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Forests and mountains and winos, oh my!

My cats are kinda dumb. Okay, poor little Boomer is kinda dumb or, as someone at dinner the other night so eloquently put it, “a few plywood sheets short of a shed.”

Anyway, Boomer loves to play with and chew on plastic, paper, and anything with adhesive on it. The other night, I got down the Christmas decorations. To get to them, I pulled out a small plastic grocery bag containing a spool of red ribbon and set it on the floor. Boomer was on it. One of his favorite things is to stick his head through the handles of grocery bags and then become entangled. I have to make sure that all bags are put away or trashed so I don’t come home to a suffocated pet. I pointed out to Danny that Boomer was doing his favorite dumb trick. Danny looked over at the cat and said “hey kitty!” This scared the crap out of boomer who raced out of the room with the bag in tow. It was kindo of like a big plastic parachute tied around his neck. His speed increased as the bag bonked against other things he passed such as chairs and walls. Poor little thing was scared to death. He also scared Boris who started racing around the house trying to get away from boomer and his scary bag-cape.

Boomer got under the futon and I managed to reach under there, grab a hold of the bag, and let boomer extricate himself. He wasn’t hurt at all, just very spooked. I would feel sorry for him, but this is not the first time he’s done this. I figured that Boris was under our bed hiding.

After thirty minutes, Boomer came out from hiding but I hadn’t seen Boris. Danny was lying on the bed, so I went in to talk to him and find Boris. I plopped down and noticed that there was a kitty-shaped lump up by my pillow. I smiled and pulled back the covers expecting to find a cozy kitten taking advantage of the heat from our electric blanket. Instead, I found a scared kitty surrounded by small bloodstains. He hopped off the bed and left a little trail of red spots. “Oh no,” I thought. He’s hurt.

I figured it was his paw since his face and body looked normal when he hopped down. Danny reached under the bed and dragged him out and we took him into the bathroom for a look. After examining his paws, we saw that one of his front claws had broken and that’s where he was bleeding. We had clipped his claws a week earlier, but Danny made sure not to get to close to the nailbed. My guess is that he got his claw snagged on the carpet as he was trying to get away from Boomer.

After determining that the cat was no longer bleeding, we decided to wait until morning and see how Boris was feeling.

The next morning, Boris acted fine and wasn’t even limping. Still, I made a vet appointment for that afternoon. I’m an overprotective kitty mama and I didn’t want to run the risk of his foot getting infected.

The vet said that he would be fine and wouldn’t need antibiotics unless he started limping or licking the wound excessively. She cleaned his foot and clipped the raggedy edges of the nail. Boris was very good during the vet visit and didn’t make a peep until the drive home. Poor little thing was so scared that he didn’t want to exit the cat carrier when the vet wanted to examine him. He was a trooper though and didn’t try to scratch me once. This morning, he was super friendly and wanted lots of attention as I was getting ready for work. Maybe he’s trying to suck up so that I take Boomer next time.