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[canuckistan]

This is cat story, specifically how tough they are when it comes to exsanguination and general bodily injuries.

These are my cats Baboo and Sweetie at my property north of Montreal:


Sweety has a ginked-up ear because I found him frozen into a sidewalk in winter as a very small kitten. Touch and go for a week, the vet said he was probably cooked, but he survived. He has other tissue damage on his side that froze. His name is Sweetie because he really is the sweetest cat in the world. Quite the naughty little scalliwag too.



One day I was working on the roof of the cabana when I saw Sweetie sauntering down a path away from the house. I didn't usally let either cats out before dawn or at dusk because of the wild animals. Well the little scalliwag somehow got out at dusk while I was on the roof.
20 minutes later I hear very loud cat screaming--bad stuff, as if you have pets you know what sounds like distress and what doesn't.
I got down off the roof as fast as I could, grabbed the axe and started yelling/running to where I saw him go near the lake. Then I saw his cousin Bob the bobcat basically trying to kill him and I threw the axe at Bob. My intention was not to hit him but to scare him off. No need, once it saw me it spat my cat out and took off. 30 more seconds and Sweetie would have surely been cooked.

Well Sweetie was *beeped* up pretty good. Full of bites/punctures around his neck and stomach, bleeding, couldn't stand up. Just meowed his little meow while looking at me. I was pretty freaked out because my cabana is in the middle of nowhere. No matter, I picked him up and brought him to the cabin, put him in a box and drove like a bat out of hell to the nearest town 40 minutes away. Almost broke the vet's door down banging on it (luckily, he lived next door to his practice). By this time Sweetie wasn't doing well at all. Vet said 50/50 chance of not being paralyzed by the morning because the bobcat's teeth had gone into his brain somewhat and may have crushed a vertebrae in his neck. Sweetie's eye was all wonky and pointing in the worng direction too--from a tooth that had mucked up the optic nerve.
Well after a nail biter of a night, he lived...and he wasn't paralyzed! The vet said his eye may or may not right itself after a while (it did). He still couldn't stand up from loss of blood and pulled muscles from struggling. Took him home and after a few days of raw liver (for iron) he was doing much better and standing:



A couple of weeks after the bobcat incident I had him neutered because he was getting to that point in cat life.

Then two weeks later while back in Montreal I hear a cat scream in the evening next door. Didn't think much of it as it wasn't that loud. The next day I couldn't find Sweetie. I looked and called all over until finally I heard a pathetic little meow coming from under my bed! Sweetie emerged slowly very obviously *beeped* up again. I tried to pick him up and he yowled in pain. No external marks were on him...what the hell? But I knew he was in a very bad way. Off to the vet I went with Sweetie again. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with him--they thought his pancreas might be failing--was this somehow related to the bobcat incident? I went home while they had him under observation and ran some tests.
A short while later they called me saying he was failing fast and they were going to do exploratory surgery. I got to the vet's and they were shaving his belly--it was black and blue. He'd sustained some sort of trauma to his stomach. Then it clicked and I figured it out. My neighbour was horrible and hated cats.
I'd seen him kick one in his backyard before--I got angry at him for that, gave him a good yell.
Sweetie lost another pile of blood, his spleen, and one kidney was on the same side as the other because he'd been kicked so violently. There was a lot of damage to try to repair.

The vet told me low chance of survival after surgery--too much damage and blood loss. He did the best he could and sewed him up. And this was just a month after the bobcat incident and 2 weeks after being neutered.

Another nail biter evening--this one more depressing.
In the mean time I went to have a chat with my neighbour, who actually tried to make excuses for kicking the cat so viciously....and this time I didn't yell, I just pounded the crap out of him instead which wasn't difficult as I was the most angry I think I've ever been in my life, and, I'd just come off 2 months of construction up north.

Ok so I got into a bit of trouble for pounding my neighbour, but in the end nothing came of it---I think he was too ashamed at having been whooped by a girl and for the cruelty to animals thing to press charges.... I also brought a world of crap down on his head with the SPCA and the rest of the street, who were totally disgusted by him and worried for their pets. Pariah of the street.
I thought about getting a nice, big pet lion and sending that into his yard--hey bud, kick this!!!


Well quite incredibly, Sweetie survived again!!! He had a big scar running up the whole length of his belly and the fluff around his neck from the bobcat thing 4 weeks earlier hadn't even grown back--I'm sure his neutered nuts still didn't feel right either:


So you've got to wonder, how much can an animal take?

A couple of months later I got ready to go to Korea and my mom took custody of Baboo and Sweetie.
After a few months in Korea she confessed to me that Sweetie had been hit by a van and broken his pelvis...but he was alright again!!!

Since then he's either gotten smarter or luckier--no more incidents to speak of--knock wood.

After all that, the most incredible part is that he's STILL the sweetest, most good-natured cat in the world

[jinglejangle]

I'm so glad you beat that chicken sh!ts face for him.

Once you said you went and talked to him I was afraid he was gonna start putting out poison or something. I think you did the best thing possible.

You have very lovely cats.

Although in that top picture they both look like little thugs.

[Bulsajo]

Based on that second to last pic, you should have renamed him Bill.




Have you been counting? How many lives does he have left?

