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Approximately 2-1/2 years ago Buster brought home a female cat that was in heat.

He brought her in the house and shared his food bowl with her and she just moved in.

We were certain that she was going to end up pregnant and not knowing if she had a home we let her stay.

She did become pregnant and afterwards chased Buster away at every attempt he made at being friendly so he returned to his prowling.

 Soon after he came home with terrible cuts on his face and another huge abscess on his jaw.

The mother to the kittens raised them to a certain point then attempted to drive them away but they were not about to leave.

We wanted to find good homes for them but became attached and had the room so we decided to keep them as there was plenty of love to go around and they were all sweet babies.

 Three boys and two girls.

The mother abandoned them and went up the road and moved in with a seasonal resident of this area and the woman had her spayed and she now lives in Spokane Washington and is doing well.

We saw her recently when the neighbor came back to her summer cabin.

Buster oddly took over as the mother, which is highly unusual for a tomcat.

When the kittens would get crazy like kittens do he would herd them all into a corner and put his paw gently on their heads until they calmed down.

Very strange behavior as tomcats generally don’t like kittens and are known to actually kill them.

During the first winter we had the kittens buster didn’t come home for 4 days, which was very unusual for him once the weather got cold.

Northwest Montana gets bitter cold and it was 48 below zero and I was worried.

 I couldn’t sleep on the fourth night and went out and walked the river calling his name and he came to me limping on a back leg.

I couldn’t see any external injury but his leg was stiff and he limped for about two weeks and never left the house.

He did recover and seemed normal but didn’t like his leg messed with very much.

Buster had many other injuries but I am condensing this because I don’t want the reader to lose interest and miss the point of how important it is to have your pet spayed or neutered.

The following summer Buster had again been gone for 4 days but it was warm and I wasn’t overly worried as he frequenlty stayed away from home in nice weather but I was beginning to become concerned.

I was working on my truck I saw Buster run up the driveway with his rear leg dangling in a grotesque manner.

I could tell at a distance this was severe.

I got him in the house and in spite of an obvious severely broken leg his only interest was food and water.

He appeared to have lost about 1/3rd of his body weight and was starved.

His leg dragged horribly behind him but oddly he didn’t seem in much pain when I manipulated it.

We immediately took him to the vet 65 miles away.

 The vet said he had a broken leg and he would need surgery to place a pin in his leg so we left him there and said to do what ever you have to  and left him our phone number and my mother in laws phone number.

We had only been gone thirty minutes and the vet called my mother in laws (Thank God we stopped by there as we live 60 more miles away) and said he needed to see us immediately.

When we got back to the veterinarians office he looked rather grim and said he had bad news.

Buster had been shot and his hip was shattered and the bullet passed through his intestines and exited the other side of his body.

I saw the X-Rays and I was certain by the amount of damage I saw that Buster would have to be put down and I had to leave the room because I was becoming emotional and didn’t want to be seen.

I really did love that cat and I realized my stupidity and MY selfish desire to not change Busters personality caused this!

This is possibly the worst part.

When the doctor showed me the X-Rays there was another bullet in his remaining “good” leg and one in his back which explained the huge abscess from the previous year and the stiff leg he had from the winter he didn‘t come home for 4 days in the 48 below weather.

Both of these wounds were healed and the bullets showed up clearly in the X-rays.

The doctor gave me time to compose myself and said he could attempt amputation but it would be expensive.

I couldn’t afford it  but I told him to do it anyway.

I wanted him to have every chance possible.

It was my fault he was in this condition.

I walked into the operating room and he was on his back with a ventilator in his mouth and taped to the table.

I just cried and kissed his nose possibly for the last time and was just sick to my stomach.

 when I returned the next day Buster was in a cage and in obvious pain.

The vet told me his internal injuries were the worst he had ever encountered and he was not making any guarantees that Buster would survive.

He said it was similar to trying to sew Jell-O together as the tissue destruction through his intestines was so severe.

He also said it was a miracle that no real vital organs were damaged but it was still a grim outlook.

I walked into the back room to his cage and called “Toot” and immediately he started crying for me in a voice I had never heard before,

He looked so horrible and pitiful that I again lost control of my emotions.

The Vet told me that neutering would likely have prevented this and I agreed.

I also agreed that if he survived and lived long enough to have his stitches removed that I wanted him neutered at that time.

The doctor didn’t do it during the amputation as he thought it would be too much trauma considering the extensive surgery already being done on him.

We took him home and things seemed ok for a day or two.

On the third day after surgery Buster began having terrible seizures usually upon waking up.

He would flop wildly and uncontrollably and have a totally horrified look on his face and be in an absolute raw panic.

I had to pin him down as gently as possible and try to calm him so he wouldn’t bust his stitches.

The seizures became so severe I again thought that euthanasia might be the only answer as this just seemed unbearably cruel.

The doctor prescribed Phenobarbital which helped but didn’t stop the seizures completely.

Our pharmacist felt so sympathetic that he wouldn’t charge us for the medication for him.

Eventually and thankfully the seizures became less frequent and less severe and after about 3 months ceased.