Conference misery::feline_v1

28.0. "Out of my hands" by WARLRD::JELICH () Thu Jul 26 1984 18:05

One of the kittens in the litter I got my Shadow from went through the
following problems.  As she wasn't my cat, I wasn't at liberty to do
too much about it.  Here is the tales of Nero Mudfoot (the black).

Before the litter was weened, momma tried to move the litter outside.
Only two got moved (then moved back by the owners). Mudfoot was one.
Shortly thereafter, she balooned up. Her appetite was fine, she still
played, but her body was 2 to 3 times its normal size.  Th owners
never took her to a vet. (any guesses as to what happened. We still
don't know)  The effect eventually decreased and she went back to normal
(except for a small bubble feeling near her tail).  When the new owner
took her, he let her outside very often (his response to 'she has fleas'
was to toss her out the door).  Soon, she lost all of her fuzz( it looked
strange to see skin amidst the longer fur) and had these red bugs nesting
between her eyes (are these the mites mentioned in a previous note?).
Happily, he had to get rid of her when forced to move and the new owner
(who has two little girls) has taken care of the bug problem.  But
boy was it frustrating to not be able to do anything because 'she wasn't
my cat'.

    I know exactly how you feel!  There is a cat in our neighborhood
    named Levi that lives down the street from us.  He gets into alot
    of scuffles with the other cats and seems to get the worst of it.
    One day I noticed that he was developing a rather large abcess on
    the side of his face near his eye.  I assumed that his owners would
    take care of it for him.  The next day the abcess was even larger
    so I asked a neighborhood girl to show me where he lived.  I took
    Levi to his house and tried very diplomatically to talk to his owners
    about the abcess.  They were not happy with me.  They said he gets
    abcesses all the time and that they just wait until they burst and
    then go away by themselves.  I was horrified at their attitude.
    They said that he is not really their cat, they just feed him, and
    I should mind my own business.  At the time I already had 12 cats
    and couldn't take in another one.  I called the vet and he said
    that he couldn't treat the abcess without the owner's permission.
    My husband and I ended up taking care of Levi until his wound was
    all healed.  Needless to say, we don't have a very good relationship
    with his "owner's".
    
    Jo Ann