RIP Skagway

 Poor Skagway was a mess.

I took him to the vet today.  So thankful they could get him in.  He did not return from the vet with me.  Skagway, from the park, is no longer suffering.

Poor boy's right front foot was mangled.  The bizarre wound had confounded me.  There's a slicing type injury on the top.  But on the bottom, his foot was hamburger.  I tried and tried to think of ways that could have happened.  Hit by car?  Something sharp across the top of his foot that crushed the bottom of his foot too against something that mangled it?   But the state of the rest of him, including failing kidneys, and severe starvation, suggested whatever caused that held him in place for a time.  Could have been just his injury itself prevented him getting to food and water.  But the vet suggested maybe he was caught in a leg hold trap.

Its not unknown around here for vicious idiots to set out traps where cats, dogs and even people roam, for whatever reasons, none of them good, especially not if someone did that in or near a park where dogs and children run.  KATA has taken in a couple cats over the years caught in leg holds.  These are the most cruel of traps.

I don't know for sure what happened  to poor Skagway.   His temp was over 104.  He also had an abscess on his neck that had been there awhile and excreting vile pus.   His bloodwork showed he was shutting down and had nothing left to fight with.  So I said goodbyes to a cat who suffered horribly for some time.   

Bad things just sometimes happen to good cats.  If he had been fixed at young age, not left to fend on his own......his life would no doubt have turned out far easier.

He was a tame cat too, unfixed, and whomever had once owned him sure wasn't much a human being.

Last night after picking him up and seeing what shape he was in, the muttering and cursing began.  I wanted to beat up whomever once claimed him and toss them in the river.  People who neglect, abuse and abandon animals----they're just scum.  He didn't deserve to suffer like he did.   You beautiful sweet boy---so long.  You were very brave and wonderful.