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RECOVERY
Buster’s hormone levels remained high for almost two months after the neutering and we had a hard time keeping him indoors to heal as he would make a break for it at every opportunity but eventually he stopped wandering and is now a homebody.
He amazingly climbs trees with three legs and chases butterflies in the yard and likes lying in the grass in the warm sun.
His remaining rear leg (with the bullet still in it) is about three times the size of a normal cat leg and he can leap up to three feet onto the hood of the car and run as fast as any four-legged cat.
He walks down a ladder or stairs on his two front legs using the third rear leg for balance and not for walking down stairs as you would expect.
He is still king of the roost and lets everyone know it.
His personality has returned to when he was a spunky little wild man and had we neutered him when he was just a youngster his personality would never have changed.
It was my ignorance that caused all this trouble for that poor little guy.
He is pampered these days and it warms my heart to see him chase butterflies or keep the young cats in line.
We kept all five of his offspring and they have grown up as a family and have never been split up.
They were all spayed and or neutered before they reached sexual maturity and they are happy crazy little teenagers for life and are incredibly spoiled.
Their names are Toser, Rose, Zedar, Simba, and JB (Short for Jim Bob)
That made 6 cats altogether and most would think it’s the end of the story but it isn’t.
Memorial Day weekend we were out garage saleing and there was a huge block sale in town.
I was browsing and a small pretty gray and white kitten started following me around.
I mentioned what a cute kitten she was and the people said she had been dumped there by some heartless jerk figuring someone would take her.
With the block sale and the Memorial Day traffic and the way she kept wandering back and forth across the street I assumed that she would be dead by the end of the day, probably hit by car.
I put her in my car and she fell immediately asleep for the whole 65-mile trip home.
We had her spayed as soon as possible and she became another member of the family named “Shneeflock” which is German for snowflake.
We have had all these “babies” spayed and neutered and all their personalities have remained the same,
They all know their names independantly and only come running as a group if we call “Babies”
They don’t know what the word kitty means.
They are Babies as far as they are concerned.
As I mentioned we are far from what you would call wealthy and the amputation and surgery bills almost caused us to lose our property as like most families we live paycheck to paycheck
We missed one land payment over this and it took us several months to rebound.
I can only hope this website prevents others from making the same mistakes we did and in the process improves the lives of other cats and dogs.
I now volunteer at a no kill animal shelter and we have two free spay and neuter clinics a year where we spay and neuter over 800 animals in two days, twice a year.
It’s the least I can do to help and it has become an important issue for me to get the message out.
Spaying and neutering will not change Your pets personality, It will only improve it if anything by making them more loving and it improves the quality of their lives and possibly yours and prevents unwanted animals from ending up in shelters and being euthanised.
It breaks my heart when I think of all the poor cats and dogs just abandoned and thrown out on the street to fend for themselves.
By volunteering my time at a no kill shelter and the spay and neuter clinic I am not changing the world but I’m trying to change at least my corner of it.
Since I began this website we have acquired a new family member.
When the animal shelter gets full we occasionally “Foster” an animal until a home can be found for it.
A family about a mile from us moved out and left a small sweet female cat behind.
This is very rural, very wild country and she would no doubt have fallen victim to predators or starved to death.
She is so clearly related to our own Buster that the family resemblance cannot be denied.
We agreed to foster her until a family could be found but she is so sweet and so obviously a baby or grandbaby of our cat that we have decided to make her a permanent addition.
I don’t know how cats can tell but Buster has taken this little cat under his wing so to speak and they lay together in the sun and she sleeps with him an eats with him and knows he is king of the roost and stays by him for protection as our female cats are slightly aggressive towards her.
It sounds strange but he knows this is one of his descendants.
The resemblance is so strong we named her “Tootsie” after Busters Nickname “Toot”
As far as the jerk who shot my cat (I only use that mild term because Young people may view this site, Believe Me I feel much stronger about it than that)
Shooting someone's pet is a sick disgusting act.
We almost lost our cat AND our home because of some idiot who thought it was “funny” to shoot a cat.
If You are one of these morons, how many lives have you adversely affected without your knowledge by shooting someone's cat or dog or even horse (Yes I have seen that as well)
There are some sick twisted individuals out there and I don’t want to hear that crap that if You really cared for Your cat you would keep them indoors where they belong.
Perhaps in a city that may be true but in rural America cats have been used for centuries as rodent control and are working animals every bit as much as a cattle dog or a horse.
They earn their keep and love the outdoors as much as you or I or your dog.
Packrats and other rodents do enormous amounts of damage to crops and in the case of packrats to your home.
I have never seen a rodent on my property.
The fact that they do work at keeping rodent populations in control doesn’t mean I don’t love them any less because they are a working animal.
Does a cowboy love his horse?
Does a sheepherder love his dog?
Shooting someone's domestic animal is just sick senseless cruelty and anyone who gets their jollies shooting them needs psychiatric help.
Trapping and hunting have reduced natural predators like foxes and coyotes and fishers and martens to the point that even IF cats killed small game which I have never seen them do, it would restore some natural predation which has been removed from the ecosystem.
I have never seen one kill a game animal however.
Honestly a rabbit is far too large for a domestic cat to attack let alone kill.
As far as the myth about cats wiping out the songbirds?
I have bird feeders and have western Tanagers, Evening Grossbeaks and all manner of beautiful songbirds at my feeders.
They seem to enjoy taunting the cats more than anything else.
That’s the end of my rant regarding the idiots shooting domestic animals.
Sorry but it needed to be said.
