20 July 2004
Dog Bites Cat!
Early this morning, Sasha left my bed. He often enjoys a romp in the garden before breakfast. I was still sleeping when the phone began to ring. I grabbed a bathrobe and gurgled deliriously, "Heghlo?"
It was Bruce. "Uhm, is Sasha with you?"
"No...." The pause that followed was terrifying.
"There's an injured cat in the neighbor's yard and we think it may be him."
Our neighbor, Matt, was on his deck when I came outside, pointing to a corner of his yard, the yard where his two medium-sized dogs run around and make hungry eyes at the neighboring cats. I couldn't see into the corner, but calling Sasha's name drew a woeful reply.
Bruce and I walked around the corner and were admitted to the yard through a side gate. Sasha was huddled in the corner, filthy and bloody. Seeing me, he attempted to stand but merely wobbled, fell over, and wailed. Shit. Carefully, I slid my hands underneath him, rolled him into my arms, and carried him home. The large puncture wounds on his limbs said he'd tempted those dogs one too many times, and this time, they'd caught him before he could climb the fence. My cat is a ten-year-old tubby, not as agile as he used to be.
I made an appointment with the vet, put the unhappy cat in the tub, sponged him off as well as he would allow, then did my best to make him comfortable while I got dressed. His breathing was shallow and he could barely walk a few steps before collapsing. Bruce helpfully offered to drive us to the vet.
The vet kept Sasha all day, anesthetizing him, taking x-rays, administering fluids, shaving and cleaning his wounds, and installing drains and sutures. She also monitored his breathing; there was a bruise near one of his lungs. But no organ damage or broken bones—lucky kitty! Bruce and I occupied ourselves as well as we could before finally collecting the patient at the end of the day.
For a mere $800, I now have a shredded, swollen, seeping, doped-up, funnel-headed friend. A little more than that, in fact, because I couldn't resist buying him a couple of get-well gifts from the neighborhood pet shop: some salmon treats and a bit of voodoo in the form of a dog-shaped catnip toy. He's not ready for either of those, though; painkillers and exhaustion have rendered him limp.
Curiously, this is the second time in Sasha's life that he's had little rubber drains installed under his velvety pink skin.