cat update

loki has been outfitted with a fashionable head cone. last night we took it off so he could be himself for a while. he spent the entire time giving himself a bath and restoring his dignity. we put the cone back on when he reached his injured tail.

yesterday i received a second call from public health concerning our sad cat. the woman i talked to was much more reasonable than the first woman who called me. she said that because we don't know if the animal that bit loki was actually rabid, they can't force us to do anything. they are just offering us recommendations. that was a relief because we had a certain amount of fear that the gestapo would come and take our cat away if we didn't have him in a double walled pen. she also confirmed the brighter side of things, that rabies in charlottesville is rare, that most likely it was another cat or perhaps a dog that bit loki, that we would see signs of rabies sooner than six months, and that right now we are safe to handle loki because it takes a long time for rabies to reach the saliva, and by that time he would be showing clear signs of being rabid. she also confirmed that, even though overdue on his booster, the booster he did receive two days ago would probably do the trick of averting rabies should it be present. she even said we could take him outside, as long as we kept in him in sight.

just writing this all feels so absurd, because i don't think he is actually infected w/ rabies. he is still recovering from his bite, but today is much more himself, beginning to mewel sadly at being sequestered to one room, eating his food, purring loudly when i scratch his neck and sitting on his cat tower longingly staring out the window. we are going to keep him and luna separate until luna gets her booster on saturday, we are going to wash our hands each time we handle him or his food dishes, and otherwise we are just going to observe him for the next few months. if he starts to foam at the mouth or have seizures or appear to be completely disoriented, well, that's the worst case scenario. that would be the end of our loki and we would have to immediately get immuno-globin treatments.

almost everyone i've talked to, experts, friends and family, have said that they really don't think we have anything to worry about. my vet in ann arbor thought the whole situation was absurd. she said they get cats in there all the time that are behind on vaccines and have been bit by unknown critters. she says they just give them a booster and send them home.

being at all cautious w/ loki is actually a major pain the ass. but i think we should be as cautious as reasonably possible until we feel confident that this is all a ruse. i'm hoping to talk to a couple of other vets in the area to see if they would have reported this to public health. i just think the vet we took loki to is a young republican.

i just feel so bad for our little fellow. he seems so forlorn. i think it's mostly the cone around his head that's bumming him out, but i also think he's really bewildered as to why he can't roam freely around his house. it's torturous.