Wednesday, January 9, 2008

9 Lives

Today I was going to post a picture of a hummingbird crochet applique that I just made but my husband has forgotten our digital camera in the vacation trailer which is about two hours away. Now I have to wait until this weekend before I can get the camera to take pictures of some of my new creations. So today I will write about one of my rescued animals. Boca Raton is a cat I found alone in the front yard of an abandoned house one year and a half ago. He was still a kitten at the time but not such a young one. He was morbidly skinny and was breathing very strangely. He breathed very rapidly and with each breath his stomach inflated instead of his chest. So wierd. His mouth was crooked and he drooled a lot. Each person that passed received a warm greeting and "meow". Strange for a street cat. Ferile cats usually run away from people or attack if you somehow corner them. Long story short, the vet found that his lungs were pushed back towards his rear and into a restricted space next to his stomach. His intestines had spilled into his chest cavity and therefore his heart was squished over too far to the side and producing even more pressure on his lungs. This condition was most likely from being hit by a car. Since he had somehow survived and managed to heal more or less on his own. I decided not to spend any money on a costly operation to correct the problem. I just let him live at my house and fed him. He gets along well with the other dogs and cats. (He doesn't even hold a grudge against the labrador mix who welcomed him into our home by grabbing him by the scruff of the next and ran around the yard playing "keep away" with the other dogs. About a month ago, early summer in Cordoba, and the birds are pretty aggressive at this time of year. The chicks are starting to jump from their nests and the parents are on constant radar. No being is safe, especially cats who have a bad reputation with the birds. Well, I don't thing Boca Raton was stalking chicks, he spends most of his time just trying to breath and trys not to exert himself. We suspect he must have been on the roof and a bird attacked him and in his escape he fell and didn't land on his feet. Or maybe he was escaping the attack and got hit by a car. All we know is that we found him in the yard bleeding profusely from the mouth and with peck marks on his head. One really bad one next to his eye. A desperate rush to the vet, IV, one week hospital stay and the inevitable operation on his intestines and lungs to put them back in place. At this point he could hardly breath so the alternative was either operate or put him to sleep. So Boca Raton (the spanish translation of "rat mouth" and inspired somehow by his crooked mouth) has definitely used up a few of his lives. Here is a picture two days after the operation. Once I get the digital camera I will publish some "now" photos. He is now happy, gaining weight, breathing easier, still lies around all day, and still greets passing strangers with a friendly "meow".






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