Cat Drowning

Cat Drowning is a type of emergency is not frequent in cats because the majority of them are very cautious with water. When it happens, most of the times it is because the feline falls in a place full of water from which he cannot go out as for example a swimming pool, a reservoir or a channel.

1. Rescue the cat
2. If he is conscious, wrap him in a towel and keep him sheltered
3. If he is unconscious, extract the water from his lungs, suspending the head down during ten or twenty seconds.
4. Distend him sideward with the head lower than the lungs. Clean him of any rest that he could have and take it out his tongue.
5. Look for the cardiac rhythm. If any, start the CPR.
6. If the heart beats but the cat does not breath. Give him artificial breathing .

Life threatening problems may come up hours after the incident. Take the cat immediately to the veterinarian.

Monitor The Possibility Of Shock

• Pale or whitish gums
• Agitated breathing
• Weak and intense pulse
• Coldness of the extremities
• General weakness.

Fishhook Injuries: The fodders of fishing not only smells delicious, but sometimes even they take such built-in delightful small fishes or frogs. Unfortunately, the gluttonous cat can take also a fishhook pushed in the lip or in a paw.

Is the fishhook fixed in the tongue or the palate? Is it a question of several fishhooks? Is the cat too scared or is it dangerous to handle him?  YES
Go to the veterinarian     NOW

Is there a fishhook fixed in the lips, in a paw or another part of the body? YES

First aids.

1. Immobilize the cat wrapping him up in a blanket, and if possible, do a provisional muzzle with a bend, leaving the area of the lip overdarfted where the fishhook is fixed.
2. If the fishhook has penetrated the body and the sharp end is visible, cut it with a few tweezers and then pull the remaining part backward to extract it from the same place it penetrated.
3. If the top is not visible, use tweezers to push it so that it penetrates the skin and comes out.
4. Cut the top and extract the fishhook
5. Clean well the wound with oxygenated water diluted to 3 per cent.
6. Telephone the veterinarian asking for more instructions.

• Never pull a fish line that hangs from the mouth of a cat. It might cause him very serious wounds.
• Never cut the fish line completely. Hooked after-taste the sufficient thread to manipulate it with comfort.
• Take the cat to the veterinarian to be X-rayed searching for fishhooks that he could have swallowed.