Reunification, and Terrification

Letting Mister out of the basement room was not as dramatic as I had anticipated it would be.  But it was a lot different than I thought it would be.  Basically, Mister acted like this was a brand-new house for him.  He spent a solid ten or 15 minutes just checking out the basement again.  Then later, when he made it upstairs, he slinked from room to room, sniffing everything there, entourage of feline watchers (read:  all the other boys) in tow.  A couple of times I had to keep him from marking, and a handful of times I had to deal with the aftermath of his marking, but it was still nice to have him back with the family.

In the meantime, we decided it was finally time to make sure that Elroy got his claws clipped, so he couldn't make ribbons of Mister when it got to that point again.  The only way to do this with him is to throw a towel over his head.  We trapped him on the porch and took turns trying to get the towel over him.  Finally, I got it over his head and Sean scooped him up and got him situated on his lap.  I set to work clipping his razor-sharp nails.  Poor little guy had nails that were already shredding of their own accord, from lack of proper grooming by us.


And then, the unthinkable--I accidentally snipped one of his back claws too close and cut to his quick.  I could see the blood starting to form at the end.   This is, to my knowledge, the first time I've ever done that.  And it couldn't have happened to a worse cat--the only one who doesn't trust us to do this (Mango excluded of course--we just let the vet do hers).  So now, he didn't trust us, and his back paw was hurting.  As I finished, I checked his face and his eyes were huge--wide open pupils, and not moving in any direction.  The poor cat was terrified.  


We put some antibiotic on the hurt toe and then he went scurrying off to the basement to hide.  I know I cut him to the quick, but it cut me to the quick too that I'd actually hurt poor little sweet Elroy.


I am happy to report that he had forgiven us by the evening and was back to head-bunting and cuddling.  Nonetheless, I may never have the courage to cut his nails again.  It was way too traumatic for us all...