Our outside cat, Tuck, returned last night, once again
wounded, hobbling with one leg lifted from an injury to his upper chest from
yet another fight with other ally cats.
This gray terror, however, loves us, if he is something of a
problem child and a risk to pet when he’s in pain or in the wrong mood.
He’s been terrorizing other neighborhood cats for several years
and has come back to our place more than once in such a condition.
But he’s just too temperamental for us to get into a cage
and take him to a vet, though we might have to engage him this time if the
swelling doesn’t go down soon.
I have an animal spray for open wounds, only I risk losing
one or more fingers when I attempt to apply it. I manage to get him to ingest
animal antibiotics from the local health food store, and I pat him down with
calm down ointment that allows him to sleep (he’s currently lying curled up at
my feet as I type).
But the most we can do is keep him comfortable, allow him to
use our bed when we’re not sleeping in it, and hope he will recover.
He hates being cooped up in the house, even though he’s an
aging alpha male, and can barely contend with the younger Turks that he once
could keep at bay with a growl.
Even wounded, he wants to go back out, only we won’t let
him.
We tried keeping him in the house all the time, allowing him
sole possession of my office and our bedroom on the second floor. But he protests
as if a scene from some prisoner of war movie, insisting we let him out. His
life is outdoors, even if it means fighting.
He’s staying in now only because I refuse to let him leave
until he’s healed. This, of course, means he may later be reluctant to come
back inside, figuring we might keep him in even when he’s healthy.
Most times, I let him out in the morning with the hopes he’ll
return before dark, and we can keep him safe during the night when it is most
likely he will engage in violent behavior.
This works up to a point. But the last time I let him out,
he stayed out all day and all night and most of yesterday, returning hobbling
and in pain.
If we can manage to get him to the vet, we will get him
fixed the way we did with his former chief adversary, Sweeney, who is a Norwegian
forest cat someone abandon and whom we belief Tuck beat up. Sweeney was easier
to handle and get to the vet, where we got him treatment and fixed, and now
lives downstairs, where he can glare at Tuck through the glass door from our
living room.
Sweeney, however, started out as a domestic cat; Tuck did
not.
Tuck is fierce and can be unpredictable. I’ve been bitten and
scratched more than once, although not recently, and he sometimes climbs on my
chest when I pet him, purrs and mothers – his long claws leaving marks on me he
doesn’t intend.
When in his current condition, he follows me from room to
room, and likes when I talk to him, as I am doing now, telling him what a great
cat he is, telling him how much I hope he will heal, and telling him sooner or
later we’re going to get him to the vet – regardless of how many of my fingers
he bites in the process.
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