Cat fight

In addition to the girls, M and I also have a 9 year old black cat and a 11 year old black lab. Plus I have a beta fish on my desk at work. I'll post pics of everyone some other time. I've had the cat, Sterling, since college (gives you an idea of my age). At the time that I got him I was living in a townhouse near a busy street and so he was an indoor cat. He also was an indoor cat that loved to climb... curtains, furniture, your pant leg. So he became an indoor cat with no front claws (yes I was young and stupid).

Fast forward to now, where we live in fairly quiet neighborhood 20 blocks south of downtown. He's outside more than he is inside when the weather's nice. And so are the other 20 million cats in our neighborhood. And since he's half Siamese, he's extremely territorial, which translates to frequent cat showdowns and less frequent full blown fights. On Tuesday night I saw him on the fence looking into the neighbors driveway - and based on how loud he was screaming I knew there was another cat involved. I went out to break it up and they both took off running. Wednesday I only saw him briefly as the weather was nice and he wanted to be outside. I could see that he'd been in a fight, but it didn't look any worse than usual.

Thursday night he came in while I was eating dinner and I picked him up for a cuddle and a hello. That's when I noticed a lot of matted hair on his neck, just under his chin. I grabbed a washcloth as I figured that if nothing else the matting had to be uncomfortable and of course I wanted to be sure he was okay underneath all that. Turns out, not so much. Someone bit his head and left a nice deep puncture wound in there which was still open. His neck and side of his face were swollen and warm so I decided to call the vet first thing in the morning (didn't seem urgent enough for a midnight visit and emergency charges).

Had to drop him off as the vet had no appointments. So I left him about 8:15 am yesterday and made arrangements for him to stay until Tuesday night because as I mentioned the before, M and I were both leaving today and not coming back until Tuesday. They called about 9:30 to let me know that it was definitely infected, but hadn't abscessed. So, they gave him a big shot of antibiotics and are dosing him twice a day until we return. Bummer. For both us and him. For us because I'm imaging this will be about $400 (need to call today for the final estimate). For him because he hates to be cooped up and as soon as his fever comes down and he feels better he's going to get crabby. Bummer for the vet as a crabby Sterling can get pretty mean.

Oh well. The million dollar kitty (more long stories for another day) is now the million $400 kitty. I'm sure he'll be just fine. I just wish he would stop being such a bully and stay out of trouble. But I'm not sure that logic works on cats...