Frodo part 1

Frodo
Frodo came to the school this week from a rescue group we don’t normally use. He was the only animal we received from them. When the lady dropped him off she gave off that “crazy cat lady” vibe. All the other rescue people I have dealt with so far as the Animal Care supervisor seem to be really in tune with the animals they bring in and have an understanding as to what our mission is, even when it is the foster homes bringing in the animals I feel confident about the animals in their care. Not with this lady. I brushed it off, I have been having a rough time of getting enough sleep and it was on Monday morning. I watched her put the cat in the kennel with his “favorite towel”, fill out the forms, tell me about the meds he was on, she showed me that he had un-distended testicle (that she marked with a red pen) , went over the feeding protocol and sent her on her way. Frodo crawled into the corner under the perch and stayed there, this is not uncommon, a new place that smells funny, 5 other cats in cages around you, 1-5 barking dogs on the other side of the door and strange people walking through the room a million times a day.

The history I got from the lady about Frodo is that he was a rescue and they thought he was neutered but he was spraying like an un-neutered cat so they put him on an anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety medication and they had had him for about a year and he wasn’t adoptable until the spraying was under control and they will take him off the meds as soon as the un-distended testicle was removed. That made some sense at the time.

The Vet and I did his intake physical his temp was normal and he didn’t struggle at all. He seemed to just move really slow and his muscles were really tense. She made note of the movement and she put is body condition score at 4 out of 10. We went on to the other 6 animals we had to do. Tuesday after my class the vet and I were doing intake on 2 new animals that had come in and we checked on good ol’ Frodo he hadn’t eaten anything and he was in the same place I put him after his kennel had been cleaned. I picked him up and we put him on the table and he was still as a statue. I picked him up by his scruff and placed him down on the table with his back feet and like he was in slow motion he curled himself down to put his front feet down. The Vet figured out that he was over medicated and there was no way we could neuter him in that condition, there no way to maintain vitals on him under anesthesia. So the priority shifted from getting him ready for surgery to making him feel better. The Vet went to the office to call the rescue to find out if this was from the stress of being in a new place or was he just as sluggish at home. At the time I had left on Tuesday the rescue lady hadn’t called back.