Scans_Daily

Doctor Who...I was impressed. I'll give Davies this, he knows how to ramp things up to 11 for the finale.

Time for an upbeat tale. My FIL had two cats. My MIL had them declawed (one more good reason why she deserves to burn in hell for all eternity...ahem). They were very shy around visitors, but they LOVED my FIL. Not surprising, the man had pure animal-lover energy. After MIL died (and went to hell), these cats kept him company and gave him great comfort.

When my BIL "Goofus" wormed his way back into FIL's life (and his condo), the cats stayed well away from him, sensing that he hated them. And when FIL ended up in a senior care facility in Indiana...things went south. The cats were neglected, and a few months later Goofus called us to say that one of them had died under really odd circumstances (and we will leave it at that). I told him to take the body to a nearby vet clinic, and we'd prepay for a cremation.

He never did it. We found out later he put the body in the freezer. Our suspicion is that he was hoping we'd give him cash for drugs/alcohol.

All during this, we had no idea about the status of the other cat, named "Bruce". Goofus was not forthcoming and we feared the worst. When we FINALLY got him evicted in late March (the wheels of justice grind very slowly), the agency my other BIL "Gallant" hired installed new locks and a motion detector system for security. There's another story about that, but I'll bypass it.

Turns out the detectors went off. Wasn't a human presence. Hmm. Fortunately, I have a very good friend back there (also named "Bruce", amusingly) whose hobby was trapping ferals, getting them checked out and neutered, and rehoming them when possible. I called him and explained the situation, and he immediately said "I'm on it" and worked with the agency to set up some indoor traps.

Caught Bruce the Cat in two days. Yay! Bruce the Human took him home and set him up in a nice big cage with lots of food, water, litter box and a big box he could hide in. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

Boy, we got it and then some! Bruce the Cat started chowing down like there was no tomorrow, and believe it or not he fell in LOVE with Bruce the Human. Reached the point where he wouldn't eat dinner until he'd climbed into the Human's lap and gotten his allocation of pats. And apparently the purr could shake houses!

Bruce the Human took him to the vet yesterday. The cat is understandably underweight (that's not going to be a problem much longer!), has an oddly dislocated jaw (we have our suspicions but can't be sure), and otherwise is in surprisingly good health. Bruce the Human is going to start working his extensive network to see if anyone would like a very shy, loving boy who would probably do well as a solo cat. I have my fingers crossed!