I wonder if I am 3% Irish just like Barack.
It's been an interesting last week. I guess the most important event has been the attempted capture of one of the kitties that I feed at one of the feral colonies. This kitty is not feral and probably very adoptable as he's always let me pet him during my feedings. But he was outside and has his ear tipped/clipped (which means he has been neutered so that no Animal Control Officer can pick him up) and hangs around one of the feral colonies. Well, last Tuesday I didn't see him. And then on Wednesday I didn't see him. Two days of not seeing him made me worry a little as he was always the first kitty to greet me. By Thursday I saw him which took a weight off my chest but I immediately noticed he was limping. I looked closer and his right back foot was mangled, bloody and swolen. I knew that I needed to somehow get him to a vet, but I didn't have a cat carrier with me. So, I attempted to pick him up, which actually worked a lot better than I had expected, and tried to just put him in my car. I didn't know how tame he really was. Well, he let me pick him up and carry him, but once I got close to the car, he started freaking out. So I let him go and decided I would try to go home, get a carrier, and go back to try and get him. When I got back with the carrier, he was no where to be found. Every one of the other kitties was still around, but the hurt tabby boy was gone. So, I left the carrier out there and came home to try again the next day.
Friday came and I went out to the site and the tabby boy wanted nothing to do with me. He wouldn't even come close enough for me to pet him. Cats are so smart!! He knew something was up and even though he was hurting, he wasn't about to let me put him in a cage! Then a train came by across the street and blew it's horn and he took off.
Saturday the other lady that takes care of the cats fed them and said she did not see the tabby boy. She was hoping that she would be able to trap him and bring him to the vet, but that kitty was not around.
On Sunday, I went out to the site pretty late (around 4:30p) and all kitties were very ready to eat, except for the tabby boy which was no where to be found again. I started to really worry about him and was hoping that his foot wasn't infected and he wasn't getting really sick somewhere.
Yesterday, Monday, came and tabby boy was back ready to eat. He let me pet him again and I tried to get another good look at his foot. It was looking like the top two puncture wounds had healed, but he was still limping on it. So I knew he was still hurting. I poured some food out and let him eat while I was petting him. I got the cat carrier ready to go and was petting him when my cell phone rang in my pocket! This noise terrified him and that was the end of trying to get him on Monday.
Today I was hoping that he would be around when I fed, and would allow me to pet him. I also had the other lady let me borrow one of her feral cat traps to try and trap him if he wasn't being friendly. When I got to the site, he was hobbling around and happy to see me. I placed a little food in the cat carrier and after petting him for a few strokes, I picked him up, scruffed his neck, and placed him feet first into the carrier. I felt such success when I closed that door!! I finished feeding the rest of the cats and took him to the vet.
Poor little guy was so scared driving in the carrier. He was scratching the sides of the carrier trying to escape, but he was better than my kitties which would have been screaming the whole time too. Once I got to the vet (which was the other lady's vet that works with a cat rescue group so they give good discounts) they sedated the little boy and took a look at his foot. The wounds weren't full of puss which was a good thing, but his foot was still hairless, swollen and punctured. While he was completely passed out, they gave him two shots (one that was an antibiotic and one that was an anti-swelling agent), they tested him for FIV and Feline Leukemia, they weighed him (he was a whopping 7.15 pounds...3 pounds less than my smallest cat), and checked to see if his foot felt broken. All in all, he was doing pretty well. He tested negative for FIV/FeLeuk meaning he could come home with me, and the vet didn't think his foot was broken.
About 10 minutes after getting him off of the sedating gas, he started waking up. I brought him home, set up one of the spare bedrooms as his "healing room" with a box with towels, good food, clean water and a litter box, and then let him out. He went straight to the box and laid down. Poor little guy is so scared. My cats were interested in the new cat smell for all of like 5 minutes and since then they have left the room alone. The last time I went back in there he was back in the cat carrier huddled in a corner. I'm hoping that by tomorrow he will start being comfortable with his surroundings enough that he will get himself a good meal and a nice drink of water. I'm not sure how the whole little box experience is going to go, but we are going to give it a try. Who knows? Maybe he'll use it the first time. He has a pill antibiotic that he will be on for the next 10 days so I'm definitely going to leave him in that room for that amount of time. If he seems to be not minding the indoors, I probably will not put him back outside. I will have to find him a good, indoor home somewhere.
Now, he needs a name. I think I'll leave that up to Mike since he always tries to rename the cats we already have and they are always dumb names. This way, I won't be stuck with a stupid named cat forever (minus Stumpey who I did not name but is still named a stupid name).
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