting birds and, even when walked on a lead, their mere presence may reduce biodiversity (Biology Letters, vol 3, p 611).

The real difference in ecological impact comes in consumption. A medium-size dog’s ecological footprint – the area of land required to keep it fed – is 0.84 hectares annually. You could run two SUVs on that and still have change. Even a toy dog such as a chihuahua has a footprint of 0.28 hectares per year. Meanwhile, your average cat’s ecological pawprint, at just 0.15 hectares, looks positively virtuous (New Scientist, 24 October, p 46).

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 5 – 5 DOGS

11. UTILITY

Dogs can hunt, herd and guard. They can sniff out drugs and bombs and even whale faeces; they guide blind and deaf people, race for sport, pull sleds, find someone buried by an avalanche, help children learn and possibly even predict earthquakes. Cats are good if you have an infestation of rodents.

Perhaps that assessment is unfair, though. After all, we love our pets for other reasons. Cats are beautiful and soft, and stroking them has been shown to reduce stress. Then again, dogs are also good stress-busters: owning one can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. What’s more, Fido has other health benefits. Daily dog walks may be a chore, but they repay the effort, not just in terms of regular exercise, but also by providing immune-boosting opportunities for social contact with other dog walkers. That’s why in a head-to-head contest of health benefits, it’s dogs all the way (British Journal of Health Psychology, vol 12, p 145).

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 5 – 6 DOGS

So, at the risk of putting the cat among the pigeons, dogs come out on top.

By Kate Douglas,  feature editor at New Scientist

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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For those who are interested in great voyages, both curious and epic in nature, Hiria Ottino, the son of a friend of mine from French Polynesia, is committed to retracing the six millennia long migration from China to Polynesia, in reverse!

This enormous undertaking, which is at the same time historic, scientific and cultural in its intent, will take approximately six months as the crew shall be aboard a traditional single outrigger (best described as an 18 metre canoe with a small sail).

Hiria hopes to retrace, in the reverse direction, the ancient navigation routes that commenced over 6,000 years ago from China to the islands of the Pacific.

As he points out, “Polynesian ancestors fulfilled an exploit unique in the history of humanity; the systematic settlement of the islands spread across the largest ocean in the world, the Pacific, extending 20,000 km from Asia to Central America. To this day, this ocean remains the hub of exchanges. Thus the canoe will retrace from east to west, this slow migration from the Pacific Islands back towards Asia, the original homeland.”

After departing from Tahiti, numerous Pacific settlements will become stopovers for the return voyage, including: The Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, the Santa Cruz Islands, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and ultimately Shanghai, mainland China.

On this voyage Hiria will invite representatives of the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon islands, and Papua New Guinea to join the voyage for the remainder of the journey and thereby mark the ancestral ties between the Pacific Islands and Asia.

The crew’s departure from Tahiti is anticipated for early February 2010 so as to arrive in Shanghai in October 2010, prior to the closing of the Shanghai 2010 Universal Exposition.

Lest potential volunteer sailors be put put off by the seaworthiness of the ancient craft, Hiria points out that, though traditional in construction, this noble outrigger, a proven transpacific design, will be fully equipped with modern communication and safety equipment and will be accompanied throughout the voyage by a follow-up boat.
Hiria and his team welcome assistance in every facet of this great undertaking and invite interested parties to contact them at this address for more information

Contact Hiria and his team at hiria@hotmail.com copied to tahiti@mail.com

Click here to see the map and for more information

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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My thanks to my wonderfully kooky friend Kate Luckel who sent me this very amusing true story. What could have been a horrific disaster had a very happy, if unexpected ending (martinis were involved). I’ve always said that cats, unlike dogs, never rescue anybody, they just get rescued – here is a particularly bizarre example that just gets funnier and weirder as the tale unfurls.

This is the story of the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head stuck in the garbage disposal. I knew at the time that the experience would be funny if the cat survived, so let me tell you right up front that he’s fine.

Getting him out wasn’t easy, though, and the process included numerous home remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen minutes of fame.

