The Collar

A few days ago, our mama kitty, Sawyer came home with two puncture wounds on her hiney, like she was running away from something and it just got a piece of her nubby bob tail. She doesn’t go very far from the house because she’s old and lazy so I’m guessing it was the new neighbor’s puppy that they’re keeping in the backyard. So I clean her up and evaluate the damage. Two puncture wounds, not deep and a little rippage, no need for stitches. No problem. I clean it up and pack the holes with antibiotic cream, give her some sympathy loving and send her on her way.

The next morning at chow time I check the wounds again and find that she has chewed off the skin around the holes and now has two silver dollar sized open, oozing, bleeding wounds. I should have seen this coming. This cat is crazy neurotic anyway. I should have known she’d be a picker. I tried to explain to her that there will always be an edge to the owie and continuing to clean it back will only make the owie bigger, but she just looked at me with confused, wide eyes as if to say, “Have you seen what’s wrong with my ass? Why aren’t you doing something?” So for her own good, to keep her from skinning herself, we pull out the collar. The most ridiculous invention on earth, and yet the only thing that is in anyway effective when dealing with pickers. I wrap the cone around her tiny little head and clean the now giant wound again. When I sit her on the floor she seems confused. She stands perfectly still like she’s afraid the thing might be alive. This is a good thing. For the next few days she’ll just sit there while those Silence of the Lambs wounds heal. It is not to be. Sawyer slowly starts to back up, like she might have her head stuck in a jar.  Try as she might, she cannot back out of this contraption on her head. She does this for a good 15 minutes, and as sad as it is, I can’t help but be amused. Then suddenly she’s had enough. Sawyer flies into a rage and starts to fly around the room, still running backwards, with all her tiny might. She bangs the wounds into the walls, chairs, shelves leaving defiant smears of blood all over the room. This is both horrifying and hilarious.  I call Dewie into the room.

“What the hell is she doing?” (Bam! Conk. Bang!)

“I don’t think she likes the cone.” (Bonk! Bang! Bang!)

“Why is she running backwards?” (Thud! Bam!)

“She’s trying to back out of it…really fast.” (Bang! Bang! Thud!)

“That cat is so crazy.”  (Bam! Bam!)

“Right? I’ll pick her up and try to settle her down if you clean up the blood.”

“Gross.”

“She’s clearly not happy, so do you want to deal with your blood or hers?”

“Hers.”

I bend down to catch Sawyer, which isn’t as hard as it seems because she’s still moving backwards and bumping into things like a pinball machine. I try to cuddle her and she is surprisingly compliant. I lay a towel down on the bed and let her snuggle her little cone right up to me and she quickly falls asleep. I guess all that backwards running is exhausting. She’s calm for now. I’ll take it. It’s going to be a long couple of days.