Broken pelvis and amputated tail

Hello all!

I volunteer at the local animal shelter and am fostering a young (8 months or so) kitty who was hit by a car and suffered a broken pelvis and damaged tail that's since been amputated. The pelvis was mainly fractured with a small break, so not as bad as it could have been. She came into the shelter about 2 1/2 weeks ago and I've had her at home for 2 days now. I'll be keeping her for 2-3 weeks while she recovers a bit.

She's walking quite funny - her back legs go out to the side a bit and she looks unsteady (which isn't surprising given her injuries!!). But I'm not sure if that's because she is getting used to not having a tail, the damaged pelvis or a combination or both.

Anyway, so I've been confining her to one room so she doesn't exert herself too much and has time to recover. She's a sweet sweet thing who loves to cuddle, and just loves being near people - she purrs non stop! Tonight I carried her downstairs so she could sit with me while I was watching tv, and she just explored everywhere and sniffed everything. Then she went running up the stairs, and running back down them. Then she managed to jump up onto the couch and jump back down again before I could stop her.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should let her run around for short periods since she seems happy doing it, or keep on confining her to the room. I think that having been confined for almost 3 weeks, she's desperate to run around!

Does anyone know how long these type of injuries take to heal, whether the funny walking is due to the tail or the pelvis, and have any suggestions as to what I should do?

Thanks

I don't have any answers to your questions, but she sounds like a sweetie! I hope her recovery goes well.

This is her. She's currently following my husband everywhere purring like mad

Hi!
First of all thank goodness for people like you who help out these poor kitties. I too have taken in a 1 month old kitty my husband rescued from a house fire, Squeeker as we have since named him has to have his tail amputated soon too. As far as the pelvic fracture goes, I know that it can be hard to keep her confined but it is an absolute must!! I am a vet tech and we recently fixed a kitty with a fractured pelvis as well-it can take anywhere from 6-8 weeks to heal totally. It is most important to keep her calm for the first 2-3 weeks post surgery. Does she have a plate in her pelvis or just screws? I understand completely wanting to spend as much time with her as possible, but try and keep her from jumping as much as possible. She is a realy beauty and very lucky to have the two of you! Take care of her and give her big hugs for me, poor little girl! I will be sending healing thoughts your way from my Fab 5 as well as myself and Squeeker! Squeeker will be more sympathetic in a few weeks when he too looses his tail!

She is very, very adorable!

Poor kitty!! She is really lucky to have found a great recovery home!! When I fostered a young cat with a fractured leg I was given a canned pet food to feed her. It was chicken wings but cooked so that the bones were very soft and could be easily eaten and digested by cats. It was to give her extra calcium while she healed. The wings were whole and in a clear sauce.

Does anyone know what kind of food that was? I was given the food with the cat, and that was several years ago. I've never seen anything like it for sale at a pet food store and can't remember even what the cans looked like.

Thanks kittycorner! I emailed the vet at the shelter to get her advice as well, so hopefully we can come up with a solution that's best for Genevieve (nicknamed Stumpy...). She doesn't have screws or a plate, they're just letting it heal naturally, which I assume means it wasn't too bad?

We've got a bunch of injured kitties at our shelter at the moment It's only a small shelter, but we have Genevieve, another kitty who has a nasty wound on his side (the people who surrendered him claim to have no idea what happened to him ), another kitty in another foster home with a sore leg which is most probably ligament damage (xrays were clear), an old kitty who's got respiratory problems and other old kitty problems, one who got rushed to the vet because she developed a skin problem and was tearing chunks of fur out of herself, and one kitty with a damaged eye from a kitty at his previous home.

They're in the wars, but lucky they're still sweet adoptable cats!

