Sick Kitty

Moose stumbled in from the rain on Friday night wet and dazed looking. “Look whose in” I yelled over my should to Steve as I started to get cat food out for our long absent cat. Steve got up and started to take a closer look at Moose and realized that, not only was he bleeding from a cut on his should but his neck and face were swollen.

Steve quickly called the vet and a few minutes later we were in the car speeding away to the emergency vet in Wobern. Once there Moose was whisked away and examined. The vet came into the small room we had been ushered into and told us that Moose did have a couple of deep scratches. She told us that the best way for her to assess how bad they were was to sedate him, shave him, and clean the wounds. We agreed and Steve and I watched through sliding doors as Moose was examined. The vet later came in and told us the cuts were minor but, was still at risk for infection. She also told us that he had a low grade fever and would need to take antibiotics for a few weeks. Oh, and also since we don’t know how he got these cuts he would need to be quarantined in our house for 45 days in case of rabies.

This is confusing. Moose had his rabies vaccine in March and isn’t the entire of vaccinating your pet against rabies is to prevent rabies? Apparently the state of Massachusetts is pretty strict about rabies. We were also informed that our cat should wear a cone around his head for the next two weeks to prevent him from licking his wounds (I find it hard to belive that he will really be licking the wound on the bottom of his chin but this is beside the point). We left the emergency hospital a few hundred dollars poorer and with a cat that had already managed to remove the cone before we even got to the car.