A Cat Tale

About 10 years ago I was driving through town and unfortunately saw a car hit a cat. I honestly don't think they realized that they had as they didn't stop and it was dark at night. I pulled over to see what I could do and there was the poor little fella laying beside the road but still very much alive. At that time there weren't any vets open at night so I called the police dept. to see what could be done as they have an animal control officer.

In the mean time I picked up the little guy and somehow managed to get back in my car and head to the police dept. with him in my lap. He obviously was seriously injured but I thought with medical treatment he might survive. Being the animal lover that I am I just couldn't not try to help in this situation.

I got to the front door of the police dept. and it was locked being that it was at night so I knocked on the door and when I did that it startled the cat and he bite me on the stomach right through my clothes and on one finger right to the bone! They let me inside and the cat immediately died after biting me! Didn't say much for me did it?

Well, seeings as I didn't know where the cat came from, whether he was a stray with rabies or what, the police detained me. (that sounds rather formal, I guess I have been watching too many cop shows) They looked at the bites, cleaned them up a bit, put on a band aid and before they would let me go they made an appointment for me at the emergency room at our local hospital.

I reluctantly went up and they gave me a tetanus shot and then dropped a bombshell on me. I had to send the CATS HEAD to Augusta for testing for rabies! Just the head. Yes, you heard me right, just the head. The police had dropped the body off at the vets office and I was given instructions to pick up the head the next morning and take it to the bus station and send it to the lab in Augusta.

Now that didn't make for very good sleeping so it was a long night but I got up in the morning and made my way to the vets office where they had the poor kitties head in a cooler on ice. Thankfully I didn't have to make a positive identification or I would have fainted dead away.

I made it to the bus station with the cooler, with the head in it, walk to the counter and am asked to fill out a form. The first question on the form is: What is in your package? I thought I was going to get out of that and just pay the fare and off to Augusta it would go but no I had to declare what was in the package..........

Needless to say the man at the counter snickered a bit although he really was trying not to. Anyway, soon the package was out of my hands and on its way. Now I had to wait for the lab results to see if the 'victim' had rabies. If so I was going to have to have the series of shots to prevent me from.....choke.....dying. Now this is not a little flu shot type thing. It's a series of shots that they give you around your abdomen with needles the size of knitting needles. (thankfully they have improved on that these days and it's not so bad)

The results came back and poor kitty thankfully did not have rabies or any other communicable diseases. I was elated needless to say!

This episode in my life was cause for much teasing by my family and friends. Not that they didn't feel badly for the cat but it just struck every one's funny bone I guess. Next thing I know I receive the above poster from my sister, Backhoe Mama, who has a quick wit and computer abilities to create what looks like a magazine cover. (This was a few years and many pounds ago.)

Any-who, the subject of the headless cat comes up every so often and people ask me if I learned my lesson about picking up injured animals. My brother even gave me a pair of welders gloves to carry in my car but there haven't been any more hit and run incidences that I have had to assist in. For that I am very thankful!