Holly,
It's so hard to find good help these days!
When I lived in Albuquerque, I brought Tina to a two-vet
practice, and it was the junior partner who wanted to
try to remove ovaries from a sterilized adult male. This
was brought to the attention of the senior vet, who served
me well after that, jumping through all of Hawai'i's hoops
to allow for the 30-day quarantine.
The vet i saw last week in Hawai'i did not do very well.
And, since you ask, i might as well tell you how i came
to that conclusion.
Tina was always a "top cat" in his relations with my other
two (a younger male and an older female, both neutered).
They didn't fight. But if one of the two would go close
to him, he would just whack them on the nose with his paw.
So Lani and Tiger they kept their distance, and when i
put them in boarding school, Lani and Tiger would share a
bunk, but Tina would always have his own quarters.
Well, Tina seemed fine upon arrival out of the quarantine,
but he seemed to take an extremely high level of interest
in the other cats of the neighborhood, and spent much time
chasing these cats away. The radius of territory that he
was trying to control extended about three houses away,
and he would cross the street to chase a cat, which he
had never done before, and was therefore surprising. But
I ascribed the behavior to some sort of stress reaction to
the move and/or quarantine experience, and decided to just
let it progress so whatever the cause could be worked out
of his system.
I live presently in a house split into three apartments,
and the other ground-level apartment is occupied by a
woman who is sometimes visited by a semi-wild female cat
that lives at the B&B down the street which she manages.
Well, we both made sure that whenever we heard the cat
vocalizations that precede a fight, we would both go out
and interrupt the proceedings before it escalated to
violence. But, one day, she rushed over to tell me,
in extreme astonishment, that Tina had pushed open the
sliding screen door to her lanai, and proceeded to prowl
through her apartment in an apparent search for the female
cat. I just told her that Tina was very intelligent,
and understood a whole host of English words that signify
disapproval, and that if Tina continued with such misconduct,
to simply tell her.
Well, it wasn't long after that when The Big Fight ocurred
with a *different* female cat living next door.
I could find no wound or sign of broken bones (always possible
when fights occur at high elevations such as a roof). And
I took Tina to see a local vet who had been recommended to
me by my friend who moved to Seattle. I told him first that
I suspected some type of injury in the groin because the cat
did not let me examine his nether region. The vet performed
his examination with the cat standing up, just using his
fingers to feel around. He never turned the cat over or
on his side to look at the groin area. He found no wound,
but prescribed amoxicillin drops and sent us home.
As soon as i got home, i watched Tina for a while, and saw
him licking the right side of his abdomen, about mid-way
back, at about the end of the ribcage. Palpation revealed
a circular hole with a diameter of about 1 cm. Using
large scissors (to avoid cutting the skin) I cut away the
hair to expose the wound. It healed up fine, with complete
closure in about a week, and no abscess ever developed.
A week after the wound healed, I found the fleas. The
groin area was very inflamed from flea allergy dermatitis.
This was undoubtedly the reason for the cat's objection
to the previous examination. The vet was either stupid
or lazy in his failing to use his eyes to look at the groin
area. If he had, he would have seen signs of flea infestation
and begun treatment.
And, although he knew the cat came from New Mexico and
was just discharged from quarantine, and i told him that
he was highly recommended, and that i wanted him to be my
vet, he made no mention of fleas or flea collars.
Two weeks later when i brought Tina back to him for fleas,
he acted like he was disgusted with me for not knowing
anything about fleas. And turned his back on me, and
ignored me while i was paying the bill. When I asked
questions about the flea medicines he prescribed, the
receptionist had to answer my questions, despite the
vet being in the same room
Needless to say, i don't think i want to bring Tina to
him again.
David |
