Jan 14 2008
Stupid Kitty
We had to rush Inari to the kitty hospital last night at 10:00pm. We had a candle burning on our dresser and she jumped up to take a look at it (we’ve had candles burning all the time, and she’d never taken an interest in one before). Before we could pull her away from it, she stuck her nose far enough into it to singe her whiskers, and jerked her head back. Fine, I thought, no harm done. She’s learned a valuable lesson.
Apparently not valuable enough, though, because then she put her paw in the flame — and instead of pulling her paw back when it burned her, she somehow flung the candle upwards, shooting hot wax all over the room, all over her fur, and into one of her eyes.
We got the pieces of wax out of her eye, but she was still covered with wax and there was presumably cinnamon oil in her eye (it was a really strong cinnamon candle). So we ended up at the emergency vet carrying a wax-covered cat with one eye swollen shut. Sort of a Quasimodo effect, really.
One of the receptionists at the emergency clinic seemed pretty horrified. She was asking how it happened, and saying things like, “I have two cats and I burn candles all the time.” I tried to smile. Yeah, we’re just lucky, I guess.
The vet cleaned her up, irrigated her eye and gave her a cortisone shot, and fortunately there was no damage to her cornea. She seems better this morning — she still smells like cinnamon and burning cat hair, but there’s not much we can do about that.
I found an entry on an answers website about a cat who drank hot candle wax and subsequently could not poo, so at least we don’t have the stupidest cat in the world. But unless she’s the second stupidest, this sort of thing is bound to happen to somebody else, so if you have a cat and candles please be careful.
is it wrong that I laughed at this? I didn’t laugh until I knew silly Inari was okay. Claw is not interested in candles and seems a bit afraid of fire, so I wonder if perhaps SHE had a similar incident before she joined my family.
glad Inari is alright!
I thought it was pretty funny at the time. She looked really, really pathetic slinking around with her squinty eye.
I would expect that there’s some kind of evolutionary advantage to being afraid of fire without having to mess with it repeatedly, but I guess nature isn’t exactly full of scented candles either. I’m reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where Bart touches the electrified cupcake repeatedly and the hamster learns to avoid it after touching it once.
“Ow, that burns my nose.”
[pause]
“I wonder if it will burn my paw?”
We raised you to believe all pets are Christian Scientists. I’m so disappointed you’ve turned your back on the only early religious training you had – besides Bill & Ted.
Dad