I am sorry were you talking about all the kitties at the shelter or did you take a glimpse into my home? The more genetically screwed up they are then they tend to find my house. Melody only has one kidney, thanks to a surgery gone wrong, as well as chronic pancreatitis. As you can see Uno only has one eye, he is stunted in growth, has food allergies and asthma. Ginger and Gracie seem to be just fine. Dusty as my husband and I call him is the "slow, stinky" kid. Just not all there in the brain cell department and now we have Squeeker and all his issues. Alll those kitties at the shelter are there for a reason, whoever owned them in the first place just couldn't handle all their issues. Thanks to people like you they will be able to get the care that they require. Hats off to you and your shelter for helping these poor kitties. Good luck with Genevieve and please let me know if there is anything else I can do. Take Care!

Man you would not believe how fast this cat is recovering!!! On Monday she was having a fair bit of trouble walking, the legs were going out to the sides when she walked, she would stop and roll over constantly as she seemed to get tired easily (she didn't seem in pain, she would be purring and pawing at us to come pat her).

Tuesday evening she seemed to be able to walk a bit more, but was still very unsteady.

Wednesday was the day she wanted to explore everywhere and she looked a little more steady, and tried running everywhere.

Thursday after all of her exploring the day before she looked heaps better, a lot more steady on her feet, and her legs didn't splay out as much.

Today she's walking and running almost like a regular cat!

She's jumping up and down on things seemingly pain free, but she has issues jumping up - she obviously doesn't have a lot of strength in the back legs still. When she sits down her legs are kind of apart, and she presses her belly toward the ground, so her back is fairly flat rather than a nice curved spine that cats usually have when they sit down.

She's a very happy cat who loves to be near us. Last night we were on the couch and she kept going between our laps - she couldn't decide which lap to sit on, so instead she curled up between us with her front paws on my husband and her back legs on me so she was touching both of us and she was satisfied

Update: Took Stumpy back to the shelter today to get a shot for worms since she seems to have tapeworms. I put her on the ground to show the vet tech how well she was walking, he watched her for a minute and said "uh-oh, I think she's pregnant!".

He picker her up and had a good look at her belly and nipples and yep, looks as though she's pregnant. She must have gotten a little lovin' just before she had her accident!

So because she's healing well anyway, I'm taking her back on Monday to the shelter and they'll abort the kittens and spay her then, then decide how much more (if any) recovery she needs before going up for adoption. The vet was saying to me just the other day how they'd definitely need to spay her since her pelvic area was probably going to be narrowed because of the accident and would cause problems if she got pregnant.

Poor baby

She looks just like my cat Speedy! Wishing her well.

Originally Posted by resturgis

Poor kitty!! She is really lucky to have found a great recovery home!! When I fostered a young cat with a fractured leg I was given a canned pet food to feed her. It was chicken wings but cooked so that the bones were very soft and could be easily eaten and digested by cats. It was to give her extra calcium while she healed. The wings were whole and in a clear sauce.

Does anyone know what kind of food that was? I was given the food with the cat, and that was several years ago. I've never seen anything like it for sale at a pet food store and can't remember even what the cans looked like.

Click to expand...

Sounds like this?

http://www.trinatural.com/active_lif...tive_life2.php

Some people believe that cats purr only when they are contented. They also purr when they are hurt, in pain or scared. She is a beautiful cat, and I wish both of you well.

Trust me - this is one contented kitty. Given that she starts purring as soon as she sees us and rubs up against us and has the whiskers down and eyes half closed and is kneading the carpet or whatever is near by, I think it's happy purring not hurt/scared purring!

Well I've had her for one week today and man has she improved.

She is racing all over the house at the moment, trying to leap up and "catch" door handles, and a random spot on the wall, and anything else that catches her fancy. She attacking everything possible and having a ball.

You know how when you have a cold you feel like crap, then as soon as you start feeling better all of a suddent you feel like you're 10 feet tall and can do anything? I wonder if that's how she's feeling??

I might confine her to the spare room to calm her down anyway...

That's wonderful that she's doing do well! I bet she is feeling "on top of the world"!!

Karen