Dying cat saved by blood...from a dog
A CAT struggling at death’s door was saved by an emergency blood transfusion – from a dog.
Princess was terminally ill with anaemia brought about by a severe liver infection.Vets realised she needed a transfusion but with no blood bank available for cats, time appeared to be running out.
Vets atWear Referrals near Stockton-on-Tees took the bold step of using blood from a dog to give Princess a transfusion.
The three-year-old is at home and fighting fit after the unusual treatment. Scott Kilpatrick, from Wear Referrals, said: “Normally we must get healthy cats to donate blood.This process can take some time as we must be very careful to select a donor.”
However, he said in emergency situations dog’s blood can be used.
The cat’s owner Mrs Little said: “We can’t thankWear Referrals enough for everything they have done.The dog blood transfusion saved her life.”
IT AMAZES me how many people don’t realise the river in central London is tidal. I hear them comment on it as they pause at the river wall above me while I am mudlarking below. They have no idea that the height between low and high water at London Bridge varies from 15 to 22 feet or that it takes six hours for the water to come upriver and six-and-a-half hours for it to flow back out to sea.
It is the tides that make mudlarking in London unique. For just a few hours each day the river gives us mudlarkers access to its contents, which shift and change as the water ebbs and flows, to reveal the story of a city, its people and their relationship with a natural force.
The more modern flotsam and jetsam that washes up on the foreshore can sometimes feel quite intrusive.
Some people commit their troubles to the river by physically throwing them in.
I have found prayers and curses, remembrance wreaths, single roses, love letters, torn-up photographs, and wedding and engagement rings.
Even more troubling was an object that looked quite innocuous at first sight: a grey plastic brick that had been washed up next to a crook in the river wall.
I shook it and it sounded like sand and gravel mixed together, then as I turned it over in my hands, a soggy label revealed its contents: “Remains of the Late…” I had found someone’s ashes.
I WAS a regular visitor to the north side of the River Thames for some time in the late 1990s when I worked in a soul-destroying job in an anonymous west London office block wedged beside the flyover. From my perch all I could see was a tangle of roads and endless concrete and brick. But beyond that was the river.
I had come to the capital a few years earlier to get away from peace and quiet. I had had enough mud in the countryside where I had grown up on a farm. The Thames was something I barely saw as I passed over it in the early hours of the morning on my way home from clubs and parties.
But then I began to notice it, a silver ribbon reaching east and west, a line of natural tranquillity through an urban mess, a sudden moment of calm after a crazy night. One day
I found myself beside the Thames. I was meeting a friend after work and she suggested we meet at a riverside pub. I was early and having spent the day hunched over my desk I decided to stretch my legs while I waited.
I looked out across the thick brown expanse and felt my muscles relax, my shoulders fall away from my ears.
For a moment, the moving water had taken the city away. It was just me and the river, nothing else but an overwhelming sense of comfort.
The Thames is probably the best place in the world to mudlark – a tidal river with 2,000 years of intense human habitation. But people search rivers nationwide: the Rivers Clyde, Tweed, Medway, Stour, Nidd, Don, Severn and Exe to name a few.
VAUXHALL Bridge is my favourite of all the bridges that cross the River Thames. It is a mudlark’s bridge, best seen from the foreshore where we search for treasures in the mud. From the road it looks quite ordinary, as if it could do with a lick of paint, but from the foreshore it is a work of art seen by few people. Mounted above the granite piers and facing the river on both sides are eight allegorical figures representing industry.
Twice life-size, cast at the turn of the 20th century and each weighing two tons, they are also some of the largest bronze figures in London. Each is classically swathed and holding an object to represent her discipline.
Facing upstream, Pottery is solid and strong with a pot cradled in the crook of one arm. Engineering holds a miniature steam engine, while Architecture, carrying a model of St Paul’s Cathedral, is more youthful. The hooded figure of Agriculture carries a scythe in one hand and a sheaf of corn in the other. On the opposite side, facing downstream, Education holds a naked infant in her arms and shelters a boy with a book under her cloak. Fine Art looks dreamily down into the water with a palette and brushes held to her breast, while Science and Local Government have more of a solemn,