A Bad Blog for Cats
I haven't posted in a long time for a couple of reasons. The happy reason is because Mungus is on a Weekend Warrior tour to prepare for something larger in the Fall. (I'll post more about Mungus Adventures in the next blog.) The sad stuff is the subject of this post.
Elektra, the cat I was so worried about a month back, died. More specifically I took her to the vet to be euthanized. She was too weak to move at this point and not interested in food at all, so she just laid there while the vet shaved her neck and gave her a shot. There was barely any change between her living and her dying. It was heartbreaking.
I elected to leave her to be cremated so I would have an easier time burying her. I'm not being melodramatic when I say that leaving her at the vet was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
I shouldn't have looked in the box when I picked her up.
So now she's sitting in a little plastic container on my kitchen counter waiting for me to get it together enough to drive out to the back of the property and bury her. I'm still saving my sausage for her whenever I have a piece of pizza because I know she'll eat that. Then I remember, and I give the saved bits to one of the dogs.
In less deathy news (but still pretty upsetting) a couple of our outdoor cats were attacked by something over the weekend.*1 Our two male orange tabbies got hit, though Abraham, the smaller of the two, was able to get away before any serious damage occurred. Monty was not so lucky. Monty's a twenty-two pound, six ounce cat with one eye covered in scar tissue (he's had that since he was a kitten) and the disposition of the cowardly lion. His defense is to lay down and communicate, "I SWEAR I am not a threat!" Sometimes he'll try to run but as he doesn't have any speed, he goes with the belly-showing thing. It didn't work.
He didn't look too torn up: he just looked like one of my dogs had drooled water onto his back causing one area to spike up. Abraham had cuts on his nose and was shell-shocked so I paid more attention to him. When I started making over Monty I discovered one large patch of hair was missing and another area was covered with claw marks. When Amy took a look at him she found a frighteningly deep cut by his shoulders that was already beginning to drain.
I took him to the vet this morning where he received a two week antibiotic shot and a rabies vaccination. When Dr. Albert shaved around the wounds she said it looked like he'd been grabbed by a dog, but that other wounds looked like they'd been made by a cat.*2 I suggested Chupacabra. Dr. Albert pointed out the amount of flea dirt on him and I said he didn't have fleas (I'd been treating him), I just hadn't brushed him for summer yet. When she offered to shave him down I said Yes! Monty's always been a dirty cat, and with his girth he's not actually able to reach everything, so having much less hair could only be a good thing. I'm glad we did shave him: we found another deep hole on his chest opposite the hole on his back that had to be cleaned. Something big had grabbed ahold of him and tried to kill him. We also noticed scratches and missing hair at the skin level not caused by the clippers that shed more light on just what an ordeal he'd been through.
He's home now and stomping around in the backyard with Amy's dog Scout to protect him.*3 He's been bathing a bit and eating (food is his Safe Place... as if his size didn't tell you that already). I hope whatever it was doesn't come back because either Scout, Freyja (one of our livestock dogs), or I will kill it. You don't fuck with Monty.
~Benjamin
1) They're outside cats because they like to pee on everything, and if you pee all over a computer in this house you get moved out to the barn or the garage. I hate that they're out there because I worry something like this will happen, but we can't live in a house covered in pee.
2) My guess is that after he was attacked by the dog he came tear-assing it back into the backyard and was met by Nuriko, our uberBarnCat. He's a little schizy and after hearing the noise from the attack (it was just before dawn and woke me up) was ready for a fight. Monty probably ran at him to get into the garage and Nuriko let him have it. If Monty ever fought back the other animal would be destroyed: he's freakishly strong. He never does, though.
3) Scout doesn't like anything in her yard that's not supposed to be there. She just offed the Proto-Squirrel (the largest male squirrel in the northern hemisphere) and has no time for critters attacking her cats. When Monty got out of the carrier (and after he'd eating some wet food -- hey, I felt guilty about what I'd put him through at the vet and I know what he likes) she came over, sniffed him, and licked his wounds. The backyard is safe.
