You know the one I mean - the kitten you got your kids
a few months ago. The one that you said they could
have if it stayed outside all the time (I guess you
didn't want to have to change the litterbox), and the
kids said wouldn't cost much to feed because they'd
give it table scraps?

That cat, a beautiful black and white shorthair, now
about a year old, has been hanging around outside my
house for several weeks now. He likes the real cat
food he gets here, probably because it's in his food
dish on a regular basis and he knows he can count on
being able to eat when he's hungry. He's still not
completely convinced that there will be food waiting,
though, and will chow down an entire can in just a few
minutes, then come to the door asking for more. I
guess you didn't tell your kids he should have food on
a regular basis. I guess you didn't think to tell your
kids that he should have water, either.

He's a very friendly cat, and I have to confess I'm
not sure how that happened, because I get the
impression that nobody has been paying any attention
to him. He has a wonderful loud purr, and he loves to
be petted. He puts his paws around my neck - does he
do that with you?

I guess you haven't figured out what all the fighting
and yelling has been about, outside your window at 2-3
in the morning. It's because he's growing up and
arguing with the other male cats in the neighborhood
for the females (all the other ones that nobody else
bothered to get spayed and neutered either).

You apparently didn't see the wound to his ear and
above his eye a week ago. That was, of course, before
I brought him into the house and washed and medicated
them - or maybe you saw the wounds and thought they
somehow magically healed themselves.

The big gash on his leg from his most recent argument,
though, I couldn't fix that. It was oozing pus, and
those dark marks all down his leg weren't an extension
of his black spots - they were dried blood. And I
guess you didn't notice that he was limping and his
leg was swollen up. The vet said there were two pretty
deep abscesses. He had to put the kitty under
anesthesia to do the necessary cleaning and
medicating. I told the vet to neuter him while he was
at it. Oh, and the vet checked that runny eye - he
thinks it's due to an untreated upper respiratory
infection. The kitty stayed overnight at the hospital;
he was pretty scared and definitely unhappy. Hopefully
the penicillin that I have to give him twice a day
will take care of both his leg and his eye.

But, the one thing that none of us can fix is that
your kitty probably has feline aids. The test results
that came back today were "equivocal" (not-quite
positive, but not-quite negative) for FIV (feline
aids). Feline aids is contagious. Cats (unneutered
males are especially at risk) get it from being bitten
by an infected cat. There is no vaccine against it.
Like human aids, it affects their ability to deal with
health problems in the future, and reduces their
lifespan considerably.

If I knew where you live, I'd talk with you in person
about your kitty. I'd tell you that if you had just
kept this loving kitty inside, gotten him neutered
when he was 5 months old, and fed and cared for him
properly, I wouldn't have had to take care of your
kitty.

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