Coned!

Yup my cat Nickolas was sentenced to 3-5 days in the cone. Gasp! What on earth did he deserve such punishment? Well, he tangled with a raccoon and lost. Siiigh. At first after hearing the scuffle we thought he had escaped unscathed... unfortunately for him and our checkbook, we were wrong.

This all started last Tuesday when I noticed Nick was losing hair around what appeared at that time to be a weird scab. Hmm. Then when Loving Husband looked at it, the scab had fallen off and it was a pretty deep flesh wound. LH thought he might have been shot with a bb gun... but I had distinctly recalled that he was the slobber on his side a few nights before. Siigh

So the vet was called, the appointment was made and on Thursday of last week we took him in. (Yes, the same day I took Ace back into the doctor due to his latest round of vomiting.) We took him in and the vet assessed that she would need to sedate him to examine the wound, ya think? Haha - this cat hates the vet - and when he's wounded? haha of course he had to be sedated. So Ace and I left Nicky there to be fixed up and to get his rabies shot while we were at it, with a quote ranging from $250-$350.

It ended up being the lesser amount, plus a 10% military discount! Neato and that included the shot, the antibiotics and the stylish new cone he got to sport for 4 days. It turned out that it was just a puncture wound, most likely from the raccoon as we suspected. However, it wasn't very deep and didn't require the drain (which would have tacked on the extra cost.) Nicky was none to happy when we picked him up. In fact that night I don't think he even laid down to sleep he was so agitated with the cone, and the whole shebang.

The next worry for me was his medication, they were tiny pills (about the size of birth control pills) but both our cats are AWFUL with pills. Last time they were attempted was in 2006 and it was AWFUL. Thankfully, Nick is our easier of the two cats to give pills to. So Ace and I headed to the pet store after his doctor's appointment and bought some pill pocket treats. We've completed 16 rounds of medication with 12 more to go and have had zero issue with the consumption of the meds.

The second day of his cone-sentence he managed to (apparently in a fluke) get his cone off. I was a tad worried he'd become a pro-escape artist in all things cone related... but apparently it was just the once. We did give him freedom during eating times to go cone free - which meant that we had to watch him eat and wait for him to finish - I was glad when the 4 days of that were over.

He did eventually learn to relax and calm down with the cone. In fact he looked pretty cute curled up on our bed sleeping with it on. The wound is healing and is much smaller and the hair has started to grow back, so our little Nick is going to be a-ok. Our cats though are forbidden to be out after dark now for a long while. In fact the night that we brought coned-Nick home, I had put Tort outside after he had finished his dinner so that Nick could finish his in peace... and I heard hissing and went outside and this giant arse raccoon was staring Tort down and would not budge as I approached it. I manged to get Tort inside who was going to 'brave' the beast and fight 'em!! (Sorry Tort, if Nick can't do it... you certainly can't. I don't mean to be a discouraging mommy - but Nick is the badass in the family.)

So we've got a wild beast of a raccoon that needs a new home (or grave) so that my cat's can be free and cheaply wander the neighborhood. We don't need any more $250 jaunts to the vet any time soon!