Brian had kindly taken the animals to a large, modern vet in An Keng, but they said they couldn't help, as it would take days to get the cats off and cleaned up. We felt the Animals Taiwan vets - YangMing Vet Hospital, on Tianmu East Road - would know better. They did. They told us to get the young cats to them ASAP.
When we arrived at the vet with the cats, Dr Yang and his team already had everything prepared. They got the cats off the traps in less than a minute; an hour later they were cleaned up. They would have been good to go, but one of the cats, rest his soul, had become too weak and passed away soon after being cleaned up.
I'll share with you how our vets did it, in case you ever find yourself having to perform the same procedure on some poor animal.
All you need are the following:
* a pot large enough to put the animal in once off the trap
* a large bottle of vegetable oil
* rubber gloves
* newspaper or a towel
* animal shampoo (baby shampoo will do but is not ideal)
1. Pour the oil into the pot, deep enough to soak the animal, and place on top of the newspaper or towel.
2. Wearing the gloves, dip your hands in the oil, scooping some up, and rub onto the animal where he or she is in contact with the glue.
3. You'll soon find that you can start to lift the animal off the trap, bit by bit, as the oil dissolves the glue.
4. Once freed from the glue, the animal should immediately be placed into the vegetable oil 'bath'.
5. Spend 30 minutes or so working the oil into the glue on the animal's fur and skin and gently pulling off the loosened glue and wiping onto the towel or newspaper.
6. Once all the glue has been removed from the fur and skin, the oil can be washed off with shampoo, and the animal can be dried. Put the shampoo on before the water and the oil will come off more easily.
I hope this can help you if you find yourself with an animal on one of these disgustingly cruel devices. Let me know if you put it to use.
Cheers!
Sean
(By the way, the kitten in the photos is doing fine now and will soon be available for adoption, but will take some time to get used to people.)
