The Miller Place

For several weeks now, people where I work (Information Technology Center, or ITC) have been feeding two cats. One, ITC (for him, pronounced Itsy) is mostly solid gray with some white. The other, Lucas, is a white and gray tabby. Since we’ve essentially adopted them, both need to be neutered and vaccinated.

Lucas started limping yesterday from an apparent bite wound, so it was time. A coworker captured Lucas after lunch today and I took him home to give him some quiet before his appointment with our family vet for treatment. A few pictures taken as he waited for his big trip:

He was anesthetized, tested (negative) for Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids, given a long-lasting antibiotic for the bite on his front forearm, neutered, de-loused (a few fleas only) and given Revolution. He is coming out of anesthesia now.

We will pick him up early in the morning and bring him back to ITC for immediate release. He did extremely well.

Update, next morning:

My wife picked him up from the vet yesterday morning and brought him to ITC in our regular carrier instead of the trap. It has the usual access door but I wanted to try picking him up, so I undid the fasteners and sort of reached in (he was popping out too) and was able to do just that: pick him up and hold him. He was a little squirmy but purring loudly too. I held, petted and talked to him while a coworker went looking for a food bowl. When she came back, we dumped a Little Friskies can of tuna flavor in it and I set him down in front of that. He started eating immediately and purring while I was petting, no more restraint. I decided to step back and Lucas left the bowl soon after. I think he got nervous with the people around, plus Itsy (the other cat) got a whiff of that smell and wanted some too. But soon Lucas was back to it and getting petted again. He still left food in the bowl – too much excitement going on, and Itsy did get his turn.

I saw Lucas laying on the grass later in the day looking like he owned the place. A couple of people mentioned that he and Itsy got into a tussle though. Hopefully it was the usual pecking order stuff. Next week we’re going to try to capture Itsy and give him the same treatment. Maybe with both of them neutered and well fed, they’ll get along better. If not, we’ll have to place one… somewhere, with someone.

Outdoor-only cats, especially in a setting like this, seem destined for trouble. Even our cats, when they were indoor/outdoor cats, racked up repeated vet bills for bites and were at risk from dogs and coyotes). For these building-cats though, we’re giving them something better than they had (starvation and no vet care). We’ll cross whatever bridges we come to when we get there.