Here’s Splash, the latest addition to our feline population. We first spotted him last winter. He seemed to be living in the hay barn. I put food out for him when I saw him, but he was fiercely wild. If he noticed me looking out the window at him, he’d be gone in a flash of black and white. Stray cats are a common phenomenon in the country, and some remain feral.
But by spring, the concept of easy meals began to win Splash over. He approached closer and closer to the house, and then the porch, until one fine day he let us pet him as he accepted out handout. As the summer matured, I began to think it was time to see about a trip to the vet for neutering. Last weekend, when Splash showed up one morning with a limp, I knew it was time to get him checked out. RailGuy was able to round him up into a cat carrier, and off Splash went for his first vet visit.
We were worried about how he would handle this sudden assault by we humans. Would he attack the vet? But all was well. Splash was surprisingly well-behaved. It turned out something had bitten him on his shoulder and the wound had abscessed. While Splash was sedated so that the wound could be cleaned up, the vet also operated on his other end, and he also had his vaccinations.
Now he’s back home, with instructions that he be constrained in a quiet place for a few days. He’s doing fine, but doesn’t understand why he is under house arrest. Pookie is keeping him company. Pookie mostly ignores all the cats, but the food dish in Splash’s space is magnetically attractive to the ever-hungry corgi. So tantalizingly close, and yet so out of reach!
Willow House Chronicles 