Q. I have a nagging question that I hope you can answer. A week before Easter (2005) my calico, Esmirelda was running through the house and jumped onto our radiator and fell behind it while playing with her 2-year-old kitten.

My husband and I were there to help her out right away, as she became lodged into this very narrow and tight area. Esmirelda was in a lot of pain, presumably because she was crying loudly. The only way we could think of getting her out was to pull her by the scruff of her neck up slowly to the top of the radiator. Esmirelda carried on so much with my husband's first attempt that he put her down and slowly tried again. After he got her out, we were petting her and trying to calm her down. With dilated pupils, she then released her bladder and before we knew it she died.

Was there anything we could have done differently? Is there a better way to get a cat out of a tight spot? I just keep thinking there was something different we could have done that may have spared her life. She was crying so horribly we didn't want to waste time and only thought of getting her out of the confined area.

We have since then purchased radiator covers for the house. We honestly never thought a cat would fall behind the radiator. The cats like to lie on the radiator for heat in the winter and we didn't realize it could be a potential hazard. Your advice is greatly appreciated.

A. I am so very sorry for your loss. Please accept my sincere condolences. From what you describe, I simply cannot think of anything that you could have done differently. I highly suspect that Esmirelda had an underlying cardiac disorder and the stress of this incident simply put her over the edge. Certainly pulling her up gently by the neck would not have caused her demise. This is a common [and safe] way to restrain frightened and fractious cats. You certainly could not just leave her there, so extracting her in the manner in which you did was perfectly sane.

I also suspect that whatever caused her demise would have become problematic (symptomatic) at some point even though she seemed normal to you at the time. A common cardiac disorder that does exactly this is called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). I have autopsied many relatively young cats that were found dead at home with no pre-illness signs, only to find they had very thickened heart musculature or HCM.

Page 1 | 2