A Week of Pet Drama

The pets are a constant drama around here. I guess that’s to be expected when you have so flingin’ flangin’ many of them.

First up is Neo. Sadly, we have to give Neo up. He is just not happy here and has been acting out because of it for months, ever since we brought the baby home. Honestly, I know it will be years before I have the time to give him the attention he craves again and I simply can’t have him peeing on everything he sees in the meantime. He has by himself, ruined our carpet both with his peeing and his scratching. Bridget it about to be more mobile and I truly don’t trust him around her. So with a very heavy heart, we are going to give him back to the organization from which we adopted him. They will foster him until they find a new home for him. I feel so awful. I love this cat. He was everything I wanted in a cat - lovable and a lap cat - that our female is not. And I am NOT the sort to abandon an animal that I have committed to caring for. But as I said, he is obviously not happy, he is not adjusting to the change in the house, and he is becoming increasingly destructive. He needs a home where he gets lots of attention, maybe with other cats who actually want to play with him (Kiri does not want to play with him at all). I don’t want the rescue people to think I am a deadbeat cat mom, but honestly, Bridget has to come first, so if they do think that, there is nothing I can do about it. I know this will be something that bothers me for a very long time. Please don’t think I am a horrible person. I have literally tried everything I could find in books and online and vet’s advice to correct his behavior but he is obviously just unhappy here. I even considered declawing him, but it wouldn’t help the peeing and I would hate to leave him defenseless against the dogs. So the decision is made, and this weekend hopefully it will all be over. I will miss him terribly and will feel guilty for a long long time, but this is just something that has to be done.

The other issue is Robbie, who has a torn ligament in his knee. He did whatever it was he did on Saturday afternoon, and started whimpering and limping around on it. I of course wanted to rush him to the emergency vet, but Jake talked me down. A visit there would have been a minimum of $500 and normally when I have worried about paw injury, it has turned out to be nothing. So we gave him asprin and waited to see if he got better. By Monday he was slightly better, still limping but not refusing to go up and down the stairs, and I did catch him up on our bed, which told me that if he could jump that high, he wasn’t too bad off. But I decided to take him in anyway. They couldn’t get a good exam of his leg because it was hurting him and he wouldn’t let them do what they needed to do, although the vet suspected a torn ligament. So they kept him overnight so they could fast him, then sedate him and get a good exam of his leg, and maybe x-rays if needed. The ligament is torn, but not completely. The vet does recommend surgery to replace the ligament with a nylon band. The other bad news is that the vet didn’t like the way Robbie’s gait looked in general so he did an x-ray of his hips and poor guy has slight to moderate hip dysplasia. So the long and short of it is that we don’t HAVE to do the surgery on the ligament - it will heal, but it will be weakened and if we don’t fix it, he will need to be careful for the rest of his life, because any further trauma could blow out the knee, which might then require a more in depth and expensive surgery. Also, the way we can help his hips is to keep him trim and active, which would be hard to do with a hurt knee. So I guess the decision is to get him the surgery. I know it’s expensive, about $1,000, but I can’t let him be in pain for the rest of his life. And how do you tell a dog that he can’t chase squirrels up and down the fence anymore? Or that he can’t wrestle with Lucy? So I feel confident that he will hurt it again. He’s a young dog and I want him around for a good long time.

All in all, I’m in a bit of a tailspin here. How can I consider spending that much money to save one pet so much pain, while at the same time planning to banish another pet? I feel like shit, I have to tell you. But now I am preparing to take Neo to the vet for his shots so that I can prepare him for his new home. I may just cry for the rest of the week.

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