Meet Tattle-no-Tail. She lived at the Navy base during the six years I was doing trap/neuter/return for the feral cats there. The video shows her checking out my new trail camera by her feeding station.
As far as I could tell she didn’t hunt but scavenged the big old dumpsters like many other animals. The military has a horror of feeding the animals and wasn’t interested in having the cats managed after they were fixed. Just before my access was to be removed, animal-proof garbage containers replaced the dumpsters. Many of the feral cats moved on out of the base but Tattle lived far from the land boundaries surrounded on three sides by water. How would she eat if she didn’t hunt and couldn’t scavenge the dumpsters? I brought her home.
She got to know the other cats and was getting used to being near me. But then she stopped eating. She was sitting on the floor grate to be warm. Cats with kidney issues are often cold so I thought that might be the problem. Two hours yesterday with a pillow, maneuvering her through built in cages got her into a crate and she went to the vet. Her blood work values were off the charts. The vet said she was in complete kidney failure with secondary anemia. She stayed there overnight.
This morning I took a soft sweater to the clinic. I had put it in her favourite spot a couple days ago and she loved it, stretched out on it. This morning she was sedated, wrapped in this sweater, and it was the first time I ever got to pet her. The vet gave her the needle. And now she won’t feel the cold anymore. I’m glad I was able to make her last hours easier than if she had still been living wild at the base.
Published 2014/11/19 originally