Odd Cat's Bum Foot

About four weeks ago my old tom cat started limping. My first thought was arthritis, but within a day his left rear foot started to swell and he could barely walk.

Odd Cat has a kitty arch nemesis that lives across the street and they are always causing each other injuries: bitten tails, neck bites, scruff bites, the works. I hoped it was a bite (weird, I know, but less expensive to fix) and that he hadn’t been run over by a car or something equally mechanically wicked.

So we hauled the old man in to Dr. Stuart (who we LOVE, seriously) and she immediately diagnosed it as gangrene. I looked down at Odd Cat’s foot which was swollen, but still looked quite… alive, and then back up at the good doctor.
“Gangrene?” If you’ve ever seen a picture of the infliction known as gangrene you’ll know it’s a puss-filled, black and green, mess of dead tissue. Really quite revolting and nothing at all what my cat’s foot looked like. Dr. Stuart smiled.
“No, I just like saying that.” I mentioned above that my husband and I love Dr. Stuart, and this one reason. Her sense of humor is just the dark and disturbing kind of thing we enjoy. The other reason is, of course, she’s an amazingly talented veterinarian.

What he ended up having was an abscess. How did he get the offending abscess? Probably a bite, from one arch nemesis aptly named Tiger, that healed over but left an infected puss pocket under the skin. Fortunately, or so we thought, the old man had licked the wound enough to pop the abscess. Sweet! Antibiotics and bed rest.

Ah…. Nothin’s ever that easy at Monk’s Zoo. Five days ago, the poor old kitten’s foot started to swell again. Back to the Doc. More puss, more infection. And almost gangrene, kind of. In addition to a stubborn abscess, he had what is called cellulitis, where the skin cells get infected. In acute cases the skin cells can *gasp* die. Eh, ok, it’s not gangrene, but now that we know he’s on the road to recovery and going to be just fine, we did have a little laugh about it, the Mad Doctor and I.

Beware, The Look!


Owning a pit bull is not as frightening as it might seem. The important thing to remember is that bad owners make bad dogs. If you approach any dog in a fair and firm manner and train with consistency, you’ll probably get a good dog. Lucius is a sweetheart. He loves the cats, learns quickly and always listens. He went in to the vet a couple of weeks ago for a check-up and the vet said he was getting a little on the tubby side. Poor fellow needs to lose eleven pounds. Pits are loyal and smart and very much want to please their owners, they’ll do anything for you, love to play, love to cuddle, love to just be with you. And they’re stubborn. Which is how Lucius got a little fat…

It was almost a year ago, with the help of the cats, Lucius got into some eucalyptus I had up on a table. He got sick, was lethargic, and stopped eating. I took him to the vet and he was prescribed a bland diet of rice, cottage cheese, and boiled chicken.
“Just for about a week,” the vet said, “and then you can start to mix his dry food in and eventually cut out the chicken, rice, and cottage cheese.” Easy. Right? Sure except what dog would want to eat dry food after all that yummy home cooked stuff. Not Lucius. With nothing but dry food in the bowl, he refused to eat. I consulted the vet and the books. They all said the same thing. Leave the food down for fifteen minutes, if he doesn’t eat, take it away. By the second day, he’ll get the picture and start to eat again.

The morning of the fourth day. Lucius lays on the floor in front of his bowl filled with dry food. He looks up at me with those pitiful eyes. I know he’s hungry. How long can this go on? I have to get to work. I don’t have time to cook rice and there’s no cottage cheese. I search the fridge. Yogurt! Yogurt is good for dogs. Perfect. I grab his bowl, empty the Yoplait container into it and stir it up. I make him sit until I put the bowl down. He’s drooling, but he stays.
“Ok, get it.” He nearly smashes his head into the wall behind the bowl running at the food. And that’s how it started. Steamed veggies, rice, chicken, whatever we were eating if it was safe, after awhile I got tired of cooking for the dog and started to buy wet food. But even the wet food had to be served with variety. Different brands, different flavors, or he wouldn’t eat it.

So for the last two weeks I’ve been weaning him off wet food. Yesterday was the first day without any wet food or people food in his bowl…. he didn’t eat it. But the vet assures me that pushing him to that fourth day is ok. Don’t be fooled by those sad, sad eyes, stand your ground, and remember you train the dog, don’t let the dog train you.