We had a scare with Pickles today. He was sunning himself in the window and rolled over the vertical blinds and got caught.

Normally when they play, the connector breaks from the blinds and they can escape, but when Pickles rolled over, he tied the string around his leg and couldn't escape. I ran over to help him and couldn't undo it as it was too tight. Shane was out the back and I was screaming for him to come and help while trying to hold Pickles to stop him tightening it further. Poor little Pickles was in a blind panic and squealing like mad. Shane cut the string with a knife and Pickles went into hiding. Thank goodness he didn't break or dislocate his leg during his struggle.

I didn't realise until later that I have more than 20 cuts and bite marks on my hands and arms. And several bruises (no idea how I got those). Pickles is covered in splotches of my blood.

We are sharing antiseptic wash now; me for my arms and him for his ringworm ... We are leaving the curtain strings disconnected so it can't happen again. I suppose the moral is if you have verticals, just double check that they disconnect easily, especially if you have a new cat who isn't used to them