Carol34446

Makes me think of the time daughter and I came home from WM and my horse who runs loose on the 4 acres most of the time reached in the trunk and took my loaf of bread and ran around the yard playing chase with us. The whole time shaking her head up and down. Never leaving our sight or letting us catch her. Needless to say, when I got the bread back it was a mess so we took it out of bag and let her eat it. She had SOOOOO much fun watching us try and catch her. She is great granddaughter of horse who was black stallion in the movie, very smart and doesn't know she is a horse, thinks she is a big dog. Comes when called even.

madamekelly

Due to coordination problems, I have always bought extra long pins. I used to buy only the glass head pins so that they would not melt when ironing. I say used to, because when my cat was young he found my pin cushion, and carefully pulled all of the pins out and dropped them in a pile next to it. He managed to do it a few times, even after I started putting it under a towel so he would not see it. (I forgot about the sense of smell evidently.) I tried the nylon flower head pins and he left it alone, so that is all I use. It never ceases to amaze me what we will do to adapt for our fur kids. I also always put my needle down on my machines when not in use. My family room cannot be shut off from the cats or dogs so I have to be vigilant to protect them from themselves.

(Many years ago I had a cat killed by biting into my iron cord. I never leave anything plugged in when I leave a room. Horrible way to learn a lesson.)

glassbird

I worked as a veterinary technician for 12 years, and assisted in many "foreign body" surgeries...fish hooks, socks, wedding rings, and yes, pins and needles. String, yarn, and needles with thread were nightmares. The "linear foreign body" can cause numerous cuts to the inside of the GI tract, all along the length of the thread...AND the needle can migrate out of the GI tract, and on to who knows where.

My own dog escaped from my home via a door left open by a repair person, and spent several hours jumping up into the interiors of several dumpsters around the apartment complex where I lived at the time. (People who saw her, but did not know who she belonged to, told me about this activity later.) She ate everything she could find, including an astonishing amount of chicken bones. The vet stated outright that he had never seen so many bones inside one dog. She pulled thru without surgery, but was on IV fluids and antibiotics, and stool softeners, for three days.

I have three cats now, and I make sure thread is left attached to NOTHING, and all needles and pins are boxed up and tucked away.

Battle Axe

When I had the rug factory, Miss Peach my Persian, began eating the loose strings on one shipment. It must have had something on it as it smelled like brown vinegar. I tried to catch her eating it and pull it out of her, but she got sick and the vet is still laughing. She had a huge ball of that thread in her stomach and had to have an expensive operation to get it out. The vet still has the ball of thread in a jar.

caspharm

Definitely need to be aware of things. My son and his cat lived with us for a while. While she seemed to ignore pins and thread, she did try to use a quilt on my Innova as a hammock. To her and our surprise (mainly due to the noise she made), the quilt came off the rollers (I use Red Snappers) and dropped onto the underlying table. Boy, did she rocket away.

Now I am going to have to revisit safety issues in my room and the house, because we are planning to get a couple of kittens in the next month or so. Unfortunately, the way our house is set up, I cannot keep them out of my quilting studio (i.e. formerly the formal LR/DR of our house), since there are no walls or doors to separate it from the rest of the house.

carolynjo

y sister had a favorite cat who loved nothing better than picking the pins out of her pin cushion and dropping them on the table next to her chair. She was too lazy to put the pin cushion away, but fortunately he never ingested any of the pins.

klswift

I have a long magnet wand (very reasonable at a home building store). Whenever in doubt, I run it along the carpet by my machine. So much easier than trying to see pins and needles. Also, years ago a friend showed me a trick he did with his stereo equipment and I applied it to my workroom. He purchased lengths of PVC pipe and cut a slit in it. He then ran all the cords from the plug to the back of his cabinet. This kept them hidden from view, hidden from little teeth and they didn't get tangled. In one I have my machines' cords, my bobbin winder and an extension cord that I plug the Iron into when I am using it. Another has the assorted cords to the computer and the stereo. My walls are white and the pipe is white so it blends right in. The one for the computer has an elbow in it and hooks to the wall so it goes up behind the table.

tessagin

It's nice also just so they don't tangle with others. You now how cord spaghetti can get.