Need some good vibes for a stray

I had been feeding a feral cat outside of a hotel we were staying at for 2 months. We finally trapped him, under the assumption that he wasn't completely feral, only to find out that he WAS completely feral when we got a hold of him. Or at least he acted that way. He spent about a week hissing at us and swiping at us to the point where we thought we were completely wrong about his non-feral tendencies. Then last night, he suddenly went from acting completely feral and crazy to sweet and loving. It was like a switch. Now he purrs and rubs against us and cries and cries for us when we walk away from him (He's currently in a large dog crate because I haven't figured out if he's healthy or not yet).

So I guess our initial assumptions were right about the fact that he's not really feral at all, so because of this, we've been able to get a better look at him. Last night we noticed that he has a pretty large scar on his back, that looks like it might have been a bite from another animal. Part of his bottom gum looks inflamed, though he's inhaling food, so it doesn't seem to be bothering him. My husband thinks he can feel a tick under his chin, but we want a vet to remove it, since his chin is still kind of hard for us to access. He's ok with us touching it, but only slightly, and he looks like he has ear mites. Then tonight we noticed that he also has a wound on his neck. It doesn't look infected, and its not abscessed, but it does look like its partly an open wound. I'm actually wondering if its a botfly larvae based on the shape of it, and the fact that I can see a hole in the middle of it.

I was waiting to take him to a spay/neuter clinic/vet that deals with ferals (there's a wait list for appointments), but now that he's decided to become a friendly cat, I'm going to just bring him to my normal vet. I've dealt with abscesses before, and infected wounds, so based on my prior experience, I think this will be ok until tomorrow morning, when I plan to wake up, call the vet and take him in ASAP. The wound doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. I watched him for a while tonight and he's not trying to scratch at it or anything. However, I definitely don't think its something that can wait until after tomorrow though.

So I guess I just need some good vibes. We were able to get pretty close to this guy when we were feeding him at the hotel, but not close enough to see just how beat up and rough he looks. He looks like he's had a really hard life, and it makes me want to cry when I see how much he loves us petting him now. Its like he just discovered what human touch feels like and he can't get enough of it. But because of all the minor things wrong with him, and the wound thats definitely not minor, I'm just concerned that he's not going to be healthy overall. I'm afraid he'll test positive for leukemia and having lost a cat to leukemia, I'm just not mentally prepared to deal with that again. Or, I'm just afraid that he'll have more problems that we haven't been able to see yet. I just hope everything can be fixed on him.

So if you can send some vibes my way, kitty (no name yet) and I would greatly appreciate it. Hopefully we'll be at the vet in about 12 hours, and hopefully the vet will be telling us that he's going to be ok.

If anyone has ever taken in a stray with lots of problems and had a good experience with it, I'd love to hear that right now. All of my cats are strays and socialized ferals, but while most of them came to me slightly beaten up, none of them looked as bad as this little guy does .

I apologize in advance for the length of this.

I have to admit that I'm surprised that you both remembered my hotel cat . There are so many threads on here, so I'm really impressed that people remembered what I had posted! I'm sorry I didn't update my original thread about him. With the move we lost internet for a while, then had it hooked up but not working correctly. And with the unpacking in general, I haven't had a lot of free time to get on the computer. But we did trap him! We had to go back once we left the hotel, although we did try to trap him while we were still there. I don't even know how this happened, but we set the trap out on our last night there, and he walked right into it - but it didn't trigger and close! We went back for the next 4 nights, and left food for him but didn't see him (which wasn't necessarily unusual, but we couldn't just sit there looking out the window for him to show up anymore, so we waited for a bit and then left to come back and try again), and finally on the 5th night, he was sitting in front of the window of the room we used to be in, waiting for us. That time the trap actually worked .

We definitely thought that we misjudged him when we first let him out of the trap. He FREAKED and literally ran up the walls in our bathroom, and eventually planted himself on top of the light fixture...which didn't look comfortable in the least, but he parked himself there for 2 days, growling and hissing and swiping at us. We eventually managed to lure him into a carrier and we relocated him to a huge dog crate on our back porch. He's definitely a male, and he has that nasty un-neutered male scent, which is ultimately why he was relocated outside for the time being. Plus, we needed to use the bathroom, and we didn't want him having any interaction with our other cats until he was tested for Felv and FIV. He has a lot of space in that crate though, and the weather has been really nice, but I still want to just bring him inside .

So as I said before, about a week went by and suddenly he just decided that he LOVES people, and now he's as sweet as can be. I think we just terrified the poor thing at first.

But on to the vet - the appointment went MUCH better than I was anticipating! I definitely get myself too worked up and worried about things. First, he's negative for both leukemia and FIV . That was my biggest relief. The wound on his neck looks bad, but the vet thinks its from him scratching his neck, and he keeps re-opening the wound. Its not infected. It just looks gross because it keeps scabbing over and he seems to keep ripping the scab off. What we thought were ticks, are actually other scabs. I don't know how I managed to think that a scab was a tick, but he really wouldn't let us get a good look at it. All I could feel was a bump that felt like it was sort of hanging onto his skin. He has the scabs all over his head though, which the vet also thinks is from scratching. The scar on his back looks like a bite wound (just based on the shape), but again, it turns out to be from scratching. He scratched his back while in the vets office, and he scratched right over that entire area, so I'm glad we saw that to know what caused it. So right now the vet suspects allergies. He said its most likely the food we're feeding him (which I seriously feel so bad about. We were just trying to help him and we may have been feeding him something that he's allergic too.) He got a steroid shot today, and the vet doesn't want us to switch his food until the shot wears off. He said that since the biggest problem seems to be itching, keep feeding him the same food. If the scratching doesn't start up again when the steroid wears off, then it may have just been an environmental or seasonal thing. But if it starts up immediately again, then he wants to start figuring out what the allergy is. From what I understand he wants us to continue feeding the same food for now because if we stop the food now then he won't be able to tell if it was the food or the steroid that stopped the problem.

