stunt man

Here's our stunt man (as Sadie so aptly put it) wearing his newest fashion accessory. Didn't you know that plastic Elizabethan collars are all en vogue this year?? No??

Last weekend I felt some matted fur on Winston's tum while I was petting him. I didn't think much of it at the time, he often gets his fur wet while drinking and then goes in the box and gets it crusty with litter. However, Wednesday morning I noticed him walking a bit gingerly and as I was checking him out, I noticed large areas of "matted" fur over his abdomen. I flipped him over to have a look and found quite a large spot of bare reddened skin (about the size of the top of a mug) and lots of raised red blotches. I phoned the vet and got him in for the next day~ thinking he'd had some sort of skin infection or reaction. When I took him to the vet, he looked at him a long time and then asked if Winston could have possibly been burned by something or sat in something caustic. I said other than a hot window sill, burn causing stuff was not possible and I clean non-toxically so I don't own anything so caustic that it could cause burns. The vet took Winston in the back to take a closer look and clip away his fur in that area (yikes....I could hear his yowling in the waiting room!). A passing tech said "oh, a fan belt injury" (commonly seen in cats in cold weather when they might curl up on the warm engine block of a vehicle and the engine starting turns the fan belt and strips away a layer of skin ). However, Winston is a strictly indoor cat so *how* could he have come by such an injury?? Even now, we really aren't sure what he did but, somehow, somewhere, something scraped his belly last weekend. The vet gave him a shot of antibiotic as it was the easiest solution....considering the reaction we had to the last two different meds and the option of antibiotic cream would have entailed secluding him for a week (not a good option for a cat as social as Winst). So after a long first day involving lots of sad sorrowful looks, he's getting used to the cone and is better at maneuvering through the house.He's only managed to get it off once and he was not impressed when I put it back on again! Secretly, we have a little chuckle at his disgust with it but are hoping he'll be able to get rid of it when we make our return check-up. i'll leave you with one more pic and hope to be back soon to share less exciting things!

poor kitty!