My husband Rich and I had just returned from a 5 day vacation in the Cayman Islands–where I had been sick as a dog the whole time. We arrived home at 9 p.m., a day and a half later than we had planned because of airline problems. I still had illness-related vertigo, and because of the flight delays, had not been able to prepare for the class I was supposed to teach at 8:40 the next morning.

I sat down at my desk to think about William Carlos Williams, and around ten o’clock I heard Rich hollering from the kitchen.

I raced over to see what was wrong and spied Rich frantically rooting around under the kitchen sink and Rudy–or, rather, Rudy’s headless body–scrambling around in the sink, his claws clicking in panic on the metal and his head stuck in the garbage disposal. Rich had just ground up the skin of some smoked salmon in the disposal, and when he left the room, Rudy (who always was a pinhead) had gone in after it.

It is very disturbing to see the headless body of your cat in the sink. This is an animal that I have slept with nightly for ten years, who burrows under the covers and purrs against my side, and who now looked like a fur-covered turkey carcass, defrosting in the sink while it’s still alive and kicking. It was also disturbing to see Rich, Mr. Calm-in-any-Emergency, at his wit’s end, trying to simultaneously soothe Rudy and undo the garbage disposal, and failing at both, and basically freaking out.

Adding to the chaos was Rudy’s twin brother Lowell, also upset, racing around in circles, jumping onto the kitchen counter and alternately licking Rudy’s butt for comfort and biting it out of fear. Clearly, I had to do something.

First we tried to ease Rudy out of the disposal by lubricating his head and neck with Johnson’s baby shampoo (kept on hand for my nieces’ visits) and butter-flavored Crisco. Both failed, and a now-greasy Rudy kept struggling. Rich then decided to take apart the garbage disposal, which was a good idea, but he couldn’t do it. Turns out, the thing is constructed like a metal onion: you peel off one layer and another one appears, with Rudy’s head still buried deep inside, stuck in a hard plastic collar.

My job during this process was to sit on the kitchen counter petting Rudy, trying to calm him, with the room spinning (vertigo), Lowell howling (he’s part Siamese), and Rich clattering around under the sink with his tools.

When all our efforts failed, we sought professional help. I called our regular plumber, who actually called me back quickly, even at 11 o’clock at night (thanks, Dave). He talked Rich through further layers of disposal dismantling, but still we couldn’t reach Rudy.

I called the 1-800 number for Insinkerator (no response), a pest removal service that advertises 24-hour service (no response), an all-night emergency veterinary clinic (who had no experience in this matter), and finally, in desperation, 9-1-1. I could see that Rudy’s normally pink paw pads were turning blue. The fire department, I figured, gets cats out of trees; maybe they could get one out of a garbage disposal.

The dispatcher had other ideas and offered to send over two policemen. The cops arrived close to midnight and turned out to be quite nice. More importantly, they were also able to think rationally, which we were not. They were, of course, astonished by the situation. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Officer Mike kept saying. (The unusual circumstances helped us get quickly on a first- name basis with our cops.) Officer Tom, who expressed immediate sympathy for our plight (“I’ve had cats all my life,” he said), also had an idea. Evidently we needed a certain tool, a tiny, circular rotating saw, that could cut through the heavy plastic flange encircling Rudy’s neck without hurting Rudy. Officer Tom happened to own one. “I live just five minutes from here,” he said. “I’ll go get it.” He soon returned, and the three of them–Rich and the two policemen–got under the sink together to cut through the garbage disposal. I sat on the counter, holding Rudy and trying not to succumb to the surreal-ness of the scene, with the weird middle-of-the-night lighting, the room’s occasional spinning, Lowell’s spooky sound effects, an apparently headless cat in my sink and six disembodied legs poking out from under it. One good thing came of this: the guys did manage to get the bottom off the disposal, so we could now see Rudy’s face and knew he could breathe. But they couldn’t cut the flange without risking the cat.

