The Cord on Your Venetian Blinds

The Cord on Your Venetian Blinds
Twice in three months now I've been privy to an incidence where a cat has gotten tangled up in them. Please read this.


The strings on a venetian blind are a trap for more than kids. I'm sure we've all read about the little boy who died by entangling himself in the hanging cord, but how many of us have thought about the possible dangers they pose for your pets? Yeah, I know, what are the chances? They are there and are real, and it just so happens that I dealt with this 3 days ago, thus prompting me to finally put this page up. So, I've been friends with Andrea Bradford for twelve years as of last month, April of 2006. She's an amazing person. Besides being a really good pet owner and responsible human being, she's one of those people I'll still know and talk to in 50 years. Anyhoo, she called me about 6 weeks ago with a story that she made me promise would find its way in here. "You better put this in your website!" she ordered. In my usual 'yeah, I'll get around to it in about 3 years' mindset, I'm getting around to it a month and change after I promised to. Are we surprised? Hell no. I tend to put off procrastinating until I find the time for it. K' then. Andrea has 3 cats, Tessa, Pee Wee, and Paully. Tessa is a FAP, Feline American Princess, and is just about the prettiest cat I've ever seen. And she knows it. She's also like, huge. She's mountains of black and orange angora hair covering about 18 pounds of kitty diva. She's the cat who will go to the groomers and like the bow in her hair. As a dignified prisspants, she makes sure to appear to detest everything that Pee Wee and Paully do, which is usually tear around Andrea's house and demand attention. Pee Wee is a stray that Andrea found and fell in love with. "I just love him!" she remarked in an uncharacteristic exclamation of frou frou happiness shortly after she brought him home. "He's a pain in the ass when I go to bed, because he can't sleep unless he's on my HEAD, but he's just wonderful. Look at the Pee Wee..." This concerned me, as usually Andrea is patiently allowing me to finish my gushing for the four-legged around us. Huh, I thought. Then, Paully came into the mix, which was good. During a move, Andrea stayed at a friend's house and the friend had some kittens. Pee Wee and Paully became inseparable, so Andrea found another pet. Now, the 2 cats are together and just love each other. I'll have to post some pics when I find them. This all being said, I've laid the groundwork for the following tale of why you shouldn't allow your venetian blinds' strings to hang loose. Andrea called me 6 weeks ago, like I said, and she exclaimed, "You have to print this story on your website! Someone might read it who won't be as lucky as I was." Here's the deal. She came home from work around evening-0'clock and heard some different mewling than normal. When she came into her livingroom, she found Pee Wee just barely touching the floor with his hind feet in a pool of his own urine, hanging by the cords of one of her venetian blinds. Of course, the other 2 cats were circling him. Paully, his little ward (for lack of a better relationship image) was nervously mewling and almost frantic. And Tessa, who Pee Wee has been harrassing for almost 2 years now in that dammit woman, play with me! I'm small, I'm cute, Nermal was a punk, here's the real dizeal, bizzatch...come get some and hit the Weester!!!! method that only younger cats can afflict on an older cat, was also circling him, but with what intent, we'll never know. Rumor has it she was swatting..... Well, Andrea immediately tried to get Pee Wee loose from the cord, and had a time at it with Paully feeling protective. When she did get him loose, she called a vet and had him checked out. But, the experience raised questions for the both of us. Like, how long was Pee Wee there? Long enough to have a full bladder or did he pee on himself because of total panic? How long could he have lasted? Would his strong back legs have finally buckled? How long can a cat stand on its hind legs? I guess we'll never have the answers to these questions unless we learn to communicate with cats. What we do know is that Pee Wee jumped off a ledge, got caught by the neck on the cord, and was incredibly lucky. I said 2 instances. The reason that I got off my butt and finally put this page up is because my old boy Barney (our 16 year old male mackerel tabby), showed me how cats do this stupid shit without realizing it. This is Barney. He's the resident pain in the ass. I mean it. What, you say? He looks harmless? Nah' dude, he's a calf-nibbler. That doesn't sound so innocuous in itself, but when you add the terms "5 AM" and "mid-stream", well, you get the picture. When we first got him in 1994, he'd sleep on my feet in our bed along with Buddy, who died of Feline Aids in 2001, seemingly harmless, until Kurt got up for PT, that is. (Kurt is my husband and a career military man) About thirty seconds after the alarm would go off, my Kurt would get up and stumble to the bathroom and Barney was off the bed, silently, with a purpose. With a piss-interrupting purpose. That bastard. I got to the point where I could almost count the seconds before one of two things happened. The first was the bathroom door would close and Barney would scratch at the door in a frenzy of denied calf-nibbling, mewling in protest. The second and more likely event that resulted shortly after Kurt left our bedroom was a series of noises and thuds that went something like this......indiscriminant shuffling.....peeing....."SHIT!" or "FUCK!" and then usually a THUD accompanied by "meeerrowwwwwwwww" midflight. The rustling of toilet paper would follow, as said husband would wipe pee up that might have been directed to the tub, floor, toilet tank, well, you get the picture. At this point, Barney would hop back onto the bed, clean his butt for about 46 seconds or so, and then go back to sleep. (Incidentally, the THUD would be Barney landing on the floor outside the bathroom, and sometimes the wall next to it, depending on Kurt's aim. Aim at throwing the cat, not the pee. He's pretty good at the peeing. No Cheerios basic training necessary.......) This being said, you should understand that Barney is a shitstarter, the most feared of all cat breeds. He was probably taken away from his mother too early and likes to start shit with anyone to get attention. Were it not for his tenure, I'd kick his ass on a regular basis for the crap he still pulls now. I digress. 3 days ago, Barney was jockeying for position with Nomad, our resident black cat and raccoon toreador, for the spot on our livingroom window ledge because the window was open and the screen was letting in a magnificent breeze. While they crabbed and bitched, I noticed that Barney had managed to put his head in between 2 of the 3 strings tied together on our venetian blind cord, and in that motion realized that he couldn't get to the opening in the window. Instead of backing out, he continued to press forward until his neck was completely caught. When he realized that he couldn't move any further in that direction, he instead walked onto the arm of an antique chair we have next to the window and subsequently gently clotheslined himself. Now, you may be saying to yourself, "Daphne, what do you do for fun? Tell mentally-impaired people to sit in the corner in round rooms?" Well, put your pantyhose back on; I was right there in case he hurt himself. I just wanted to see what would happen because of Andrea's story. And this is what happened. After about 5 minutes, Barney managed to back out of the noose he'd set for himself. But, that's because he was smart enough not to jump down. When he realized that there was something around his neck, he stopped solid and attempted to move forward in many directions, and then he moved backward until he found his way free. I think that he was lucky. Pee Wee must have jumped into the noose, where he wouldn't have been afforded the luxury of testing which way to go that wouldn't have caused pressure against his neck. If you have cords in your home that hang from the blinds, you must realize the strings that make up the cords can be separated easily and that animals, as well as little people, can hang from them. My sincere advice is to put a tiny nail or hook near the top of your drapes and suspend the cord out of reach of anything in your home, 2 legs or 4. You can even put simple knots in the cord to make them shorter. But, I beg you either way to take care of before you find yourself in the same predicament Andrea found herself. She was lucky and came home in time to rescue poor Pee Wee. You might not be so lucky. K' then.

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Cats are just about spastic, ain't they? *....if it's not covered in pet hair, it probably isn't mine......* email the zookeeper Save the internet from Capitolist Scum! Visit here and sign. Donate. Do something.