Homeless Cat -- Now Spotacus' Legacy
On 18 Dec, a very large cat showed up at our house. It was late and cold, and he looked in the door and made it clear he wanted inside. Well, since we have two cats already and he was a stranger, we...
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The rains are not relentless here at the lake, just off and on. Upriver, however, they're having rat nasty flash flooding. As of today, the lake is five feet over full, so the Corps of Engineers started releasing yesterday, at a rate that will lower the lake but not flood anyone downriver.
Goggles Jr. showed up today at the south porch. He's a six-pointer clearly descended from the gorgeous buck who sired Leoghaire and other does. His rack is too small for him to be legally hunted -- not that it stops the poachers around here, who are hunting on lands not large enough for said hunting to be legal. But since he seems to like hanging around on our property and the property immediately to the south of us, where no one hunts, he might survive long enough to sire more beautiful whitetail. He's not particularly afraid of humans right now, but I don't know if that's because someone's feeding him or because it's the rut and the other head is in control...
A very small doe was with him, eating frantically. Her left rear leg is damaged and she can barely walk on it. Her ribs were showing. She was not even interested in looking at us, just eating, so I guess she's been down where she couldn't eat and now that she's up, she's making up for it.
So that was the nice stuff that happened. The bad news is that Spotacus is very, very sick. He's been lethargic the last few days. Today, he was so withdrawn from interacting with us that we took him to the vet. They just telephoned. Spotacus has an abdominal mass of some kind. He also has a mild bladder infection, but no stones, so they did a catheter to relieve his bladder. Lots of poop he hasn't been expressing, probably because of the mass and full bladder being in the way, so they're giving him an IV to re-hydrate him and move the poo. We'll pick him up this evening. Monday, he'll get a sonogram or ultrasound (I forget which) to figure out where that mass actually is -- the vet doesn't think it's attached to kidneys or bladder (kidney workup was normal). Once we know what we're dealing with, we'll take the route that's best for Spotacus' overall quality of life.
We normally have very, very long lived male cats, so for Spotacus to be this sick at only nine years old is freaking me out. The house feels wrong without him here. And it's awful hard to see the screen right now.
Later, ya'll.
Goggles Jr. showed up today at the south porch. He's a six-pointer clearly descended from the gorgeous buck who sired Leoghaire and other does. His rack is too small for him to be legally hunted -- not that it stops the poachers around here, who are hunting on lands not large enough for said hunting to be legal. But since he seems to like hanging around on our property and the property immediately to the south of us, where no one hunts, he might survive long enough to sire more beautiful whitetail. He's not particularly afraid of humans right now, but I don't know if that's because someone's feeding him or because it's the rut and the other head is in control...
A very small doe was with him, eating frantically. Her left rear leg is damaged and she can barely walk on it. Her ribs were showing. She was not even interested in looking at us, just eating, so I guess she's been down where she couldn't eat and now that she's up, she's making up for it.
So that was the nice stuff that happened. The bad news is that Spotacus is very, very sick. He's been lethargic the last few days. Today, he was so withdrawn from interacting with us that we took him to the vet. They just telephoned. Spotacus has an abdominal mass of some kind. He also has a mild bladder infection, but no stones, so they did a catheter to relieve his bladder. Lots of poop he hasn't been expressing, probably because of the mass and full bladder being in the way, so they're giving him an IV to re-hydrate him and move the poo. We'll pick him up this evening. Monday, he'll get a sonogram or ultrasound (I forget which) to figure out where that mass actually is -- the vet doesn't think it's attached to kidneys or bladder (kidney workup was normal). Once we know what we're dealing with, we'll take the route that's best for Spotacus' overall quality of life.
We normally have very, very long lived male cats, so for Spotacus to be this sick at only nine years old is freaking me out. The house feels wrong without him here. And it's awful hard to see the screen right now.
Later, ya'll.
