Cat’s Paw
Back late from a very pleasant evening out with the Cardiff cosmology group, I’ve just got time for a quick post to avoid letting my blogging average slip. Today’s been an enjoyable one, but also a bit fraught. Columbo suddenly developed a rather exaggerated limp this morning. At first I thought it was a deterioration of his arthritis but on closer inspection I discovered that he has a swelling on one paw. He’s also indulging in the strange practice of putting the affected paw in his water dish. It’s obviously causing him a bit of discomfort, but the likeliest explanation is that he’s been bitten by a wasp or something; if so it will eventually die down. I’ve left him alone all day and it doesn’t seem any better now that I’m home. I think I’ll leave it overnight and if it hasn’t improved by the morning I’ll have to get him checked out by the vet. Apart from the difficulty walking, however, he doesn’t seem too bad so I hope whatever is troubling him is a minor ailment.
Other than that, there’s not much to report other than it’s an exceptionally sultry evening and it’s nice to have my former PhD student and current postdoc at Cape Town, Rockhee Sung, visiting, in whose honour we had dinner tonight. Rockhee and Columbo are old acquaintances from Beeston days, in fact, so it will be interesting to see how they get on when they meet again, which hopefully won’t be too long!
In the Dark 
July 29, 2011 at 11:24 pm
How is he now?
Anton
July 30, 2011 at 12:10 pm
He didn’t get any better overnight on Wednesday and was in some distress Thursday morning, licking and picking at his foot. I took him to the vet and got some anti-histamines which made him a bit woozy, so I decided not to go into work so I could keep an eye on him. He didn’t really improve all day, but was a bit better yesterday morning so I felt OK leaving him for the day. This morning he’s much better, limp almost back to the usual arthritic stiffness.
Seems to have passed, fingers crossed.
July 31, 2011 at 1:05 pm
..and as of today, Sunday, I carefully watched him walking around the garden and the limp seems to have gone entirely.
July 31, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Good
July 31, 2011 at 10:59 pm
I think the offending wasp might have been drawn into the garden by the profusion of brambles. There are tons of them, and very tasty they are!
August 1, 2011 at 3:24 pm
When I was struggling with private issues in Nottingham days, he was my best friend who didn’t need to talk but made me comfortable.. I will miss you, Columbo..