Perils of being a Tough Farm Cat...

[eregyrn]

Sad coda, for those of you who stuck with me through to the end of many postings of pics from my New Zealand trip. In the final part, I posted pics of Tam and Stephen's cats, some of whom I already knew and some who I got to know there. Jake is one of the new additions, a cat from the next valley over who showed up one day and decided that he liked it at their place, despite attempts to take him back to his erstwhile owner.

http://www.suncrow.com/blog

I probably should have posted that link before! That's the blog they've been keeping since moving to NZ, filled with many wonderful pics and posts about life in NZ.

A few days ago, Jake turned up very badly hurt -- what turned out to be a lacerated and broken foreleg. After a lot of examination, the best guess at the moment is that he'd been shot (although they're waiting on some final evidence of that before going to all the neighbors thereabouts to see if any facts can actually be discovered). As you can see from the pics, Jake is kind of rabbit-colored, and rabbits, like possums, are destructive vermin in NZ, and shooting them isn't uncommon in farming country. So it might have been an honest mistake, though not really that excusable not to make very sure of what you're shooting before you shoot it. Or... it might not have been. They might get someone to fess up to it. Might not, considering the vet bills.

The good news is that Jake isn't dead. But by this point, he's now 3-legged. The joint was too badly destroyed to make saving it practical, or even possible.

:( I feel so badly for Jake, who was and is such an intrepid, tough little kitty, and yet such a cuddle-muffin too. I feel really badly for Stephen and Tam, getting socked with this, as well. Cats usually adapt very well to 3-legged-ness. I'm betting that Jake becomes an intrepid outdoor kitty again. Definitely a reminder that farm life has its dangers, though.

Comments

[lynxreign.livejournal.com]

Oh, the poor cat! I'm glad he lived though.