Momo, the feral cat with the injured eye, is in my basement in a dog crate. He is recovering from his surgery, he was successfully neutered, and they gave him a shot that lasts for 2 weeks to heal his eye. Backstory on the eye, when he was a few months younger, I noticed a slash under his eye, not sure if it was from a cat fight or hurt himself some other way, or God forbid, it was a human. I hadn’t even begun to get things to do a TNR, so yes time had passed. Fast forward to vet appointment day. They asked if I could keep him for at least a week to see if his eye was improving. He wasn’t eating or drinking since the day I trapped him, which was Aug 8, 2022, after 5:30 pm, up until last night at about 5:30 am. That was concerning me. He loves wet food, I left him food twice, the first day he was recovering from anesthesia, and then on then last night the 9th after I got him into the crate, he just seems bummed out, and depressed, I understand he is in a new environment, and he will come out of his shell when he is really hungry. And he did finally. I am so happy.
This is my first TNR so I am not used to it. Normally, when a male cat is neutered, soon after they are released, as long as they are completely aware, and the anesthesia has worn off. With his eye healing, I needed to keep him for a week and see how his eye progresses. I pray the medication that they gave him will work. So far I have had to clean his crate twice (this morning). After he came out of anesthesia, he urinated where he was sitting, poor baby, it breaks my heart. I managed to clean the crate, pulled out the trap, replaced the pee pads, hand wiped down the trap, and added new newspaper, but he has not left the litter box, he is literally laying in it. I hope it doesn’t have any feces or urine in it.
I pray that the good Lord, will guide me, and give him the courage to come out and eat and drink because that was worrying me. With the temperatures so hot recently, it worried me a lot. Today 8/11/22 we are getting a break from the weather, it is cooler, but the humidity is still on the high side, so with the cool weather, and high humidity at the very least he is comfortable where he is. Below are some recent pictures. I have a camera set up, it has night vision, so I can see him at night too.
The first 2 photos, are of him, right after we brought him home (8/9/22) and put him in the crate, leaving food and water for him. In the 3rd photo, he got up and was trying to find a way out, in the process knocking water around and moving the pee pads around in the crate tray. I went down at about 3 am and left him food, and a little more water. When I checked in the morning, he had not eaten any of it. In the 4th and 5th photos, he is laying in the litter box, after I had cleaned it all up, and put down some dry food, and water. The last photo is after he go up, stretched, and repositioned himself to sleep in the litter box. I am so glad he has finally gotten up and eaten, and drank water.
Meanwhile, my inside cats Daisy, and Lily, continue to complain about wanting to go downstairs. I cannot let them down there. After speaking with the vet’s assistant, she said he may be FIV+ with that said, I cannot let my girls near him without doing a blood test. That will cost $70, plus whatever they charge for anesthesia (a total of $200). It is something my husband and I would have to talk about. Because we are unsure, my girls (inside cats), will have to remain away from him. They are used to having free reign to explore the basement and come up as they please, until now. I feel bad for them but I have no choice, it is for their well-being.
After doing some praying, asking the Lord to guide me, in what I should do with Momo. Ideally, I should release him back into our backyard which is relatively safe. Outside cats are never 100% safe sadly, but he is fixed so he won’t be making babies. His eye is my concern. I want to be sure it is healing, and if it is not. I will need to call animal control to see if they will give me another voucher to take him back to be checked, I don’t know how that will go. I don’t even know if they will allow it. For now, I continue to pray, that his eye is healing, and that the shot is working. God willing, it does, and then we can release him.
We did talk about it, and we came to the conclusion that he is too feral to try to socialize. But he will always be my Momo, and I will continue to feed the 3 cats or whatever cats continue to come around. I hope it does not scare Momo away. I have always enjoyed watching him lay on the grass enjoying the sun, and that is what I want to see. He is so miserable in the crate, he needs to be outside. We did remove the trap and placed a carrier in there, and that is where he has retreated too. So when I cleaned the crate this morning, he was in the back of it, he has yet as of 12:14 pm 8/11/22, come out to eat the food I left him.
I think that is all for now. Please keep him in your prayers, so that his eye will heal, so he can continue to live his life enjoying nature.
God Bless
Emily
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