The peach kitty has been sick for a couple of weeks. At least that’s when we really started noticing. He was getting thinner, less enthusiastic for treats, and breathing funny.
Our neighbor who feeds him and his mom and sister noticed too. So earlier in the week, she and my human talked about what to do. They knew they had to catch him somehow. But how?
My human thought about different strategies. She did have an extra carrier, and our neighbor had both a carrier and a crate. So they were prepared in that way. But getting him in was going to be a problem. Our old carrier had a towel in it, so my human knew that could be useful.
The next couple of times my human brought me outside, she had me sit in the open carrier. That way the peach kitty could see I was okay with it, and maybe he could see it as less of a threat. She didn’t try to get him near it, she just let it be there. Then she remembered something else.
The enclosed patio has two doors: one that leads to the living room, which is always shut, and one that opens to the outside, which is open during the day for the peach kitty, his sister, and his mom. My human realized that if she approached the enclosed patio from the outside and shut the door while the peach kitty was in there, it would be easier to catch him.
So that’s what she did. She snuck up from the kitchen while he was in there and shut the door. Unfortunately, his mom was in there too, and she was climbing the walls (literally!) while my human followed the peach kitty around with the towel, trying to convince him to let her catch him. She actually used some of the things from my blog post yesterday. After a few minutes she was able to throw the towel over him and get him in the carrier.
My human opened the door to the enclosed patio so the peach kitty’s mom could get out (she actually came back later, but she probably won’t go near my human anytime soon). Then she placed the carrier by the leaded glass doors while she figured out which clinic to get him to. I stayed on the other side of the doors the whole time.
Our regular vet was swamped so she took him to an urgent care a few minutes away. They did blood work and X-Rays and put him in an oxygen tent. The results were inconclusive — he could have an infection, parasites or asthma, or possibly something else. But they couldn’t keep him overnight so my human brought him to another clinic she knew and that’s where he is right now. He’ll be getting more specific tests to see what’s going on, and we hope it’s treatable. Not everything is, especially for a mostly feral cat like the peach kitty. But we are hoping he can be helped.
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