I haven't posted in a long time for a couple of reasons. The happy reason is because Mungus is on a Weekend Warrior tour to prepare for something larger in the Fall. (I'll post more about Mungus Adventures in the next blog.) The sad stuff is the subject of this post.
Elektra, the cat I was so worried about a month back, died. More specifically I took her to the vet to be euthanized. She was too weak to move at this point and not interested in food at all, so she just laid there while the vet shaved her neck and gave her a shot. There was barely any change between her living and her dying. It was heartbreaking.
I elected to leave her to be cremated so I would have an easier time burying her. I'm not being melodramatic when I say that leaving her at the vet was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
I shouldn't have looked in the box when I picked her up.
So now she's sitting in a little plastic container on my kitchen counter waiting for me to get it together enough to drive out to the back of the property and bury her. I'm still saving my sausage for her whenever I have a piece of pizza because I know she'll eat that. Then I remember, and I give the saved bits to one of the dogs.
In less deathy news (but still pretty upsetting) a couple of our outdoor cats were attacked by something over the weekend.*1 Our two male orange tabbies got hit, though Abraham, the smaller of the two, was able to get away before any serious damage occurred. Monty was not so lucky. Monty's a twenty-two pound, six ounce cat with one eye covered in scar tissue (he's had that since he was a kitten) and the disposition of the cowardly lion. His defense is to lay down and communicate, "I SWEAR I am not a threat!" Sometimes he'll try to run but as he doesn't have any speed, he goes with the belly-showing thing. It didn't work.
He didn't look too torn up: he just looked like one of my dogs had drooled water onto his back causing one area to spike up. Abraham had cuts on his nose and was shell-shocked so I paid more attention to him. When I started making over Monty I discovered one large patch of hair was missing and another area was covered with claw marks. When Amy took a look at him she found a frighteningly deep cut by his shoulders that was already beginning to drain.
I took him to the vet this morning where he received a two week antibiotic shot and a rabies vaccination. When Dr. Albert shaved around the wounds she said it looked like he'd been grabbed by a dog, but that other wounds looked like they'd been made by a cat.*2 I suggested Chupacabra. Dr. Albert pointed out the amount of flea dirt on him and I said he didn't have fleas (I'd been treating him), I just hadn't brushed him for summer yet. When she offered to shave him down I said Yes! Monty's always been a dirty cat, and with his girth he's not actually able to reach everything, so having much less hair could only be a good thing. I'm glad we did shave him: we found another deep hole on his chest opposite the hole on his back that had to be cleaned. Something big had grabbed ahold of him and tried to kill him. We also noticed scratches and missing hair at the skin level not caused by the clippers that shed more light on just what an ordeal he'd been through.
He's home now and stomping around in the backyard with Amy's dog Scout to protect him.*3 He's been bathing a bit and eating (food is his Safe Place... as if his size didn't tell you that already). I hope whatever it was doesn't come back because either Scout, Freyja (one of our livestock dogs), or I will kill it. You don't fuck with Monty.
~Benjamin
1) They're outside cats because they like to pee on everything, and if you pee all over a computer in this house you get moved out to the barn or the garage. I hate that they're out there because I worry something like this will happen, but we can't live in a house covered in pee.
2) My guess is that after he was attacked by the dog he came tear-assing it back into the backyard and was met by Nuriko, our uberBarnCat. He's a little schizy and after hearing the noise from the attack (it was just before dawn and woke me up) was ready for a fight. Monty probably ran at him to get into the garage and Nuriko let him have it. If Monty ever fought back the other animal would be destroyed: he's freakishly strong. He never does, though.
3) Scout doesn't like anything in her yard that's not supposed to be there. She just offed the Proto-Squirrel (the largest male squirrel in the northern hemisphere) and has no time for critters attacking her cats. When Monty got out of the carrier (and after he'd eating some wet food -- hey, I felt guilty about what I'd put him through at the vet and I know what he likes) she came over, sniffed him, and licked his wounds. The backyard is safe.