Stumped. Officer Tom had another idea. “You know,” he said, “I think the reason we can’t get him out is the angle of his head and body. (you can see where this is going, can’t you?) “If we could just get the sink out,” he continued, “and lay it on its side, I’ll bet we could slip him out.” That sounded like a good idea–at this point, ANYTHING would have sounded like a good idea–and as it turned out, Officer Mike runs a plumbing business on weekends; he knew how to take out the sink! Again they went to work, the three pairs of legs sticking out from under the sink, surrounded by an ever-increasing pile of tools and sink parts. They cut the electrical supply, capped off the plumbing lines, unfastened the metal clamps, unscrewed all the pipes, and about an hour later, voila! The sink was lifted gently out of the countertop, with one guy holding the garbage disposal (which contained Rudy’s head) up close to the sink (which contained Rudy’s body). We laid the sink on its side, but even at this more favorable angle, Rudy stayed stuck.

Officer Tom’s radio beeped, calling him away on some kind of real police business. As he was leaving, though, he had another good idea. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think we can get him out while he’s struggling so much. We need to get the cat sedated. If he were limp, we could slide him out.” And off he went, regretfully, a cat lover still worried about Rudy. The remaining three of us decided that getting Rudy sedated was a good idea, but Rich and I were new to the area. We knew that the overnight emergency veterinary clinic was only a few minutes away, but we didn’t know exactly how to get there. “I know where it is!” declared Officer Mike. “Follow me!”

So Mike got into his patrol car, Rich got into the driver’s seat of our car, and I got into the back, carrying the kitchen sink, what was left of the garbage disposal, and Rudy. It was now about 2:00 a.m. We followed Officer Mike for a few blocks when I decided to put my hand into the garbage disposal to pet Rudy’s face, hoping I could comfort him. Instead, my sweet, gentle bedfellow chomped down on my finger really hard and wouldn’t let go. My scream reflex kicked into gear. Rich slammed on the brakes, hollering “What? What happened? Should I stop?” “No,” I managed to get out between screams, “just keep driving. Rudy’s biting me, but we’ve got to get to the vet. Just go!” Rich turned his attention back to the road, where Officer Mike took a turn we hadn’t expected, and we followed. After a few minutes Rudy let go, and as I stopped screaming, I looked up to discover that we were wandering aimlessly through an industrial park, in and out of empty parking lots, past little streets that didn’t look at all familiar. “Where’s he taking us?” I asked. “We should have been there ten minutes ago!” Rich was as mystified as I was, but all we knew to do was follow the police car until, finally, he pulled into a church parking lot and we pulled up next to him.

As Rich rolled down the window to ask Officer Mike, where are were going, the cop, who was not Mike, rolled down his window and asked, “Why are you following me?” Once Rich and I recovered from our shock at having tailed the wrong cop car and the policeman from his pique at being stalked, he led us quickly to the emergency vet, where Mike greeted us by holding open the door, exclaiming “Where were you guys???” It was lucky that Mike got to the vet’s ahead of us, because we hadn’t thought to call and warn them about what was coming. (Clearly, by this time we weren’t really thinking at all.) We brought in the kitchen sink containing Rudy, and the garbage disposal containing his head, and the clinic staff was ready. They took his temperature (which was down 10 degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet declared, “This cat is in serious shock. We’ve got to sedate him and get him out of there immediately.” When I asked if it was OK to sedate a cat in shock, the vet said grimly, “We don’t have a choice.”

With that, he injected the cat. Rudy went limp and the vet squeezed about half a tube of K-Y jelly onto the cat’s neck and pulled him free. Then the whole team jumped into “code blue” mode. (I know this from watching a lot of ER.) They laid Rudy on a cart where one person hooked up IV fluids, another put little socks on his paws (“You’d be amazed how much heat they lose through their footpads,” she said), one covered him with hot water bottles and a blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up Rudy’s now very gunky head. The fur on his head dried in stiff little spikes, making him look pathetically punk as he lay there, limp and motionless. At this point they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in the waiting room while they tried to bring Rudy back to life. I told Mike he didn’t have to stay, but he just stood there, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said again and again.

