One tough cat. Continue reading
In April 2021 Sue and I had two black male cats, Giacomo and Bob. Giacomo turned seventeen in November of 2020. Bob was much younger, but we don’t know his actual age. More information about both of them can be found here.
Bob had always been Sue’s cat. We had him for months before he would even allow me to touch him. During our unexpected time together during the pandemic he grew much more friendly. He even allowed me to pick him up a couple of times.
On Thursday, April 1, 2021, Bob had been lying on the rug in my office for most of the afternoon. This was unusual. Giacomo often slept there, but Bob generally seemed wary of being trapped in the office. He always tried to keep himself between me and the door. Perhaps he associated the office with flea drops, which he did not like. It was indeed the place in which I occasionally had surprised him by applying the monthly flea drops in the summer.
On this occasion he was about ten feet from the door, not far from my feet as I sat at my desk. I was working on one of my blog entries when Bob, whose vocalizations theretofore had been limited to very soft purrs, groans, and meows, let loose with what could best be described as a roar of pain. I could see that Bob was trying to rise to his feet, but his right rear leg would not function. He somehow managed to get up on three feet by leaning against a file cabinet. Every time that he tried to put weight on the sore leg, he screamed in agony. He made it as far as the doorway, where he flopped down on his side.
I called to Sue. She came in to try to give him some comfort. We did not know what to do. By then it was time for supper. We let him lie there all evening. He did not seem to move a muscle.
Of course, we thought about what could have caused such a sudden problem in his leg. Our first thought was that those growths on his back had caused paralysis. I thought that he might have been hit by a car. However, he had no visible wounds. In any case, it was too late to do anything about it.
When I woke up at about four o’clock on Friday morning, my first thought was of poor Bob. I found him in exactly the same spot as he had occupied when I went to bed. He seemed to have no interest in food or water, which was very unusual for him. At one point Giacomo came over to see what the fuss was about. Bob let out a roar, which Giacomo correctly interpreted as a demand for privacy.
Sue arose from bed to take her medicine at 8:30. When she came in to see Bob, he got up on three legs and stumbled into the hallway. He lurched about ten feet to the end of the hall, where he once again lay on his side after giving voice to cries of pain once or twice.
I did not witness this part: Sue brought Bob a small bowl of water. She set it down near his head. He eagerly lapped up some water without getting to his feet. Almost immediately he gave out another plaintive cry and started to pee. He peed all over the floor, something that he had absolutely never done in all of the years that he had lived with us. He struggled his way to his feet again while we cleaned up the mess. He made it the few feet back to the doorway to the office, where he lay down again. He there in that position all day, neither eating nor drinking.
I was absolutely convinced that Bob would be dead when I awoke on Saturday morning. He was neither eating nor drinking. I wondered what we would do with his body. My knees were certainly no longer up to the task of digging graves for pets.
I was wrong, but not by much. Bob was still in the same place and physical position when I awoke on Saturday morning. He did not move his head when I carefully walked past him into the office. I offered him some water, but he was not interested, or he may have just been too weak.
Bob may have moved a little during the day or evening on Saturday, but I don’t think that he ever tried to get up. When I went to bed on Saturday night he was in the same position as he had been on Friday night. I knew that cats were very tough. I just wondered how long he would be able to hold on.
On Easter Sunday morning I was quite surprised to discover that Bob was no longer in the doorway. He had moved back to the position he had assumed on Thursday near my feet. I wondered how in the world he got there. With some trepidation I checked him. He was definitely still alive.
After I fixed my tea and sat down I was gobsmacked to see Bob walk past the file cabinet toward the door. He was moving slowly, and he was noticeably limping, but he was walking and he was not wailing or even whimpering. He gingerly put weight on his right rear paw. I followed him into the kitchen, where the food and water bowls for the cats were. He slurped a drink while I freshened up the Cat Chow.
I went down to the basement to bring the cats’ litter box1 upstairs. I placed it in the hallway near the door to the garages. I showed Giacomo where I had moved it. I had to hope that Bob could figure it out on his own. I did not want to disturb him any more than necessary.
For a couple of days Bob took it easy. By Wednesday he and Giacomo were associating again. Bob was walking more slowly, but he was definitely using his right rear leg. When he arose from lying down—which he still did a great deal—he was a little shaky for a few steps. Sometimes he even dragged his right rear leg. However, he seemed to get a little better every day.
By the middle of May I had seen Bob go up and down the two steps on the deck. I wondered if he could manage the twelve stairs to and from the basement.
On June 4 I went downstairs to empty the water container of the dehumidifier. I found Bob sleeping placidly on a rug in the basement. I immediately deduced that he was capable of managing the stairs and moved the litter box downstairs to its original position. I carried Giacomo downstairs so that he could see that the litter box had been moved again.
Bob is not comfortable with me carrying him yet, but he figured out the location of the litter box on his own. Maybe Giacomo told him.
Was this a true Easter miracle, or did Bob merely use up one of his nine lives? Who knows?
1. I don’t like the idea of maintaining a litter box. The cats have their own door. For more than three decades our cats have cheerfully deposited their excrement outdoors. At some point in 2020 this pair decided to use part of the basement floor as a non-flushing toilet. I had to clean up a big smelly mess. I decided that putting a litter box there for them was the lesser of two evils. Don’t even ask about trying to train a seventeen-year old cat to change his habit.