Kittykat #2: The Tape Worm Blues...Is YOUR Neko Infested?

by Marcophoto Upshaw
AKA: Mark E Lodge, USA

In KittyKat #1, I told you how my little fur ball--named KitKat--came to adopt me. She came in through the doggie door in our basement and refused to leave. We took her to the vet, no chip. She was a bit skinny, but well groomed. We never found the original owners.

So, we had a cat. More specifically I MYSELF had a cat. My wife at the time had her own male cat. This little female cat staked me out for her own. We bonded.

The scenario leading to this bonding was both unique and disgusting. Sensitive readers may want to close their eyes at this point. Oh wait, how can you read then? Hmmm. Blond moment. But yes, this part gets a little gross, so now you are warned.

WARNING!!!
GROSS STUFF TO FOLLOW
WARNING!!!

Noooooo, I did not practice any weird sexual experiments on her. It was much worse. I treated her for tapeworms.

Tapeworms. Yuck.

So how did I know she had them? Well, it was fairly obvious. I could see the little baby worms crawling out of her anus. GROSSSSSSSSS!!!!! PUKE!!!

Yeah, that was definitely MY reaction. Of course at first I did not know they were tape worms. They looked like teeny tiny little white worms crawling out of her butt hole. They would stick to the fur on her back side and dry up, looking like little grains of rice. I thought it was odd that a worm would let itself dry up like that.

When we think of tapeworms in humans we think of these loooooooooong things in the infested stomach that eats up all our food, leaving us as skinny wraiths with the appetites of olympic swimmers, consuming roughly 5 million calories a day, though we continue to look like beanpoles. I remember as a growing young teenager, chewing my way through every shred of meat, eggs, milk, tables, chairs, rugs, in the house, and half the grocery store--for breakfast--that my folks would say to me, "WTH Marco, do you have a tapeworm?"

After much research I learned that cats usually pick up tapeworms by eating infected mice and other small rodents. The mice apparently eat the worm eggs off the ground. The eggs then develop into larvae inside their bodies. Cats as you know LURRRVE mice...they are the cat equivalent of high-potency California Gold. They chase said mice around the yard, capture them, dry them out, then hunch over with their little cat buddies smoking them--holding their breath--and hacking.

No wait, wrong scenario...hmmmm, ok ok...yeah, the cats EAT the mice and thus become infected with the tapeworms. Once eaten, they attach themselves to the lining of the cat's intestines. And grow. And grow, and grow.

Now here is the interesting/gross part. While growing they develop dozens of segments. Each segment contains a complete set of sexual organs...with eggs. After the eggs mature a segment breaks off the back end of the worm. It then looks like a baby worm and crawls down the digestive tract and out the anus. There it clings to the fur until it dries up, splits open, and releases the eggs. The eggs then fall to the ground where they are eaten by mice, starting the process up all over again. You can read all about this disgusting cycle at http://www.petsandparasites.org/cat-owners/tapeworms.html .

END OF GROSS PART, AND START OF FUNNY PART:

So what does all this have to do with me bonding with KitKat? LOL, EVERYTHING.

It turns out that one of the most effective ways to kill tapeworms in cats is to force modeling glue down their throats. Yep, modeling glue: that highly-stinky transparent glue we used as kids to glue our plastic models together. Some kids like to sniff it for the brain-eating "high" the volatile vapors induce. And just as the vapors eat brain cells, thus knocking out the inhaler, they also deliver a total "one-two punch" to the worm, killing it, and killing the eggs in one knock-out blow, KAPOW!

Trouble is, how the hell do you get modeling glue down the throat of a cat? Lord. I'll tell you how: with MUCH agony. Oh supposedly it is no big deal, because the stuff comes encapsulated in these caps that are roughly the size of a NFL-approved football. All you have to do is make your cat swallow them.

Yeah right. When was the last time YOU tried to force a pill down a cat?

Were you wearing full-body medieval armor while doing so? Complete with 4 inch thick gloves to protect you from the wild frenzied slashing and biting of your own little tasmanian devil? 'Cause once you start trying to force ANYTHING down the throat of your soft, sweet, gentle, little ball of fluff, you are going to swear you have opened up Pandora's Box and a full-fledged roaring Tigress roughly the size of a refrigerator with gigantic Saber-Toothed Tiger fangs has lept out at you. Without a HazMat face mask she will rip your face off and hand it to you to fashion into your new head scarf!

Oh yeahh, I am soooooo gonna stuff this capsule the size of my thumb down her throat. I tried, but after she handed my face to me I thought perhaps another method might work better.

And I will tell you all about it, in KitKat Part 3, tomorrow.

--Marco

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Sayyyy, if you liked this posting today, would you copy/paste this to a friend? Thank you so much!...

"Kittykat #2: The Tape Worm Blues...Is YOUR Neko Infested?"
Read all about it today in Marco's SL Humor Blog at: http://marcosslhumorblog.blogspot.com/

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