Another Cat Injury

Why do we take in cats? We just have too many. My favorite little Rip was on the bed snoozing with us and an hour later he was snoozing in the porch area with some blood on his leg. He is a friendly one (quite lovey) so I went to him to take a closer look. What I saw was a chicken leg! His skin was sliced and I was looking at muscle. What the @#&$ happened? I immediately put him in a crate and headed off to the Cabo Rojo Animal Hospital. Rip plays a lot with the other cats and plays rough so I thought maybe it was a play/fight gone wild. Just before I found him I heard something (not yowling though) and found a large palm leaf had fallen. Could he have gotten freaked out, jumped off the balcony onto the palm and dislodged a leaf? Maybe, but how did he get cut? Another cat? My suspicion is barbed wire. It looked like a puncture and then slice similar to what Princess had 3 years ago under her arm. Whatever it was I did not want it to get infected and it needed to be closed up so off we went. The vet took a look and figured it was play fighting - they peck at eat other and a tooth may have gotten caught and torn the skin...yes it can slice it cleanly. I wanted it cleaned up and then wanted to see it before they did anything (actually I prefer to watch the surgeries but they don't allow that). He put Rip under sedation and took a closer look. He called me in and I could see the puncture and then some little slices in the muscle too. Not really deep. He thought it had to be cyclone fencing...it wasn't a cat peck. This isn't far fetched...maybe he was chased by an unknown cat or dog and dipped under the fence and snagged his leg but kept running! The vet had to sew up the muscle tears, sew up the skin on the inside and I had him do some "insurance" stitches on the outside since he races around and jumps and climbs and plays a lot. So here he is fixed up.

In the states when your pet has surgery you don't get them back until they are conscious and have eaten, crapped and pissed. In Puerto Rico nothing is hidden....everything is how it is. Furniture has all its packaging, food is all wrapped up in cellophane and styrofoam and your pet looks dead in its carrier and stays that way for hours. He was conscious in around 3 hours and the trick now was to keep him calm.


He was snoozing in his carrier and the other cats came around and hissed or smelled. Stripes put out a paw and pushed Rip's leg and was freaked when he didn't move. I don't know if they have enough smarts to wonder about whether he is dead or not. We kept him inside (and the others out in the porch area only - they didn't like the change of routine) and he pretty quickly was running around as if nothing had happened. After 2 1/2 days I couldn't stand his wanting out, and I wanted to open the shutters and get the breezes through the house so I let him out. I knew he'd be hanging around and I'd be able to give him his antibiotics. So for 98 bucks I've got a healthy cat again. Why do we have them? Joy. There is joy in that sack of guts and a lot of personality too. Here's another subject. Raw food. I got a ring mold and made lunch in it. I took the ring and stacked avocado from the yard (we have more than we need), a cashew "cheese," roma tomatoes from the yard, more cheese, sun dried tomatoes (from a jar) and more avocado topped with Dulse (seaweed). It was very yummy and pretty healthy I believe!