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Wait, so the one time where a \"kitteh\" picture is completely apt on Consumerist and you don't have it? Odd.
4 replies
Wait, so the one time where a \"kitteh\" picture is completely apt on Consumerist and you don't have it? Odd.
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This H1N1 is no joke compared to the regular flu. I've been fighting it off (and easily winning though I did have the sweats the other day for a bit) this week.
This is the first time in my entire life that I have been sick that wasn't either something like the pox or food poisoning.
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-You no has cheezeburger, I see.
-I will catch piggy flu if I not has cheezeburgers, you see.
-I caught piggy flu : (
I'm a cat whisperer.
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ok, so now i don't know if i caught it at one of the hallowe'en parties i went to or if i got it when my cat came home all sneezy last week. thanks.
@catastrophegirl: I am pretty sure I caught it from Halloween parties but now I am worried I will give it to my cat. Especially since she has been extra cuddly due to my raised body temp.
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@catastrophegirl: Doubtful - though if the cat had been around others with swineflu its possible. Keep your kitty indoors!
@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: not let my cat outdoors ... you're funny. my cat can turn doorknobs. it's an issue. only a matter of time before she figures out the deadbolt.
the other day she opened the drawers in the bathroom and pulled out the entire basket full of spare toothbrushes and stuff and dumped it on the floor. just to indicate how bored she was with her jingly toys, scratching posts, stuffed mice, catnip, etc.
once when my former roommate opened a window my cat removed the screen and took off. without ripping it. she pulled the spline out of the frame and made a flap.
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@catastrophegirl: When my cat (RIP) was a kitten, she figured out that if she climbed the screen door and dangled from the top corner long enough, the screen would come loose and she could go outside.
Clever little shit.
@pecan 3.14159265: she actually sneezes a lot anyway. when she was twelve weeks old i tripped over my roommate's cat running between my feet and fraggle was following her, i stepped on her face. a couple hundred bucks at the emergency vet later and they said i fractured her nose but there was nothing to be done about it. she has a deviated septum and it makes her sneezy. last week was just a lot more than usual
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@catastrophegirl: i've found that's normally the way with emergency vets - $500 later, and they send you on your way with a pat on the head and a \"welp, nothing we can do\"
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@catastrophegirl: OH NO! Poor kitteh. You must have felt awful! *HUG*
I'm glad she is okay, albeit sneezy.
@pecan 3.14159265: I watch that one with the Panda bear probably once a month for a laugh, I just imagine it sounds something like my dog sneezing.
Our 3 year old granddaughter demands to see the baby panda sneezing video every time she comes over. It sends her into giggle-fits!
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@pecan 3.14159265: I find myself \"gesundheit\"-ing my cat quite often.
Of course, I also explained the meaning of \"coniferous\" to my cat one night.
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@Smashville_now with Monster Energy: When my rabbit sneezes, his whole body shakes a little, and he wiggles his nose extra like he's making sure it's still there.
@catastrophegirl: YouTube, not surprisingly, has a ton of videos that show this. Also, flopping. Flopping is pretty hilarious too.
@pecan 3.14159265: i have seen some of those videos. i was begging specifically for your cute animal to be a star. the rest of us post pet pics in OT, we'd love to collectively 'awwwwwwwwww' over more cute things on fridays i bet.
flopping ? rabbit flopping specifically? my cat flops too
@Smashville_now with Monster Energy: ROTFMLAO!!! \"Yes, kitteh, that pine tree you pooped under yesterday is coniferous.\"
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Is it weird that this news story made me super-paranoid for my poor little cats?
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@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): No, I don't think so, it worries me, too. I'm paranoid about H1N1 but it never occurred to me that my furry pals could get it. I have 3 cats. One of them in particular is very snuggly with me and I now fear that if I got sick he would catch it from me because he's always in my face.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): more importantly, does a cat with one eye have less risk due to reduced mucous membrane surface area?
@catastrophegirl: LOL! I have no idea!
We're being hand-washing nazis anyway to protect the baby, so I'm sure my indoor-only cats will be FINE, but I am something of a worry wart and this is a WHOLE NEW WORRY!
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I've lost 2 kitties in the last 12 months.
So with Lexie, I get panicked when she does things out of the ordinary. Of course, she's just become old enough for Pounce treats...and now meows at me whenever I walk by the pantry door. I've created a little monster.
@Smashville_now with Monster Energy: I'm sorry. :( Losing pets is the worst. It's really the only bad thing about pets, that their lifespans aren't even close to ours.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I only had Kitt for 2 months his was a little more gradual (he started being really lethargic and seizing)...and took him to the vet and he had some sort of brain degeneration. Then I got Gus...and had him for 8 months...came home one night and he wasn't there to greet me at the door as usual, so I called for him...and he didn't come...and I turned the corner and saw his little tail and then saw him lying on the floor. That was the most horrifying thing I ever experienced...at least with Kitt, I had time to say goodbye and I was with him...walking in and finding your (presumably) healthy one year old cat dead on your kitchen floor is not a feeling I would wish on anyone. He had a heart defect...it just stopped beating...they ran an autopsy, said it was completely instantaneous. One second it was beating...and one it wasn't. I was so scared that I was somehow killing my cats.
