Icy Jester

Posts Tagged ‘rat zapper’

New Cat In The House

There is a new cat in the house, say ‘hey’ to Yukio. He is about 1 year and a feisty male. We hope he will replace our need for a rat zapper ultra and how he came to live here is a story unto itself.

The neighbor decided to adopt two kittens last fall, a male and a female, though her landlord did not allow for pets. For the first few months, fall and winter, she kept the cats indoors, letting them out for the day and feeding them inside along with a place to sleep. In spring, her landlord discovered that she had two cats and threatened to evict her over the issue. The neighbor girl told the landlord she would get rid of the cats but what she did is condemn them to be outdoor cats. Yeah, I know, the use of ‘condemn’ is commentary but hey, my spiel – my rules and I think domestic cats are meant to live indoors, even more important here because the climate. I will give her kudos though for providing food for the cats.

Well, add to the lack of an indoor environment was the lack of veterinary care. Neither cat had been given shots nor spayed and neutered. For a male cat that means he will be roaming further from home and be a more aggressive cat. If you have had cats before then you already know that means trouble on the horizon.

For all of this summer, during the daytime both cats would come over and lie down in the bushes out back as the neighbors yard has no foliage to provide shade. We got familiar with both and noticed that the male was more friendly with us; letting us approach and pet him but never approaching us for pets. It got to be a regular site by July to see them in the morning and giving him a morning scratch under the chin before getting on with the day.

A few weeks back, I noticed that the male wasn’t around one morning and mentioned it to K. She has the neighbor girls email address for her phone and dropped her a note mentioning that we hadn’t seen the cat. She replied that she had seen him that morning at her back door and he looked like he had been in an accident involving a car. Both K and I went looking for him figuring that if he were still alive, the kindest thing to do would be to take him to a vet, fully aware that we might have to have him euthanized.

Well, we found him and he looked like he had been through hell. His coat on his torso and tail was covered with diarrhea, both his eyes were dilated and dripping liquid down his cheeks, and his mouth and nose were covered with diarrhea because he had tried to clean himself.

We found him and I picked him up so we could put him in a pet carrier. Unfortunately, at the same moment, the other neighbor started up his lawn mower and the cat clawed his way out of my grasp and ran away. Both K. and I looked for him over the rest of the afternoon but could not find him again. You might be asking yourself at this point, what about the neighbor who owned the cat…why wasn’t she looking for him. Eh, she didn’t want to deal with the stress, if the cat died then she had one less problem to deal with. Sounds mean but that is my guess.

Since we couldn’t find him that day by late evening we had concluded that he had probably died from his injuries. We felt relieved and dismayed; relieved that he was out of pain but dismayed at the thought of his suffering that he went through all day.

The next day, still with a bit of hope, we began looking for him again but never found him. That evening, he showed up on the back porch; looking like he was on his last breath. K. and Spearchucker packed him up and took him to the vet. It was there that we learned his left cheek had been broken.

The vet got him stabilized and said the cat could be saved so he was brought back home. The following Monday, we took him to the vet and she put him under, re-aligned the palette as best she could and sent him on his way. He spent the week holed up with me in my bedroom; we didn’t want him roaming the house encountering our other cats because he had not yet received his shots. Add to that he still has his balls so he might start a fight with the others.