As for his swollen gum, he has a fractured tooth and a gum infection. The tooth is on the top, and the gum is infected on the bottom. It looks like the rough end of his broken tooth has been rubbing the gum beneath it. But the vet said the infection wasn't really too bad. It just looked more like an irritation that was turning into an infection. He said that ideally we'll have to remove the tooth, but its one of his front pointy teeth (I know I should know what they are called, but I don't...are they called canines in cat?), so he wants to attempt a course of antibiotics first. He's eating just fine, and currently doesn't seem bothered by the tooth, so he said if the infection clears up with the antibiotics then he'll leave it alone and possibly file down the rough edge when he gets neutered. If the infection doesn't clear up (or if it clears up and comes right back) he's going to take a closer look at his entire mouth and see if that tooth, and potentially others have to be removed. Aside from that though, he said his teeth are really clean, and based on that he thinks that this guy is younger than two years old. He suspects that some kind of trauma happened which caused his tooth to break.

He also has ear mites, but I picked up some Revolution for all of my cats, and he'll get a dose too. He has no evidence of fleas (which truly amazed me because apparently fleas are a huge problem down here) and no evidence of tapeworms caused by fleas. I know that you can't always see tapeworms, but he has no flea dirt on him, so his fur is rough and dirty, but flea free!

Meanwhile, this has turned out to be the sweetest cat ever! I was afraid of how he would act at the vet. Based on how he freaked out when we first brought him home, I thought the same thing would happen at the vet. Then on our way there, he peed in his carrier, which has never happened to me before, so I was a little embarrassed to walk in with a cat smelling so bad. The tech was a little worried about opening the carrier based on what I had told her about him, but when she did, he came right out, flopped over on his side and just started purring and kneading the air, and rubbing up against me, the tech and the vet (which in turn made us all smell like cat pee, so that was kind of embarrassing for me. I know they deal with stuff like this all the time, but I still felt bad. One of the techs said "Its always the ones you don't want to touch who will rub all over you - they're always the sweetest." I'd have to agree.)

So now I have to keep an eye on him for the next two weeks. Then he'll get his vaccines (the vet didn't want to do the vaccines and the steroid shot at the same time), and get neutered, and then I really need to find this guy a home!! We're definitely at our max with cats here, but this guy is definitely a sweetheart and deserves a good, happy home. He looks rough and beat up though. Thats the kind of cat I would want, but it seems like most people want cute kittens, or pretty/perfect looking cats. Hopefully, I'll be able to find someone who will take in a sweet cat who apparently lived a rough life on the streets. I also need to come up with a name for him.

I'm sorry its been several weeks since I updated this thread. So a quick update before I post a new thread asking a question about another stray cat.

 

Hotel kitty, who is now being called SK (for stray kitty - creative I know), is doing wonderfully! His wound has completely healed. He doesn't seem to be having any allergy problems now that the steroid shot has worn off. So we're not entirely sure why he was scratching himself so much, but whatever was causing it seems to have stopped. His fractured tooth is doing fine. The gum infection went away so now he just has a broken tooth, which unless something else develops from that, he won't need to have removed. There's no TNR program in place in this town, and for a low cost spay/neuter clinic they require an animal to have had a rabies shot for at least 3 weeks before they'll do surgery. So poor Mr. SK is still living in a large dog crate for the moment. He does spray, so I can't bring him into my house until I get that under control (which will hopefully be under control once he gets neutered). He gets "outside crate time" every day though. But it has to be supervised because now there's a new stray roaming around my yard and I don't yet know what his health situation is. SK got his rabies shot about a week ago - once he got a health all clear from the vet, and will go in to get neutered in 2 weeks as per town law.

 

I know someone asked for a picture of him a while ago and I will post one soon! I have some good ones of him, but my husband has the camera with memory card and he's out of town for a few days.

 

I'm still trying to find him a home - unsuccessfully, but I'm trying to not be too discouraged yet. He's a little lover, so I'm still hopeful that someone will want to take him in.

 

And on that note, I'm off to post a new question about a new stray cat...they all just seem to keep finding me....

I agree! I think its the dumbest thing ever! My husband actually didn't believe me when I told him that was the town policy (I'm not sure if its an actual law or just a policy), but here's the link to a  PDF document with the requirements on it: http://www.cctexas.com/files/g15/ACPublic%20Spay-letterhead.pdf

 

Regular vets will spay/neuter immediately after a checkup and initial vaccines. But this is the low cost clinic run by the city, and unfortunately, low cost is the way I have to go right now. Every other city I've lived in had feral TNR programs where they got a rabies shot on the exact same day that they got neutered. I'm learning very quickly though, that this town is really backwards when it comes to animals.