Here is a link to a slightly disturbing picture of the degloving of the tip of a cat's tail. I am linking to the picture in case it upsets some advertisers. It is not that bad though. It just depends how sensitive you are. The bone at the tip of the tail is exposed. The fur and skin are missing.
It is the sort of injury that could lead to an infection and, yes, the cause is probably an injury because the tail was trapped in a door and the cat moved forward at the same time causing the skin to tear off. It is unusual to see bare bone like this.
Although trapped tails are probably not that unusual as they trail behind a cat. And cats linger around the feet of their owner. How it happens: the owner fails to see their cat at their feet and closes the patio door at the moment he/she is coming inside the home. Bingo, the tail is trapped and the skin torn off.
The moral (one I have learned after stepping on my cat) is to always check you feet when closing doors and when feeding your cat in the kitchen.
This problem is one which come about because of the enormous size difference between cat and human. They can be almost invisible if they follow you around unless you look down all the time. There is a real danger of injury to a domestic cat if they are very attached to their owner. We are giants in the eyes of our cat companions. It is good sometimes to lie on the grass with your cat to get down to their height. I find that my cat appreciates it 😉.
A common injury with respect to the tail occurs when a car runs over the tail which pulls apart the sacral-lumbar or coccygeal vertebrae, stretching the nerves that go to the bladder, rectum and tail.
This is a good news story for animal advocates among the depressing stuff from China. The world is aware of the barbaric and brutal cat and dog meat trade in China. It truly is the worst of human behaviour resulting in catastrophic cruelty to, often, domestic animals.
Yes, a recent story on the Independent newspaper states that 126 animals were saved from a slaughterhouse. These dogs were destined for a brutal death but were plucked to safety from an illegal operation. Many of these animals had collars. These are domestic companion animals. They are stolen from the streets and from houses et cetera to fuel this disgusting trade.
If the authorities were doing their job this trade wouldn't happen. If China had animal welfare laws it wouldn't happen. If they had animal welfare laws that were enforced it wouldn't happen. This trade is entirely due to ridiculous, out of date and ancient superstitions in combination with local government and national government which is entirely disinterested in animal welfare.
However, on the upside, there are some green shoots and there have been for some time of animal activist in China - and these are Chinese people - fighting back. One example is on Newsweek. It shows a video in which 282 dogs, some destined for the meat trade being rescued. The animal advocates intercepted a truck carrying these dogs.
On the truck there were 260 puppies and 22 adult dogs. The truck was making a 1000-mile journey. It was stopped on a highway in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui. The news comes from the Humane Society International. They described it as a "truck from hell". The conditions were so poor that 12 of the puppies had died at the time the truck was intercepted. A further 18 died shortly afterwards due to parvovirus and distemper. The surviving puppies suffered from dehydration and starvation in skin diseases.
However, if you do a search on Google, you will find that there are quite a few animal rescues by animal advocates in China normally from the back of trucks. These animals are destined to be brutally slaughtered by psychopathic traders. How do people become that callous? Many, many years of a culture and their way of life which simply totally disregards the sentience of animals and the fact that they feel pain and have emotions. That's the reason.
But this is a good news story because I'm seeing a change in China although it is far too slow. How does China think that they can integrate into the world community if they refuse to enact animal welfare laws. China is eons behind the UK and other European countries in this regard. They are living in the past. Their attitude towards animal welfare is that of mediaeval times. Shame on them. Shame on the president of China who supports traditional Chinese medicine which is the source of huge conservation problems but that is another subject albeit equally bad and depressing.
Initial notice: I am not criticising Facebook. I hope that I am helping to protect some users on Facebook and therefore I am helping Facebook. The second point is that Facebook is doing something about the problem that I describe below. So they are active in this area and doing their best to rectify any problems.
Facebook and Instagram blamed for a surge in scams
The Times reports that Facebook (FB) and Instagram have been blamed for a surge in scams as one of Britain's biggest banks has revealed that these Meta's owned sites are the source of the vast majority of their fraud cases.
The bank is TSB and they are the only bank in Britain to guarantee a refund for all scam victims. Their audit revealed that adverts posted on Meta-owned websites i.e. Facebook and Instagram, accounted for 81.1% of all online investment fraud causes experienced by their customers. This is between January 1 and June 21 of this year. Of these 55.7% advertise on Instagram while 25.4% advertise on Facebook.
In contrast, TSB say that no account holders have fallen victim to scam adverts on the Google search engine after they changed their rules in August 2021 to force all advertisers on their website to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Meta said that they are committed to forcing all advertisers on Facebook and Instagram to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the same way that Google insists on this.
America has its own financial regulators: Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would expect them to be involved in the same way that the FCA is involved in authorising advertisers on Google in the UK. I hope so.
