Mary, queen of cats

Late last night, Mary came in with the left side of her face full of blood (there was even blood on the door and all over the floor). We did not immediately notice – she jumped on the bed, refusing to look at us when we spoke to her, and the side with the blood was turned away from us. I don’t know how stupid she thinks we are, but we immediately figured she was trying to hide something. Upon closer inspection, my partner found the left side of her face wet and when he looked at his fingers, it was blood. We cleaned it up and found a deep red hole about 2mm in diameter, just behind her whiskers. Our minds raced in all directions and our imaginations ran wild. From running in to something, to a snake bite, to a cat fight, to pellets guns crossed our mind. We cleaned the wound as best we could (and kept her inside for the rest of the night) but we would have to take her to the vet the next day to make sure everything was okay. Even though the puncture wound was too small for stitches, it was deep enough to form an ugly abscess if left untreated.

So today after work it was off to the vet. Mary usually behaves like an angel when she visits the vet. She is any vet’s dream patient.
The only way the vet could see the puncture wound was to shave the area. *Pwhaaaaa* Mary was not happy and both my partner and I and the vet had to hold her down. I have not seen Mary that pissed off in a long, long time (if ever). Because she struggled so violently, her whiskers were shaven off as well. We had a bald patch, half whiskered, fat faced, sulking, angry kitty on our hands and we could not help but laugh!

The wound, the bald patch and the short whiskers

The good news is no one tried to shoot her with a pellet gun, no snake tried to make a meal of her – with the fur shaven one could clearly see a scratch leading from/to the puncture wound: a cat claw. Mary got an antibiotic injection and the wound should heal nicely.

Back from the vet, straight to her brown paper bag

I don’t know how many times we have taken Mary to the vet for one thing or the other. I am sure if we had to add it all up, we could have amassed a small fortune. But there is simply no price on Mary’s health and well being. I said to my partner last night – I am so incredibly, incredibly happy to know we can afford to take her to the vet when she needs to go. We don’t have to worry about how we are going to pay or trying to treat her ailments ourselves because we can’t afford to get her proper care. We are tremendously blessed in that regard. He was of the opinion that even if we could not afford to go to the vet, we would still be able to get her care at places like the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) or PUPP (Project for the Upliftment of Pets and People) or one of the clinics serving communities in need ( such as Mdzananda in Khayelitsha). Not that I never appreciated what these places do, but it kind of brought home how unbelievably important the work is they do. If we had no money for vet care and there were no PDSA or PUPP, Mary (and we) would have absolutely no choice. That scares me. As my vet said to me tonight: there is not (comparatively) that much cruelty going on in South Africa, but there is a lot of neglect. And in my opinion, neglect often stems from a lack of available resources. Simply because a person is poor, does not mean they are incapable of loving animals as much as we who are not poor.

There are heaps of organisations out there doing good for and by animals. But please – make a special effort to give your support to the clinics who give vet care to animals who would otherwise have no help at all.

Things have been quiet and kind of weird with Mary this past week. Kitten has had quite an influence on home dynamics. For most of this past week, Mary has ignored us. We would get home, she would eat and go outside. She barely tolerated our attention, and we suspected that she had found another home to sleep in (she came in from outside in the morning to eat, after having been out the whole night, and her ears would be warmish. Had she been outside, her ears would have been ice cold).

Then towards the end of the week, she became VERY VERY friendly towards us again. She even fell back in to her old routine of sleeping with us during the night before going out and coming back inside.

Yesterday morning, my partner noticed Kitten through our bedroom window, playing with another cat. This would explain Mary’s behaviour: seems she has fallen out of favour with Kitten and Kitten found a new buddy. Thus we became Mary’s fall back buddies.

Kitten and the new buddy

Right now she really could not be bothered with Kitten or with us. It is Sunday, the sun is shining and she is doing what she loves second best: sleeping in the Sunday afternoon winter sun!

Sunday afternoon: The Queen dozing on her Throne

Firstly – thank you to all of you who have left comments and who regularly read Mary’s blog! Keep it coming!

Well, winter has finally set in. About time too! Summer in Africa is not always bearable and the hot weather just seems never ending. Mary prefers summer over winter – this I know because as we all know by now, she loves the outside. Winter inevitably means rain and Mary does not like to get wet.

This weekend was pretty cold(ish) and it rained buckets! It would burst out raining, and then it would stop…. And then it would POUR down and then it would stop…. And as suddenly as it stopped, as suddenly it would start again. Poor Mary got caught quite a few times and came in wet and unhappy. It is also not great if in the middle of the night you get woken up by wet cat. She eventually gave up and decided it was more comfortable snuggling up inside with her humans, where it was warm and dry. Sunday afternoon I took a nap with Mary asleep next to me, in my arms. When I woke up, her body was stretched out against mine, her paw was on my face and I opened my eyes and looked straight in a pair of yellow sleepy eyes. I relish private little moments like that. By the time we woke up, the sun has broken through the clouds and it was shining directly on to her stand. She left me to make herself comfortable in the Sunday afternoon winter sun.

Enjoying the winter sun on a Sunday afternoon