Ok, look. If you like your furball of a cat, great. Have a cat. Have two. Have three for all I care, just know that once you hit three, you are, officially, crazy. (And no, the same can’t be said of dogs.)
I don’t like cats. They’re weird and dodgy and snobby and not my thing. Dogs are deliriously devoted, predictably friendly and charmingly stupid. They have the good sense to look happy when they are, look angry when they are, and, even, look sad when they are.
That said, I’m terribly worried about this stupid cat, Bra. He showed up today with a visibly swollen paw that he was not putting weight on (oh, btw, I can say he with certainty now. I saw fuzzy balls.) (Sorry.) I let him in to the front entry way and closed the door so he could be in the warmth and I could take a closer look. Rob sat so he was blocking the way to the rest of the house, and Bra stepped from me to Rob to me, basking in the warmth, attention and water we gave him. He seemed otherwise OK. Rebecca says he’s probably fine, and she’s pretty cat savvy. Overall, though, I’m not sure what to do with him. Something like 70% of cats delivered to shelters are put down, so I don’t want to go that route. On the other hand, I don’t want him to be left on the streets where he could possibly be killed by car or a mean dog. I can’t take him in, obviously (if I could, you’d be reading about my new pet cat and Rob’s constant sneezing).
The bed I made for him is cozy and warm, and he gets food every night, but it’s growing increasingly difficult to care deeply for something that is small and wandery and living in a pretty bad neighborhood.
Honestly, Rebecca’s probably right. If you can’t see any clear afflictions (other than the swelling), he probably just pulled a muscle or something equally innocuous. If the swelling doesn’t go down in a few days, that perhaps is the time to be worried. Not yet though.
najla
28 Jan 09 at 6:07 pm
wait… i have three cats (and a doggie!) does that make me officially crazy?
…although, honestly, i don’t think the cats are the only indication of my craziness…
rachel cooper
29 Jan 09 at 10:47 am
I am a fan of you falling in love with the cat, keeping it, and starting a happy cat family but as this seems unlikely, there are no-kill shelters you can bring Bra to.
rebecca schlachter
29 Jan 09 at 1:40 pm
I applaud your empathy, but when I think that there are some 25 million feral cats in New York, and I think that once you see his paw heal you should let him go back to his native environment. There are also some 200 billion rats in New York, so adding one more stray cat to the mix could help balance out the ratio.
Kevin
29 Jan 09 at 5:42 pm