A Tale of Two Choppers

I might not have mentioned earlier that CoCo went to the vet a few weeks ago and didn't exactly get a clean bill of health.  Turns out CoCo had a raging double ear infection.  And a heart murmur.  And tape worms.  And some pretty bad gum recession.  She was handling it all like a champ, but she was still a bit of a mess.  

We got meds for the ear infection and tape worms, and did a full blood workup for her.  Her blood work, interestingly enough, actually looked kind of good, particularly after all she'd been through.  Unfortunately, though, there was no avoiding another trip back to the vet for a dental.  

We were hoping not to have to do that so soon, because she still doesn't trust us, or at least she doesn't trust us every day.  Some days, she cuddles with me, flips on her back and purrs and kneads in my underarm for fifteen minutes at a time.  Other days, we're so scary she has to leave the room and trot under the bed the second we walk in.  That seems to be the majority of the days.  

So, taking her back to the vet and enduring her wrath for several days (weeks?  months?) didn't seem like a happy prospect.  We were pleasantly surprised when she made it through her dental with flying colors and only one tiny extraction with no stitches, AND she came back to the house and spent the next two days glued to my side.  She literally couldn't get enough petting and loving and cuddling.  It was kind of amazing.  

Things are back to normal now, though.  Oh, well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the day before this all happened last week, I looked up to see Cooper running through the house with the "I've-got-something-in-my-mouth-that-I'm-not-supposed-to-have" stance that we've come to recognize immediately.  This was exhibited with an added dollop of "and-I-don't-care-what-you-say-I'm-not-letting-go-of it."  Turns out it was a VERY.  LARGE.  SKINK.  

When I say "large," I mean that the middle part of it was roughly the diameter of a quarter, or maybe a half-dollar.  I know this, because the back half of the poor little buddy had fallen prey to Cooper's choppers, and he was essentially gone from the back legs back.  I've seen a lizard drop its tail many, many times.  This one dropped the entire back half of its body, and it didn't appear to be voluntarily.  The fact that it was still alive was some kind of miracle, but there it was, breathing frantically in the corner of our lanai.

But before it could make it to the corner of the lanai, it was still in Cooper's mouth.  So I yelled at him--loud.  There were four buddies on the porch that day, and they all simultaneously froze, except for Reggie, who I think just kept sleeping.  Cooper looked at me defiantly and didn't drop the skink.  I may have mentioned before that blue skinks can be poisonous to cats.   In Cooper, they can cause serious breathing issues, and in other cats they can cause paralysis and sometimes even death.  So I yelled again.  Louder.  I clapped my hands.  I loudly called him a bad kitty.  The other cats continued to stare at me as if I had taken leave of my senses, and perhaps I had.

Finally, Cooper dropped the poor skink, who then made it to his place over in the corner.  Cooper dove for him.  I dove for Cooper.  I scruffed him and hauled him off the porch, hoping the other cats would follow.  No such luck.  The girls sat there staring at me with their big blue eyes getting bigger by the minute, but were too scared to leave.  Reggie just snoozed.  

So with Cooper watching raptly from the living room, I grabbed a cup and piece of cardboard and tried to get the skink into the cup.  He could still move pretty well and was running all over the right side of the lanai with no back-end, but I eventually corralled him into the cup and escorted him out to the area by the pond.  I really hope he made it.  If he didn't die of blood loss and shock, I was afraid he was going to die of a little reptilian heart attack.  

I checked the house thoroughly for the remains of the little buddy, but found none.  My guess is that Coopie had already disposed of it.  We watched him closely for the rest of the night to make sure he had no issues breathing.  Everything was completely normal, except for one thing:  Cooper's feelings were hurt.  He pouted the rest of the night.  I don't think he minded being yelled at, and I don't think he minded being scruffed.  But I DO think he minded being called a bad kitty.  So for the rest of the night, I kept kissing him on his head and telling him over and over that he is a good kitty, and that I didn't mean what I said earlier.  I told him that, from now on, he had to fight his instincts to kill things and just watch them instead.  I said he would be a much better kitty if he did that instead of killing things.  He eventually seemed to pull out of his funk and start acting normally again, like the confident, happy, playful kitty that he is.  And he had no breathing issues that night, thank goodness.

Interesting postscript:  A few days later, we found a tiny tree frog (also potentially poisonous) on our lanai.  Actually, Cooper found it for us.  But instead of us prying it out of his mouth, he was just sitting there--watching it.  I don't know if he actually listened to what I said or not, but at least this one time, he decided to sit this one out.

Good kitty.