# So there is a ribbion stick out of my cats butt... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 7, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641 "2003-12-07T23:00:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/21 "2003-12-09T03:03:13Z")
My cat **Boojum** used to have a penchant for eating rubber bands. I couldn’t leave them out or they’d get eaten. He’d even find them on top of a dresser or other tall furniture. I think he could _smell them_. Anyway, usually he’d pass them halfway, and then inevitably retire to some item-of-great-value upon which he’d lie to clean himself and extract the half-excreted, half-digested latex elastic, which would then create a sticky, gooey, ungodly mess on whatever he left it, and usually accompanied by a volume of liquishit. The worst was a brand new $300 down-filled ski jacket… briefly bright yellow… which instantly became a yellow and brown thrift store donation. So one Christmas we were celebrating at my parents’ house, when my mom thought it would be cute to give him a ball of yarn. Well, I didn’t know that this was an _elastic_ yarn, with a spandex core surrounded by wool yarn. I guess spandex has latex in it. Anyway, **Boojum** decides to eat the entire thing… it must have been 30" of yarn. I didn’t see him, just noticed that the yarn was gone… I figured that Mom must have picked it up, or it got lost under the couch, or whatever. A week later, I see him leaving the litterbox and tending to this _thing_ hanging out of his sphincter… it was hanging out about 4" and my first reaction was an instictive “AHHH! Parasite!” About 1250 milliseconds later, I realized it must be another elastic band… God knows where he found it. So before he can ruin another expensive item, I get a wad of TP and use it to grab the dangly shitrope and give a little tug… _rrrrRROWRR!!_ The cat shoots across the house like a wire-guided missile with a _zzzzzip_ of 30" of elastic yarn extruding from his ass. I’m left holding nearly three feet of this brown _thing,_ stunned by the unexpected length of it. It takes a few moments of close inspection to finally identify. The Christmas String. The Yule Yarn. And all the way across the room, where it lubricated the yarn on the way out, dollops of semiliquid cat feces. **Boojum** is nowhere to be seen, and as I start cleaning the mess up, a process that made me over an hour late for work, I realize, “Oh, _crap_ – that cat could be in serious trouble!” So I go find him. He’s under the bed, cleaning himself. Now realize, no one palpates this cat’s abdomen without drawing back a bloody stump, so I wasn’t about to try. Even given three tranquilizer tablets, **Boo** can be a dangerous cat to mess with. So I kept him under observation, and checked him for symptoms when I got home: No fever. Water and food consumed. No noticeable blood in the stool, though it wasn’t solid yet, either… Turned out he was fine. We were damn lucky. Cured him of eating rubber bands, too. That was 11 years ago. He’s 13 now, and a cranky old man of a cat. Shits on the living room carpet when he doesn’t get his way, which happens to be a couple times a week. But they’re always firm and solid, like tootsie rolls, so I usually handle it stoically, knowing how bad it _could_ be. My friend **TI0** wasn’t so lucky… his cat **Punkin** pulled a similar stunt, eating a whole ball of yarn, and he required $6000 of surgery and recovery. Stupid cats. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/22 "2003-12-09T03:11:56Z")
Oh, and in retrospect, I was also lucky that the cat’s digestestinal juices had degraded the elasticity of the spandex, or I’da been wearin’ catshit stripes that day as the string rebounded like a yo-yo ball… ---
**Author:** ![phraser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a88e4f/32.png) [@phraser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phraser)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/23 "2003-12-09T03:12:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Good news is no abdominal tenderness, just funny looks and gas when I touch her belly. The big problem is we’re broke, and we can’t affored to take her to the vet. when my other cat did this, she had shit on a rope for a while. she liked it so much shd did it again. this sucks Glad she’s doing ok - hope she has no further problems with it. ---
**Author:** ![phraser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a88e4f/32.png) [@phraser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phraser)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/24 "2003-12-09T03:15:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Good news is no abdominal tenderness, just funny looks and gas when I touch her belly. The big problem is we’re broke, and we can’t affored to take her to the vet. when my other cat did this, she had shit on a rope for a while. she liked it so much shd did it again. this sucks Glad she’s doing ok - hope she has no further problems with it. Butter wouldn’t be recommended as a laxative (it’s quite fatty and may induce other diseases). There are lots of other things you can use, many of them available in pet stores/grocery stores (usually sold under “hairball relief”)… I don’t want to comment on whether they’re good/bad/indifferent as they’re probably different to the ones we have over here. ---
**Author:** ![cadolphin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c37758/32.png) [@cadolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cadolphin)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/25 "2003-12-09T03:34:27Z")
OH MY! I hate to admit I was clueless about the dangers. I knew that swollowing something like string was dangerous and have been lucky keeping small things away from my cats — until last week. I noticed a piece of string hanging out of Ashleigh’s butt… and I pulled it. I was very lucky by the sound of it. No more pulling for me! Thank you for fighting my ignorance. I hope eveything works out well for your kitty. Kathy ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/26 "2003-12-09T06:55:13Z")
I probably wouldn’t give the cat any sort of laxative; if the string has caught anywhere, speeding up the intestines will just make the string pull tighter faster and increase the odds of slicing the intestine. You might want to check into CareCredit, which is essentially a medical credit card. If you’re approved, you can get a certain period interest-free. You can get more info and, I believe, apply online at their website. It’s something along the lines of [carecredit.com](http://carecredit.com). ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/27 "2003-12-09T08:59:08Z")
We had a cat die awhile ago from eating a very small piece of thread. After a few days of noticing her getting skinny and not eating, we took her to the vet. They found the thread in the x-ray but by time they did surgery, it was already too late. She died a few hours later. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/28 "2003-12-09T09:24:14Z")
\*\* xgxlx\*\*, I’m sorry about your kitty. I hate lfb’s with a burning passion, because so few of them ever turn out well. At least you can take comfort in the fact that she was spared the intestine-sloughing and other nastiness that comes after foreign body surgery. That soon after surgery, she was still pretty gorked from the anesthesia, and probably never felt a thing. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/29 "2003-12-10T04:23:55Z")
Well I’ ve got good news. THe cat seems to have pasted the ribbionwith no problem. I’m still going ot take her to the vet to make sure there isn’t any other problems but she healthy and happy. Thank you everybody for you help and advice, you guys are pretty ok. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641/30 "2003-12-10T13:32:23Z")
Perhaps she intended to leave you a giftwrapped “suprise” for Xmas? 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-there-is-a-ribbion-stick-out-of-my-cats-butt/217641.md?page=1)