A sticky situation

The cat's name was Whoops and it fit that rascal well.

He arrived in a pet carrier and would hiss and slap at the cage door if anyone even looked in that direction. Most veterinarians will agree that there is nothing more dangerous than a mad cat. They have four feet and a mouth you have to watch out for and they are lightning fast. Mother of Whoops kindly said that she would just leave him in the cage and we could get him out when it was time for his surgery.

Whoops was about to undergo a declaw procedure. This is what happens when you are a cat that lives in the house and decide that the arm of the leather couch is a good place to sharpen those claws. Whoops had taken to this hobby about a month ago and now that the old couch was ruined, Mother of Whoops had ordered a new one. This meant the claws had to go before the new couch arrived.

Couch vs. cat

I don't particularly like this surgery; it seems a bit drastic to me, but I guess it's better than putting the cat to sleep. We anesthetized him, removed the claws, closed up the space with tissue adhesive and wrapped the paw in an antibiotic bandage.

The surgery on Whoops went wonderfully and we put him back in the cage before he woke up in order to prevent another wrestling match. I checked on him quite often after the surgery and in about an hour, he was hissing at me when I looked at him. You know a cat is a bit on the mean side when he is lying on his side on the floor of a cat carrier an hour after surgery hissing at everyone who walks by.

Good prognosis

Mother of Whoops came at the scheduled time to pick him up. I told her he did well and was waking up in the peaceful environment of his carrier. She smiled as I carried Whoops to the car and seemed content that her new couch was safe for generations to come.

About nine that night the phone rang. It was Mother of Whoops, and she had a bit of a worried tone to her voice. It seems that Whoops would not come out of the cage. She had opened the door to the carrier and left him in his room assuming that when he felt like it, he would come out. It had been several hours and he was still in their laying just as he was when she picked him up. This alarmed me a bit, too. I told her to meet me at the clinic and we would have a look.

She handed me the cage and sat down in a chair in the waiting room. I went into the exam room and opened the door to the cage. There he was, hissing and laying in the same position that I had last seen him several hours ago. What could be wrong? I had never heard of a cat being paralyzed from declaw surgery! Everything had gone well … then it dawned on me! The tissue adhesive I had used to close the surgical sites had exploded a bit when I opened it. As I examined the hissing critter it became apparent that some of it had gotten on the cat and in the carrier. Whoops was glued to the floor of the carrier!

I gently reached under the cat and cut the hair that was sticking him to the cage floor. It must have been a larger explosion than I had realized because he was stuck tight in several places. He was up and happy in no time. I returned the cat to the owner and blushingly described what had happened. She was understanding and happy that everything was OK. Whoops!