Sunday, December 27, 2009

Inky turns escape artist on us!

The last few days have seen an improvement in Inky's well being. He is in fact so well that he is now feeling up to escaping & investigating. This is great except for the fact that he has been an outdoor stray cat for all of his 8/9 years and my parents will now have to contend with keeping him indoors as whatever I read on the Internet suggests that tripods have too many strikes against them out of doors. Basically, they can not defend themselves and can get into trouble so Inky's days roaming the great out doors are over weather he agrees or not.
During my visit last night he escaped when I was going to feed him some darn good dinner -kind of counter intuitive if you ask me-settling under a table. I tried reasoning with him, then tried ignoring him and finally threatened him with a permanent return to the vets. The cold, lonely vets office, where he would never see us again. He slinked out and over to my mom.
Back in the bathroom and well fed I did what I thought might be impossible-trimmed all of his nails! The vet had done this during Inky's initial visit in Nov. and I had kept an eye on the nails ever since as it is recommended that you trim tripods nails or they will get in their way. I tried and succeeded with tricking Inky-alternating between rubbing that place on his neck where his I.V. had been ( seemingly a very itchy spot since it was shaved ) and cutting one at a time. I have learned the wisdom of teaching kittens how much fun nail trimming can be -when we got Nicki & Sandi we began an almost weekly routine of trimming followed by treats for all as a reward and our guys accept this very well now that they are older. We never got into the same routine with teeth and I know this is something I will live to regret. Many years ago I helped my parents take care of another stray cat and we brought her in for a teeth cleaning only to have to the vet create a fistula where decay had occurred = a nightmare in terms of the cat's ability to eat and drink and something that eventually led to her euthanasia a year or so later. So I know the importance of teeth maintenance but also know it is so hard to actually do. As with many habits it is best begun as early as possible and I do wish we had been able to stick with it.
The other good piece of news is Inky is healed enough that I feel comfortable picking him up without fear of hurting him. The hair / fur on his amputation site is taking a long time to grow back-possibly due to Inky's fastidious licking - but once it had grow in I'll be glad he has the padding and warmth it provides .

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