@Smashville_now with Monster Energy: And now I'm really depressed. I need to go home and hug my kitty.
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@Smashville_now with Monster Energy: Nah, you are just in an area with a high chance of kittehs that have problems they may or may not be able to overcome. I've lost an unsettling amount of kittens to the same disease, which can be traced to the mother's mother (apparently, they are all carriers).
But the cats that live through it live for a long time, unless they're outright killed by something else, like our neighbors. Lost the oldest to a gunshot to the head, and nearly lost MY cat (My Tophie) to a purposely aimed buckshot. Those neighbors are assholes. It was that incident that I found respect for the family dog, which went out of his way to find her and then notify us.
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@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I had the same reaction! I hate it when my little Rasputin gets sick! It's so sad.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I can't wait until mobs of people demand flu shots for their animals. Humans be damned.
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@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I'm right there with you. I work from home, but Ms. Caged works in an office - after reading this if she comes down with the flu she's staying at her parents until she's better. Must protect our kitters!
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\"displays of tiny paper masks and bottles of paw sanitizer\"
don't give them ideas.
I can has vakseen?
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Saw this on Time magazine's site yesterday, I think. The headline was \"I can has swine flu?\"
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Great. That cat will start the cat zombie apocalypse...and it's in my state! Excuse me while I go load some ammo clips...
@admiral_stabbin: Nah, the Zombie apocalypse is more likely to be started by a mutated rabies virus. The flu would just trigger a regular apocalypse, and then we'd all migrate to either Vegas or Denver depending on our alignment.
From what I have read dogs can't or have not caught H1N1 yet. What I want to know is who thought to test a cat for H1N1 and how did they test it?
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@bohemian: Seriously, I've had cats around all my life; how exactly does one KNOW when kitty has a cold?
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@webweazel: I brought home a kitten who came from the shelter with an upper respiritory infection. She sneezed and sneezed and sneezed, and had watery eyes. She gave it to another one of my cats, and he was lethargic and sounded like he was meowing with a sore throat. I'd never seen a kittycold before, but when you see one, you'll know.
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I haven't had enough coffee yet today to come up with a clever \"Kitten Mittons\" joke.
I just now realized the kitty in this article's picture is dozing next to a little stuffed piggie! Hilarious!
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Of course, the cats will be calling it \"human flu\", and insisting we wash our hands BEFORE we pet them.
I need to make a lolcat now:
\"Cuddle with sick hooman, you says. Kitteh can't get swine flu, you says.\"
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paw sanitizer... i love it
I call BS. Reason being is that human and feline immune systems are vastly different. In fact, human and animal immune systems are different. This is why we don't contract sicknesses from them and vice versa except after something has had enough time to mutate in one immune system. While animals and humans can contract viruses from each other, it takes more time than this, I think this cat \"caught\" H1N1 to cause a stir.
This is exactly why elephants never caught avian flu, or hamsters don't get strep throat. Physiologically, it just doesn't work out. Ask a scientist.
@jwestfall: It's called a zoonose -- a disease that can switch species. Birds don't have immune systems much like humans but other influenza strains can switch between them. Bartonella (Cat Scratch Disease) moves between humans and felines. Both cats and humans can be infected by Yersinia Pestis (the stuff you get Bubonic Plague from.)
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Spider cat pig, spider cat pig, does whatever, a spider cat pig does.
All joking aside this sort of helps to demonstrate how the flu virus evolves to be different each year thus requiring a new seasonal vaccine every year.
While rare that cats pick up human flu, it happens. Cats have their own flu viruses as do pigs and birds and most other animals. If a cat has both flu viruses in its system at the same time there is the possibility that they swap genes and form a new flu virus. That's where the differently numbered H and N bits come from. It's like mix and match (I simplified a bit). It's pot luck if the newly created hybrid is infectious or not depending on the combination of proteins and the like.
@sir_eccles: Yes I am looking forward to catching swine-avian-feline flu next year for this very reason.
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Here kitty kitty!
Poor puddy tat! Glad it recovered.
This just goes to show that cats cannot be trusted. They are the originators and carriers of swine flu. Next year, the plague. (Bring out your dead.)
Aw, my cat has been nursing me through a bout of swine flu this week -- I hope she doesn't catch it.
(No, I don't know if it's H1N1, and no, I don't really care. It's some sort of flu thing.)
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@CumaeanSibyl: They're pretty much saying \"if you're having flu-like symptoms, it's H1N1,\" so go ahead and join the porcine horde.
Also, I'm with you. I've been rocking the flu this week (it suuuuuuuuuuucks...body aches and chills were epic, now I have a horrible sore throat and congestion and a barking cough) and my kitties have been looking after me. Okay my husband bought me Mucinex and Gatorade, but the cats lay on me and purr and make with the cute.
can we change the name to \"feline flu\" now? Poor Porky gets all the abuse.
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Cats catch bird flu, also.
@speedwell, avatar of snark:So in addition to STDs, pussies can now catch H1N1.
@speedwell, avatar of snark: cats also catch birds.