TheBanyanTree: Whew

[Pam Lawley]

whew is right!!  thanks for sharing your story and I'm so happy it has a
happy ending!

On Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 10:49 AM, Tom Smith <trsmith44 at cox.net> wrote:

> I let our two dogs out in the orchard, mid-day.  It's the next best thing
> to a walk. They had more enthusiasm than usual that time of day, but I
> didn't pay it any attention.  Almost immediately after clearing the gate,
> they picked up a scent and started running -after the next-door neighbor's
> young  black cat that was hunting lizards in a woodpile.  Our dogs had gone
> after cats in the orchard before, but the cats always escaped up a tree.
> Not this time.  As soon as I saw the dogs chasing the cat, I ran as fast as
> I could to intervene, but I got there too late. Ginger, a big adopted
> short-haired pointer, had the cat in or on her mouth and was shaking her
> head vigorously side to side.  I'd never seen an animal survive that.  Zero
> time to think. I just grabbed Ginger by the collar and yanked, and to my
> amazement, she dropped the cat. To my greater amazement, the cat just
> looked at me, a little out of breath.
>
> I got the dogs out of there and went back to check on the cat.  It had
> disappeared. Encouraging.  It could move.  Barbara and I couldn't find it.
> Went back and put a leash on Ginger, and took her to where she had dropped
> the cat. Ginger sniffed and followed a scent trail -there was no blood.
> She showed a lot of interest in a near-by stack of wood panels leaning
> against the side of a shed.  I was sure the cat had hidden there.
>
> I traded Ginger for a carrier and flashlight and returned.  The cat was at
> the far end of the panels.  We tried patience and slowness.  It was
> ourselves that actually needed the calming.  The cat looked like cats
> usually do, kind of indifferent and unperturbed, but we couldn't believe
> that.  Barbara was able to pick it up put it in the carrier.  We took the
> carrier next door.
>
> Nobody was home.
>
> We had no cellphone number for the neighbor.  The only veterinary facility
> open on a Sunday was an emergency hospital that charged a fortune.  Because
> the cat looked OK we opted to just wait.  Thank goodness the neighbor
> returned home not long after.  We handed her the cat and carrier and told
> told her the story.  We had mentioned before that her cat was going in our
> yard and driving our dogs nuts.  Cats will be cats and dogs will be dogs,
> so it was bound to happen sooner or later.
>
> She took her cat to the vet the next day.  There was a  puncture wound on
> his rear end.  He is fine now.  Ginger had 3 or 4 cat claw or teeth marks
> on her nose, one very near one of her eyes.  They swelled up and looked
> infected, so we took her to the vet.  Now I have to check the orchard
> before I let the dogs loose down there.  Haven't seen the neighbor's cat
> since then. I think she decided to have a house cat.  She also decided to
> make him an "it."
>
> Whew..
>