Loki

Loki is one of the kitties that I bottle raised in 2008, and coerced Tony (the bf) into adopting before we lived together.  He is 3 years old now.  This photo is of him smushed into the bed I bought on etsy for my 6.5 lb dog.  Loki weighs 17 lbs.  


Loki loves to go outside, and well, we let him.  In Jackson, WY, where we used to live, the main worries were coyotes and owls (although it would be a stout owl who could take the Lokes).  Here it is cars.  


Saturday, Loki lost his luck and collided with a vehicle (spoiler, he's still with us).  He must have been chasing something, because he knows enough about cars to be scared of them.  Anyway, he made it back to the house and we took him to the vet where we found out he had severe internal injuries that required emergency surgery at CSU.  It's a good thing we are crazy pet people, because we took him to the vet for being lethargic, not because we had any idea he'd been hit by a car.


Now, Loki looks like this, and will for a while.

He is shaved and has stitches up and down the length of his belly, and he has to wear a cone of shame to make sure he doesn't chew on them.  He's also confined to a room where there is nothing to jump on.  He is still in pain, but already bored out of his mind.  What do you do to entertain a sick cat?  The answer with dogs is raw bones and bully sticks.  But those don't work for cats.  Hmmm.


Loki's sister, Leda, hasn't been outside since this happened, but she's miserable and bored, waiting at the door and mewing.  Loki will be in the same position in about 4 weeks.  So what do we do?  Do we make our cats happy, knowing and accepting the risks, or do we keep them inside, safe, bored and miserable?  You may not have to answer this question if you were smart enough to always keep your cats in, but we used to have a dog door, and guess what...cats can use it, too.  So they discovered outside on their own, and we didn't stop them.  This is a question we haven't answered yet, it's really a tough one.  I'll let you know if we come up with a magic conclusion.  The reality is that someday they will probably get past us, no matter how hard we try, and end up outside again.  Because that's what they want, and cats are slippery, smart little buggers.


Just to make this a bit quilty...also in Loki's sick room:

My stash!  So I visit him and it often.