Little Caiti

Little Caiti is kind of dumb. When V and I first moved into the house we couldn't go outside without the kitties running for their hiding places. The kitties always had the same spots the would run to but LC always seemed to forget where hers was. LC has a female name and female pronoun because I named her before I found out she was a boy and by then the name was stuck.

Once I realized no shelters were going to accept the kitties my next project was to find a humane animal trap and spay/neuter them so there are no more little kitties hanging around next summer. LC was the first cat to be trapped (got her in about 5 minutes - again, she's kind of dumb) and I think she was the most upset by it. She cried and cried and V wasn't home to pick up the cage so I had to pick it up, carry it until I got scared I would drop it and then set it down then try over again. Before I picked up the cage I put a blanket over it and sat staring at the cage to build up courage. During that time Inky was sitting on and next to the cage trying to help LC get it. It broke my heart and still makes me sad, even though I was doing the right thing.

Anyway, LC was neutered and then freed. Unfortunately a few weeks later V and I noticed that she wouldn't put any weight on her front left paw. After several days of this we decided to take her to the vet. And that meant having to trap her again which she did not like. After several hours of trying to convince different vets that I was willing to pay for the x-rays despite the fact that LC was feral I found a vet who was willing to help. It turns out all four bones in LC's paw were fractured. We had a cast/splint put on LC and committed to keeping her in our garage for the next two months. After a few days though, we discovered that LC had wriggled out of her cast before she was even out of the carrying crate. She cried the whole time she was in the garage. We kept her in there for a few more weeks to keep her sedentary to help the paw heal as much as possible since it was apparent LC would not put up with another cast.

Now Little Caiti seems to be fine. She still favors her fractured paw when it's raining but she runs and jumps and climbs quite a bit. But I think her weeks in the garage made her more mistrustful of us than she might normally have been. Hopefully she comes to trust us in the future.