[canuckistan]

That's 4 lives gone so far. 5 left.
I used to have a little expression for him, but I won't say it anymore out of superstition after my mom told me about the van accident...kind of like actors saying "that Scottish play."

[mithridates]

Kick your neighbour's ass again!
I like that picture of Sweetie on the steps.

[Yo!Chingo]

It's corny but you need to name him Lucky instead. I hope he gets pampered and kissed constantly b/c he's truly a miraculous cat to have survived all those issues!

[animalbirdfish]

I'm more of a dog person, but that cat gets my mad respect. Tough old bugger, that one.

[RACETRAITOR]

That was a pretty intense story. I'm glad my cat has never experienced anthing as awful as that.

[ThePoet]

I first saw her from about 40 yards away. She was a beautiful little thing. Her fur was a tawny brown with small splotches of gold around her chest and face. Her paws were white. Most would have no doubt that she was an ordinary moggie and I would have to agree. She was no part purebred whatsoever. She was dainty and small and oh, so ornamental like a charm for a bracelet. She sat outside my apartment building and cleaned and preened herself as if she had caught a mouse and had finished it, but there was no blood on her spotless coat. She certainly seemed small against the giant of winter that was upon us.

I remember it was cold that day. The thermometer said it was -30 and the hoarfrost covered everything in sight. It was cold but it was very beautiful. If I had a camera I would have taken a picture but even that would not have done justice to the scene. A painting could never have captured the hues and subtle nuances of reflected prismatic light on the snow. There was the cat, dark and auspicious while all around her was a blanket of white, broken only by little hedge limbs sticking out here and there. Every once in a while a bough had leaned over and made a natural alcove. Here and there, little tiny caves made by tree and Ice tempted the young explorer ghosts who seek new adventures and shelters. Against the apartment lay a row of such hedges and I thought about how much beauty they added to the apartment building wall. The sun was already setting as I was coming home and the shadows made everything loom large against her like ghosts trying unsuccessfully to scare her and make her run away. In sharp contrast, the lights of the inside of the building cast her shadow in the other direction, like a tiger battling the ghosts for control of her destiny.

She stopped preening herself as I approached and then she stood up. She stretched two ways. First like a Halloween cat with her back arched and paws scrunched close and then she reversed direction and made herself long and short. She opened her mouth and the little visible air that escaped with it carried a greeting of a cat to a man. The high pitched, friendly meowing told me that I was expected to stop and stroke her fur and let her know how pleasant she was.

I bent over and scratched her ears and gave her a nice petting and she let me know how much she appreciated it by rolling her head into my hand and rubbing her chin against my finger. Then, each time I ran my hand along her back she would arch her tail up and try to keep contact for as long as possible. She stropped my legs and made a big production of our greeting. I think she liked me a lot. I had to admit, if my apartment weren't a no-pets place I would have taken her inside right there and then. I longed for company myself and was in need of some loving kindness even if it was only a small little animal. She probably belonged to someone else anyway and they would, most likely, be very upset if she didn't come home that night.

I continued to pet her and tell her what a special girl she was and she began purring at me, letting me know that I wasn't too bad myself. She spread her whiskers as if to smile at me and I scratched her under her chin. I was starting to feel very cold and as much as I wanted to continue being with her I had to get inside or my fingers would start to get frostbite. I explained to her, as if she could understand, that I had to go now and that maybe she should go home. She rolled onto her back at my feet and rubbed against my shins even harder, like she knew. I patted her one more time and straightened up. I walked to the door and she stood behind me looking perplexed, and maybe a little hurt, at my leaving. Then when I had gotten the apartment door open she started walking towards me but I knew I couldn't let her in. I closed the door quickly with an admonishment to her to go on home!

I was grateful to get inside at last. As was my habit I wore running shoes all the time and they just weren't cutting it against the cold, even in the short, three block, walk I had taken to get home. My apartment was warm and I quickly thawed out. I had a very nice supper that night and went to bed warm and cozy and happy that I had had some friendship that afternoon. The next morning my breakfast was perfect and, after a leisurely time to get ready I prepared to return outside for my daily walk back to work. I stepped outside and it seemed even colder this morning than it was last night. I thought of the little friend I made last night and wondered when I would see her again.

Then as I turned my back towards the street to ward off the wind I did see her. She was lying in one of the alcoves, her paws tucked under her and she was resting her head on a clump of dirt. I called to her and there was no response. She was frozen to that spot and she was as hard as ice. She could have been warm and loved with me and I knew she wanted inside last night. While I stayed warm and comfortable she had died slowly outside, not 20 feet from my window. I guess she had no place else to go so winter took her in and made her his own.

[captain kirk]

Awesome story. Can't believe that neighbour kicking cats.

We had a family cat that lived with us for 13 years. One night it came in from 40 below, after scratching at the door, and the tip of one ear fell off onto the carpet. It also used to get into fights alot and kick the butt of cats.
Kinda miss that cat. I tell kid-students about our family having a cat that lived in the house and they think that's reallly weird. Like having a pet bat or something.

[Yo!Chingo]

[Bo Peabody]

That was an awesome story, Canuckistan!

[SuperFly]

THATS NO CAT!

That thing could kick the shit out of my dog for christs sake.

[jinglejangle]

[canuckistan]