Trying to find a veterinarian

After all the fun of the transfer into a new and larger crate, I started searching out veterinarians. After working with all of the vets that I have and doing the shelter work it seemed pretty simple to me. He needed a sedative, then the trip to the vet would be a piece of cake, right? Yeah.. only problem is everyone I know/knew is about 1000 miles away. Unfortunately in today’s day and age you can’t even get a good cold medicine without being looked at like you are going to try and make meth, let alone get a prescription for a controlled substance, arghhh.. I called multiple places. I even called the humane society who had the vet that supposedly “checked him out” before neutering him to try and get him a sedative… all dead ends. I found a vet through a volunteer that made house calls. He came to the house and the moment his body came over the threshold Huckleberry (who was in another room) went SPASTIC!!!!!  I have never seen anything like it, ever 🙁  I went to him and tried talking to him, opened the door to take a few things out of the way and he LOST it! He started to try climbing the crate wall and before I knew it he had jumped with his good rear leg and was hanging by his claws from the top of the crate crying, hissing, and totally hysterical. I have no pictures of this, you wouldn’t want to see it. I thought he was going to hurt himself even more than the injury he already had. The vet didn’t even attempt to go anywhere near Huckles. He wrote a script for Metacam, went into his van to get it, and 75.00 later I was still without a sedative for Huckleberry.

I finally said the hell with it, we will find a way to get him into a crate and transport him to an animal hospital. If I pull back stumps along the way, so be it. I have worked with too many animals to give up now, the only problem was that I did not have the equipment that I had when I was doing it for a living. I made an appointment with a local vet, and told them that they would have their hands full. They said no problem, they would sedate him once we got him there. ” No problem….” sigh.

I was quite proud of us actually. The morning of the appointment we cleared everything out of Huck’s crate. I slid a carrier into the crate. We got a stick, and after some prodding and aggravating Huck ran into the crate. As soon as he did that David took the stick and popped the door shut in front of the carrier. I dove in and held the door shut with one hand while we clipped the door shut.. easier peasier than I ever imagined or gave us credit for, lol.

This whole time that we had been trying to get Huckleberry help, I was absolutely CONVINCED that his rear leg was dislocated. Up to this point the prince had allowed almost no physical contact at all. Matter of fact, I would have to go from door to door cleaning sections of the crate so that he didn’t lose his temper and go after me. The way he held his leg looked like it was dislocated. Once or twice he had started rubbing up on the crate when my hand was close and I got a tiny feel of the leg. I would have bet a month’s worth of paychecks that he had gotten hung up on something, like a fence, and just needed it popped back in. When we got the call to come pick Huckleberry up, this is what we found.

There’s my baby’s pictures. I thought I was going to be sick. My husband was just as horrified. She recommended amputation or euthanasia. I asked for an estimate for surgery and I thought I was going to have to pick the vet up off of the floor. She looked totally shocked that we were even considering proceeding with fixing Huckleberry. We booked the surgery.

David and I had already talked about Huckleberry’s situation and had decided if we could not trap, neuter, and release then we would try to adopt him and acclimate him to the world of being an indoor kitty. All of my cats have always been indoors, and we needed to at least try to keep him indoors and safe. We refused to make any decisions other than that for the time being, just too many “what if’s”

So we took Huckleberry back home, but this time I had a sedative for the forthcoming trip, woo hoo!

Author: paws120

Huckleberry was a totally feral cat that wandered into our yard to visit off and on for a year. When he disappeared for a month we knew something was very wrong. He came back dragging a leg and very skinny. We knew what we had to do. After a successful trap, neuter, and amputation for a completely broken femur he now resides as an indoor kitty and is pain free and happy. View all posts by paws120