At about 3 a.m., the vet came in to tell us that the prognosis was good for a full recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight to re-hydrate him and give him something for the brain swelling they assumed he had, but if all went well, we could take him home the following night. Just in time to hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished with his real police work and concerned about Rudy. Rich and I got back home about 3:30.

We hadn’t unpacked from our trip, I was still intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn’t prepared for my 8:40 class. “I need a vacation,” I said, and while I called the office to leave a message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis.

I slept late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy’s condition until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I was working on the suitcases when the phone rang. “Hi, this is Steve Huskey from the Norristown Times-Herald,” a voice said. “Listen, I was just going through the police blotter from last night. Um, do you have a cat?” So I told Steve the whole story, which interested him immensely. A couple hours later he called back to say that his editor was interested, too; did I have a picture of Rudy?

The next day Rudy was front-page news, under the ridiculous headline “Catch of the Day Lands Cat in Hot Water.” There were some noteworthy repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr. Huskey had somehow inferred that I called 9-1-1 because I thought Rich, my husband, was going into shock, although how he concluded this from my comment that “his pads were turning blue,” I don’t quite understand. So the first thing I had to do was call Rich at work–Rich, who had worked tirelessly to free Rudy–and swear that I had been misquoted.

When I arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been calling my secretary all morning to inquire about Rudy’s health. When I called our regular vet (whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up appointment for Rudy, the receptionist asked, “Is this the famous Rudy’s mother?” When I took my car in for routine maintenance a few days later, Dave, my mechanic, said, “We read about your cat. Is he OK?” When I called a tree surgeon about my dying red oak, he asked if I knew the person on that street whose cat had been in the garbage disposal. And when I went to get my hair cut, the shampoo person told me the funny story her grandma had read in the paper, about a cat that got stuck in the garbage disposal. Even today, over a year later, people ask about Rudy, which a 9-year-old neighbor had always called “the Adventure Cat” because he used to climb on the roof of her house and peer in the second-story window at her.

I don’t know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this “adventure” cost me $1,100 in emergency vet bills, follow-up vet care, new sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage disposal–one with a cover. The vet can no longer say he’s seen everything but the kitchen sink. I wanted to thank Officers Tom and Mike by giving them gift certificates to the local hardware store, but was told that they couldn’t accept gifts, that I would put them in a bad position if I tried. So I wrote a letter to the Police Chief praising their good deeds and sent individual thank you notes to Tom and Mike, complete with pictures of Rudy, so they could see what he looks like with his head on. And Rudy, whom we originally got for free (or so we thought), still sleeps with me-under the covers on cold nights, and, unaccountably, still sometimes prowls the sink, hoping for fish.

Picture of cat actor only – this is not Rudy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 am and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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My thanks to Kim Foster who shared this heroic tale from, of all places, the Daily Mail:
A most extraordinary Englishwoman went to the most extraordinary lengths to ensure her nine puppies survived after her crippled yacht, battered by heavy seas and gale force winds, began to sink off the Turkish coast.

Laura Hughes was forced to abandon her yacht off the coast of Turkey but was determined to save her nine puppies

A British woman stranded in a storm off the Turkish coast abandoned ship and swam 75 metres to the shore in a bid to save her nine puppies.

Laura Hughes, 28, a strong swimmer, balanced a milk crate containing the animals on her head and managed to save herself and all her puppies despite braving waves reaching five metres high.

Following a terrible mid-afternoon storm on October 21, Laura’s 14.5metre boat ‘Csavargo’ had been pushed around the Turkish coast by powerful gale force winds, leaving her close to the Greek island of Rhodes.

Laura, her boating companion John Cochrane, her two dogs Ragga Muffin and Tiger Lily, and the nine pups Ragga Muffin gave birth to while at sea, were all left completely helpless after a rope from the boat’s sails got caught in the boat’s propeller and caused an engine malfunction.

