Polly’s New Kittens are Growing Up

Itty Incision After Leg Amputated

On the Road to Recovery

About a year ago, we had a small white cat move into the loft of our stud barn.  Laura’s suspicion that she was carrying kittens was confirmed when we found a litter of three tiny kittens in our hay loft when we were putting up hay last June.  Of course Laura quickly became attached to these little bundles of fur.  As you can see, they quickly realized they had arrived at kitty Shangra La with great food, good shelter and free medical care.   About two months ago, Laura was working in the stud barn when she noticed that Gail, the small black kitten, was limping and would not put any pressure on her right rear leg.  A quick trip to the vet confirmed our worst fears.  Gail had experienced a very severe break in her right rear leg.  The break was so bad that her femur was broken right through the knee socket.  Our vet gave us three options:  euthanasia,  a very risky and costly surgery to try to repair the break or amputation of the leg.  We struggled over our decision overnight and finally decided that amputating her right rear leg would be better than risking the surgery and resultant long recovery.  Of course after we amputated her leg, we knew she would need to become an addition to our collection of cats which are allowed to live in the house. After the surgery,  Gail was in significant pain for the first couple of days.  Even though she was getting synthetic morphine, she was still howling much of the time.  Finally after two days the pain subsided and she was starting to move around the house.        Gail is shown here walking around as if she had all four legs.  We have discovered that a three legged cat can jump as high and run as fast as a cat with four legs!  Gail is a holy terror around the house.  Her small size and handicap have not prevented her from taking charge of all of the other cats in the house–including our 25 lb. Maine Coon cat.  The other four indoor cats give her plenty of space to avoid her growl and fast polydactyl front paws! It never ceases to amaze us how adaptive animals can be.  If only we humans could adapt to our own infirmities  with such ease.

Fred