So the message to Facebook users is to be aware of adverts on FB purporting to be good investments and other such scams. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Don't share information or give out your PIN or password. If you receive an unexpected email don't click on the link. Check your Social Security privacy settings. Choose strong passwords and don't use public Wi-Fi for online shopping or banking.
In the meantime, my thanks to Facebook for being committed to addressing this weakness on their platform. There are people who suggest that Facebook should pay compensation to people who have lost money on these scammy investments. I'm not suggesting that but in the meantime TSB is having to pay out large sums of money to compensate individuals who have lost chunks of their savings on these scams which are advertised on Meta's platforms.
Postscript: a spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company has dedicated "substantial resources" to tackle the scam adverts. They have a team of 40,000 whose job is to protect their users and they have invested in artificial intelligence to help deal with the problem. The company had joined Stop Scams UK, a cross-industry anti-scam group which includes banks. They donated £3 million to citizens advice to help with anti-scam initiative including a phone line for people who have been scammed.
Have you ever wondered why everything breaks down and decays over time? You know, even the universe, the entire universe will decay and become almost nothing, just protons in an ocean of cold blackness, one day. There will be no memory, no history of humankind or of the universe itself at that time. But it is a time which is a very long way off; trillions and trillions of years.
Everything is made up of constituent parts. And in all the objects that we possess, these parts are in an ordered fashion. They are what are called low entropy objects or structures. Take anything such as a car or a box. They are low entropy structures. A high entropy structure is a pile of sand and if it is turned into a sandcastle, it becomes a low entropy structure. A pile of earth at the bottom of the backyard is a high entropy structure as it is disordered.
This is a 5-minute video and Brian Cox talks about entropy after about 60 seconds. It is very interesting and important.
The ashes of a cremated person are a high entropy structure. When they were alive, they were a low entropy structure. Is dying a form of entropy. Is getting older a form of entropy? Entropy is linked to time. As time progress everything becomes disordered or breaks down.
One scientists likens entropy to clumped energy (low entropy) becoming less clumped (high entropy) and the clock cannot be turned back. Once the energy is unclumped that is it. That's why the entire universe is gradually disintegrating into protons and you can't stop it.
Entropy always increases and therefore disorder increases. And the reason is because "it is overwhelmingly more likely that it will". Everything tends to go from order to disorder. Which means that everything decays. I interpret that to mean that just because it is more likely to happen everything including all living creatures, the planet on which we live, the Milky Way, the universe will disintegrate into disorder. And disorder is another way of describing decay.
"Every object is in its place. A messy room is disordered and has high entropy. You have to input energy to change a messy room into a clean one. Sadly, it never just cleans itself." - Science Notes.
And because everything goes from order to disorder there is a difference between the future and the past and this is one reason why time travels in one direction.
Everything I do as a 73-year-old man is about maintenance. The older I get the more time I spend on maintaining my health and well-being because I am going towards a high entropy structure. I maintain my house. I maintain my garden and my cat. I maintain my car. I have to do this because they are all decaying. They are all tending to go from order to disorder as time drives me into the future.
My thanks to Dr Brian Cox. A brilliant man.
Note: a proton is a subatomic particle. The concept of entropy is probably one of the most important things in the history of the universe. It is linked to time and it dictates all our lives.
I've been searching high and low for an answer to the question in the title. I've visited numerous studies on the Internet and websites. I've come up with a blank because in a study called Specific Syndromes Causing Acute Intrinsic Renal Failure, the author Dennis J. Chew DVM and colleagues, states: "Ingestion of lilies is highly toxic to cats. The specific toxic principle is unknown but all parts of the lily are toxic to cats".
And in another study call Blood Purification for Intoxications and Drug Overdose concerning lily ingestion the scientists state that "The main toxin responsible for acute tubular necrosis in cats is still unknown".
Lilies cause acute kidney injury in cats.
It is worth noting perhaps that lily of the valley does not contain a nephrotoxin (a toxin which damages kidneys) but does contain a digitalis-like toxin: cardiac glycosides.
Finally, another study dated 2004 by Konnie H Plumlee DVM states in respect of the poisoning of cats by lilies: "Because the toxins of these lily species has not been identified, true toxicokinetic data is not available".
The answer to the question in the title is that we don't know the answer! Unless somebody can come forward and leave a valuably informative comment which I would be greatly indebted!
Please remember though that every part of the lily is toxic to cats even the pollen. However, the picture is very complicated because there are some lilies which are not toxic to cats. And there are many species of lily as I recall including hybrids.
The overriding message must be to be abundantly cautious and not to have any lilies of any species in the home if you are the caregiver of a domestic cat or cats. They are just too dangerous.