Laura, from Bedford, tried desperately to control the steering wheel there was no way of stopping the boat.

Laura said: ‘The gale force winds were rocking the boat from side to side. I felt as if I should have been wearing a harness.

‘The boat was filling up with water from waves washing over the side. I felt that if I didn’t get off the boat it would either sink or capsize. I had no option but to get off.’

After several hours, Laura found the boat stranded in a busy shipping lane three miles off the coast of Rhodes.

Worried that they would crash into another boat, Laura sent out a May Day distress signal over the ship’s VHF radio.

After being pushed miles around the coast and fearing her boat would sink or capsize, Laura had no other option but to abandon ship – and swim to the shore with the puppies in tow.
Laura Hughes

Alive and well: These puppies were saved when Laura Hughes decided to swim to shore, carrying them in a milk crate on her head

Laura added: ‘It was when we got into the shipping lane that I really started to become concerned.

‘I am quite a strong swimmer. My mum used to say I swam like a rat with just my head above the water.

‘I swallowed a lot of sea water when I was swimming but my main concern was to keep my puppies safe.’

A Greek cruiser liner answered their distress call and the captain told them that they had alerted the emergency services.
Laura Hughes was forced to abandon her yacht off the coast of Turkey but was determined to save the life of her nine puppies

Abandon ship: Laura jumped off her boat fearing it would sink or capsize – but not without her puppies

The cruise liner started circling around Laura’s boat to protect it from other oncoming boats.

By this point night had fallen and the waves rocking the boat from side to side were five metres high.

A rescue boat finally arrived, but because of the ferocity of the waves it couldn’t get near enough to Laura’s boat to rescue her.

A Greek tug boat rescue team also arrived, but they wanted to charge Laura 10,000 euros for rescuing them – and Laura didn’t enough money to pay them.

So, wearing a lifejacket, Laura jumped out of the boat, carrying the nine Rottweiler puppies ‘African-style’ by balancing the crate on her head and holding the side with one hand while swimming with the other.
Enlarge   This map shows where Laura, John and their furry friends swam to safety

This map shows where Laura, John and their furry friends swam to safety

She had also attached a U-shaped buoyancy aid to the orange milk crate carrying the puppies and put a sheet inside it to soak up any sea water which splashed into it.

Laura explained: ‘A few of the puppies were a bit damp and their little legs were sticking out of the crate but they seemed to be none the worse for their adventure.’

John and the two adult dogs also jumped off the boat and swam to the nearest beach at the Greek resort of Lalyssos about 100 metres from their boat.

The pair were able to wade the last 25 metres as the water had become shallow enough for them to touch the ground.

When they got to the shore, exhausted, they were helped by German tourists from a beach hotel and members of the emergency services.

The British Embassy found Laura and John a hotel room for the night – and the puppies spent the night at a local Greek police station.

The next day local fishermen rescued Laura’s boat which had been washed up on some nearby sand dunes.

Laura’s boat is now moored in a marina while she takes a well-earned rest.

She is planning to sell her puppies.

Tags: Adventures in an Uncertain World, Bradley Trevor, Bradley Trevor Greive, BTG Studios, Why Dogs are Better than Cats

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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My thanks to Roger Doeren, lifelong dog-lover and celebrated co-owner of Rainy Day Book in Kansas City, who shared this humbling and extremely thoughtful list with me.
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The 10 Commandments From a Pet’s Point of View

1. My life is likely to last 10-15 years, any separation from you will be painful for me. Remember that before you buy me.

2. Give me time to understand what you want from me, don’t be impatient, short-tempered, or irritable.

3. Place your trust in me and I will always trust you back. Respect is earned not given as an inalienable right.

4. Don’t be angry with me for long and don’t lock me up as punishment, I am not capable of understanding why? I only know I have been rejected, you have your work entertainment and friends I only have you.

5. Talk to me sometimes, even if I don’t understand your words I understand your voice and your tone, “you only have to look at my tail”.

