Maisie

This is Maisie, the cat with the broken jaw who came in just over two weeks ago, still looking a bit sorry for herself. As you can see from the pics, the left-hand side of her face is still not quite right, but she should be able to have the metal wire out next week. I think she's almost blind on the bad side except that her pupil contracts in bright light, so she can probably see light and shade.

Updates on Santa and Joshua

Unfortunately Joshua had quite a serious setback last week, due to slippage of the repair to his pelvis, which caused constriction of his pelvic canal, making it impossible for him to pass faeces normally. This means he's back in the Vet School and has had another operation to put the pelvis back and create what's known as a "false joint" to stabilise his damaged hip, which had dislocated again.

They've just phoned to say it looks reasonable so far and he's now more comfortable.

Better news on Santa, who had another operation to close his collar wound last week, and so far it looks as if the skin graft has taken. He's not out of the woods yet, as it could still break down again, and we won't know for sure for another two weeks.

Another cat

Not very full details yet as Vet24 phoned immediately after the finders had brought the kitty to them. The cat is all (or almost all) white and about four or five years old. No collar or chip, and I don't think they'd definitely confirmed the sex, although they spoke about "him" which suggests they think this is a neutered male. He's apparently fairly bright, but has a probable pelvic fracture, so "the other Rosemary" is going to pick him up from them early tomorrow morning on her way in to do reception at the clinic.

Injured stray dog

Not completely sure whether this was the result of miscommunication, lack of money or just general snafu. The 24 hour vet phoned last night to say someone had brought in an injured stray: probably from one of the local Traveller sites and probably hit by a car. The dog warden service normally only works 9-5, so I wasn't surprised to be asked if we'd help with funds for initial treatment. I asked the vets to contact the local dog warden service first thing in the hope that they'd be able to help with further costs, or at least provide transport to our clinic.

They did try, but were told South Cambs no longer has a dog warden service, which is very bad news if true. Their website still gives contact numbers, so this may just be temporary, or it may be that they simply don't have any funding to deal with injured dogs. By then all the volunteer drivers who might have helped with transport were otherwise occupied, so I asked the vet to use the pet taxi service to send the dog to the clinic to give him at least a chance rather than simply having him put down there and then.

More cats again, and updates

Another traffic accident via Cathedral vets in Ely (dislocated hip, which they will probably pin there to avoid the need to transfer to the Vet School, then to the kennels) and another entire tom with septic fight wounds admitted at Pet Drs in Soham — fortunately testing FIV/FeLV negative.

The cat admitted to the Vet School hospital last week has had his pelvis plated and can walk fairly normally, but he still can't urinate without help. They think this is a temporary problem which will go away as the pelvic bruising heals up. He's not terribly happy in the hospital because it's very noisy and strange, so ideally we'd get him out to a foster home where he could get more peace and quiet, but it's difficult because it needs to be someone who's willing to be trained to express his bladder manually until he gets back normal muscle control.

Spirit, the blocked bladder kitty has been castrated and is FIV/FeLV negative and seems to be passing urine with no problems, so Nicola's planning to move him to the kennels tomorrow.

Sunday evening panic

Modern surgical techniques make some absolutely remarkable repairs possible, even where the main bones of a limb have been broken in several places so that they effectively hang loose. For really bad cases, the vets will usually implant a "surgical fixator" - effectively a metal scaffolding bonded to the pieces of bone to hold them rigidly in position so that they can grow back together. The result looks fearsome, but seems to completely relieve the pain of the break. In the accompanying photo Tiger Lily demonstrates how unworried she is by the fixator holding her upper forelimb together.

The downside is the length of time needed for bone to grow back between the broken sections. This can take several months, and until the natural join is complete it's essential that the animal doesn't put sudden strain on the leg by jumping or falling and the fixator has to stay in place (it's removed by a second operation once X-rays show natural bone growth has filled in the gaps).

This means the animal has to be closely confined and only exercised under strict supervision and various sorts of cages have to be used, none of which are entirely satisfactory. The large plastic cages sold for indoor rabbit-keeping are easy to clean and free of snags on which the fixator can get hooked up, but they are rather hot in sunny weather. Fibre-glass or plastic indoor kennels and dog crates are preferable in many ways but the bars can be a problem - as one of our fosterers discovered on Sunday when his foster-cat managed to slip his fixator through the cage bars, and panic, turn sideways and get completely wedged. It then required two of us to release him, one to rotate the cat and the other to slide the fixator through the bars. Not entirely my idea of a fun Sunday night.