Oh! Another story or ye olde parental units ...

[apocalypsos]

I stopped up the house yesterday to pick up cat food and was talking to my mother in the living room when I noticed one of the cats, Spencer, contorting his pudgy rolypoly body to, well, lick himself.

The entire time I'm talking to my mom, he's licking himself. Continually. I made a crack about that scene in The Long Kiss Goodnight where Brian Cox watches a dog licking himself and says something about how he's been doing it for two hours and by now whatever it is is long gone or there to stay, which my mom didn't appreciate.

Five minutes later, Spencer got up and went into the dining room. And went back to licking.

By now, I've figured out something is not right. So I go over and pick him up to find a bare patch of skin about the size of a half-dollar to the left of his rear with what basically amounts to a small round hole in his skin that looked like he'd been poked with a particularly sharp knitting needle. It was NOT pretty.

My mom proceeded to get snippy with me while she tried to fix things, so I got my dad for her and got the heck out of Dodge. She called me this morning to tell me that after talking to the vet, his theory is that one of the other cats probably bit him -- having seen this, I don't even want to imagine how vicious the fight must have been, seriously, and considering it's one hole and only one cat with one tooth we already know the culprit -- and the bite then became abscessed. Which, EW. I can only imagine how much that hurt, poor thing.

So now the cat and I are both on amoxicillin. Heh.

EDIT: Also, I keep forgetting to mention that the highway that I drive to work on is frequented by a flock of turkeys, so I'm starting to develop a tendency to just expect an enormous picture-of-Thanksgiving turkey to be standing on the side of the road watching me drive me past. I see the same damn turkey at least once a week.

It makes me crave sweet potatoes, quite frankly.

Comments

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

He may have gotten bit on one of his anal glands (sorry), because they can get really sore really quickly. Two of our cats have had minor fights which resulted in an issue in their hinder regions. Hope the kitty is ok soon!

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

Aw, man. I hope kitty heals quickly!

I have never seen a turkey IRL. They're a weird exotic foreign bird, in my head.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

It's hilarious. Yesterday I was driving home from work and it was the third time in as many weeks I've seen this just standing on the side of the road:



I mean, I know they live here, but at the same time ... o.O.

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

:O

I keep forgetting how bizarre turkeys look. DUDE'S GONNA MESS YOU UP, Y'ALL.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I know, right? And it's one thing to look at that picture and think, "Man, those things are funny-looking," and another to be driving home and see one just casually standing on the shoulder and think, "HOLY SHIT THEY EXIST IN NATURE?! THAT'S FUCKED UP!"

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

I just lol'd for real. I can't even imagine. My brain insists all turkeys are locked away in Thanksgiving breeding farms. Possibly in warehouses. Not in, you know, nature.

[baileytc.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, cat bites tend to abscess. Cats apparently carry some nasty bacteria in their mouths that does a number when they bite other cats. I learned this when I had to take my big boycat in to the vet last fall after I found blood on the blanket where he usually sits--and then found a lovely open wound on his butt.

My vet said that submissive cats tend to get bitten on the butt because they run when they get attacked by other cats. Dominant cats get bitten on the head or neck because they don't run away. Both abscess, but I figure it's got to be a little easier and less disgusting to deal with a head wound. Did the vet tell your mom to put a hot compress on the wound a few times a day to help it drain? My cat *loved* that.

[modillian.livejournal.com]

Turkeys, woah. There was a farm down the street from my old house, and apparently they had a bunch of peacocks there for whatever reason, and I'd see them the most early in the morning as they pecked in the dirt by the road when I was riding on the schoolbus...weird stuff to wake up to, man.