Regular cuddling with pets can help improve life for our furry friends

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Science says cuddling our pets can be beneficial for both humans and animals. But for one Canberra cat the daily habit led her owners to a life-threatening health issue. Emergency vets say all owners should make physical interactions with their furry friends a regular practice, and use it as an opportunity to identify anything not-quite-right.

Transcript

00:00In the six years since Chris and Greg Peters adopted Smooch, the tortoiseshell has become

00:08a beloved family pet and creature of habit.

00:11It was the evening and she'd gone out for a gentle stroll because she knows that she'd

00:16be in for most of the night.

00:18These outdoor excursions last around an hour and are followed by plenty of cuddles and

00:23pats.

00:24She was walking in and walking very low, which is very unusual, so I thought, well maybe

00:30her fur's up, another cat's hurt her or something.

00:33Cuddles led the Peters to a large hard lump on Smooch's back that definitely hadn't been

00:39there earlier.

00:40You couldn't find any blood or anything like that, so there was no virtual entry wound,

00:46so we thought something inside of it must have broke.

00:50At the emergency vet clinic, X-rays revealed the mysterious lump was one end of a 17 and

00:56a half centimetre stick.

00:58The rest had wedged itself through Smooch's ribs, between her liver, right kidney and intestines,

01:04while the entry wound was hidden behind the fatty loose skin near her hind legs.

01:08It wasn't until we actually took that X-ray did we realise the extent of the damage and

01:12how much pain Smooch would be in.

01:14Within half an hour of her arrival, Smooch was on the operating table.

01:18Smooch used more than one of the nine lives on that day.

01:22The stick not only didn't hit any of the vital organs, blood vessels or nerves on the way

01:26in, but Dr Serena was able to carefully dissect the stick out to make sure that none of those

01:31organs were damaged when we removed that foreign body as well.

01:34Dr Wright believes the Peters' daily practice of physically interacting with Smooch facilitated

01:39her speedy diagnosis and remarkable recovery.

01:42Doing a physical check over your pet as frequently as you can is always going to be beneficial.

01:48Understandably, the Peters' agree.

01:50We brought her straight back into the family room and she now is back to normal, just quite

01:56a lot less fur.

01:57Curiosity key for this lucky cat.

02:00Thank you Get there.

Category

Transcript

Recommended