Tuesday, July 01, 2008

House Cat for the Night

We arrived back from Devon late on Saturday night, having successfully driven Burt across the country to his new home without incident, bar a little detour which nearly saw us in Wales, and the seeing the sights in Slough...

Tim went off to work early yesterday morning, and came back around lunch time to say that a kitten was wandering around the school miaowing at anything that looked human. The workman had fed it, but still it miaowed. Stick thin, and emancipated, I took it back to the house fed it some tuna and milk. It ate, drank and disappeared.
A few hours later, Tim was back with the cat. He had some people he knew look at it, who were a veterinary nurse and long-time keeper of cats. They explained the cat was actually very old, possibly 17 or 18 years old. It was senile and most likely deaf. And had probably been outside for a few days; you can tell this apparently from the shiny coat. It was seriously dehydrated, and if you pinched his skin it would stay pinched. The fact he wouldn't drink water, only milk, made us think that maybe an old lady was his owner. But of course whilst it had been outside it had been turning it's nose up at water and getting dehydrated. All that and it had a cyst on his side too.

The poor thing was lost. A couple of people had gone round all the local houses, believing the cat couldn’t have strayed far in it’s condition, but no one claimed ownership. But then with the old lady theory, we wondered if his owner had maybe passed away, and the cat left abandoned.

And so not wanting to leave the little mite outside, where it would have had to fend of foxes and stronger cats, Tim had bought him back to ours.

Photobucket

The next morning we found him barely moving, he’d been ill during the night, and had made a bit of mess. But still he seemed to be ok and happy to see us.

I said my goodbyes, he followed me to the door, I had to leave for work. Tim then took him to the local vets, who took care of him and then passed him to the RSPCA. We’ve had regular updates from the RSCPA. Unfortunately his prognosis was not good, with possibly only weeks to live. His owners haven't been traced yet.

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