Cat Mishaps and Veterinary Bills

Part of pet ownership is taking care of the animals in your possession. Our 12+ year old, little 7 and 1/2 pound cat is basically a DIY type cat-feral with almost anyone to the point of clawing to get away except with our family and my dad. (She behaves at the vet's office if we participate in holding her.) It took us three months just to catch her to have her spayed and when we moved ten years or so ago we didn't know if she'd stick around the new home. She's caught everything from mice and rats to a hummingbird that she had to show off before the death chomp. She rarely gets into fights with other cats-usually seeking to get away. Well, this time she wasn't so fortunate. Our vet thinks the other cat bit her in her right hind paw, judging from the three deep puncture wounds he found. The bite quickly became infected and we took her in after a few days of noticing it was not getting better-without know what was wrong other than her foot was swollen.They initially cleaned all the gunk out from her foot, put in a couple of drain shunts with bandaging and paired it with the oh so chic collar. They said she was a really sweet cat (Are they talking about our cat ?!?!?-She can behave when she knows she's hurt.) Throw in several follow-up visits, a couple of bottles of antibiotics and more bandages before she was finally healed enough for the bandages and collar to come off after a very long three weeks of having our outdoor cat inside.

She's like an outdoor dog-meows at the door to go out and rarely wants to be in more than an hour or so unless it is freezing with blowing snow drifts. It was just in time since she figured out a not so cute contortionist act of stretching her neck out of the collar to reach her extended foot so that she could chew off the bandage during the last 3-4 days of recovery. That's when we started slapping on a bandage ourselves with the home first aid kit of triple antiobiotic, a pad, cotton gauze wrap and first aid adhesive tape.

Her paw will never be exactly as aesthetically pretty as before but the wound is healed beautifully and she started purring loudly when we took off the collar.

Recovered cat with her casual, non-interested look, imitated by Eva-just hanging out together as Eva was reading a Garfield cartoon book from the library. By the way, our vet is really reasonable-the whole episode was only around $250 on the high end-but most places would have charged about three times as much. They are professional and caring at the Millcreek Veterinary Clinic. Dr. Foster has been our veterinarian for a long time now.