6. Be aware that however you treat me I’ll never forget it, and if it’s cruel it may affect me forever.

7. Please don’t hit me I can’t hit back, but I can bite and scratch and I really don’t ever want to do that.

8. Before you scold me for being uncooperative, obstinate, or lazy, ask yourself if something might be bothering me. Perhaps I’m not getting the right foods or I’ve been out in the sun too long, or my heart is getting old and weak, I may be just dog tired.

9. Take care of me when I get old. You too will grow old and may also need love, care, comfort, and attention.

10 Go with me on difficult journeys, never say, “I can’t bear to watch” or “Let it happen in my absence”. Everything is easier for me if you are there. Remember, irrespective of what you do I will always love you.

© Stan Rawlinson started 1993 finalised 1998
Dog Behaviourist and Obedience Trainer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:37 am and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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I want to thank Daisy May Mischefski for sending me these hilarious instructions for giving worm tablets to cats.

1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour a shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek, and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw Tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie the little sucker’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for RSPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

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How To Give A Dog A Pill…..

1. Wrap it in bacon.

2. Toss it in the air.

That’s what I like about a dog!!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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I want to thank Kay Bennet Andrews for sharing a true and absolutely lovely story about Meredith Scrivener, a four year old girl from Texas, USA, who sent a letter to God after her 14 year old dog, Abbey, passed away in 2006. Meredith even included a photo of Abbey so God would recognise her. What happened next was unexpected and incredibly moving.

This is a heartbreakingly beautiful little story of love and loss, and then even more love – I cried my eyes out.

Whilst raised as Christian, I am certainly not the most religious person, that’s not my reason for posting this story. Philosophically I am bemused and conflicted about anyone sending a letter to God or replying on God’s behalf. However I was moved to tears because I was reminded how much I adore my own dogs, and the special people in my life and, more importantly, how a modest act of kindness can make such an incredible impact.

In an age when it is getting easier and easier to become cynical and lazy, I am enormously grateful to live in a world where even a few people care deeply about others.

BTG

“ Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died last month. The day after she died, my 4 year  old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed  Abbey… She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got  to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

Dear God,
Will you please take care  of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got  sick.
I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and  to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her You will know  that she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith

We put  the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and  addressed it to God/Heaven.. We put our return address on it. Then  Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she  said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven.  That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A  few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her  that I thought He had.

Yesterday,  there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed,  ‘To Meredith’ in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book  by Mr. Rogers called, ‘When a Pet Dies..’ Taped to the inside front cover  was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the  opposite page was the picture of Abbey &Meredith and this note:

Dear  Meredith,
Abbey arrived safely in heaven.
Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away.
Abbey isn’t sick anymore. Her  spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being  your dog. Since we don’t need our bodies in heaven, I don’t have any  pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this  little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by..
Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping  you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I  picked her especially for you.
I send my blessings every day and  remember that I love you very much.
By the way, I’m easy to find, I am  wherever there is love.

Love,
God ”

Meredith Scrivener, aged 4 + Abbey, aged 14

Tags: Books, Bradley Trevor Greive, BTG Studios, dogs, Why Dogs are Better than Cats

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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By the way, for those of you in Australia, I will be appearing on Channel 10’s ‘7pm Project’, next Tuesday (October 20th) to talk about my latest book ‘Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats’ – I promise to be mildly amusing.!!

Tags: 7pm Project, Bradley Trevor Greive, BTG Studios, Channel 10

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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What is writer’s block? Hmmm, well, it’s not as if you are bereft of a new idea. It’s just that, for whatever reason, you can’t seem to summon them up when you need them. Allow me to demonstrate my point with this humble armadillo who, even after 18 cups of coffee, is whistling in earnest in order to deliver a more tangible result to his waiting bedpan … This is a writer’s life.

Tags: Armadillo, Books, Bradley Trevor Greive, BTG Blowhorn, BTG Studios, writer's block

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Occasional Observer. You can follow any comments about this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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