Poor Annie

This has been Cat Central Station around here - injury after injury....

First, Alex got into some fights with Venom, the cat next door, and needed to wear a cone on his head while the stitches on his ear healed.

Now it's Annie's turn.

Not that she got into a fight or anything. So not like Annie. She is truly the sweetest cat.

No, in her case some big brown lab, off leash, came chasing after her. My neighbor saw it, tried to stop it, and watched Annie climb up a telephone pole to relative safety. The dog still nipped her in the back as she climbed. But at least she avoided greater harm.

Luckily my neighbor was able to tell me what had happened. Otherwise, I might not have gone looking for her. As it was, she wanted to stay hidden. I did see the dog (who was looking all excited and trying to say, "did you see my chew toy climb into these bushes?"), and should have followed him when his owner whistled for him - but I was too distracted, still looking for Annie in the midst of everything.

Took about half an hour, but finally she came out of the bushes into the alley - long enough for me to see her - then trotted back into the bushes to her privacy. Ultimately I enticed her out with some food, grabbed her, saw she was all scraped up on her side (down to the skin - fur ripped off) and took her to the emergency pet clinic. They told me she was lucky. Apparently often they see cats who have been grabbed in the chest by dogs "playing" with them. Their ribs are broken, and they have to be put down. They complimented Annie's muscle tone for a cat of 14 years, and said she was very very lucky....

The poor baby wasn't feeling lucky, I bet. Her side did not require stitches, but her bottom sure did. A couple stitches, anyway - not wounding any, um, strategic areas (again, she's lucky), but making her very very sore - and requiring me to put on that cone, to keep her from bothering the stitches.

She's off the pain meds now, and is doing fairly well. The cone slows her down, and she has no interest in the dry cat food, so I'm pampering her with canned food and tuna. She likes that. Poor baby.

Here's a photo of her, the day after the attack. As my sister in law said, it's hard to tell what is worse - the cone on the head or the bite on the butt. I asked Annie. Apparently it's all pretty miserable. But I also found a cat age calculation chart. Annie is 72 years old in "people" years. And she still made it up that telephone pole, to keep herself out of worse harm's way. I hope I'm that limber at 72!