Jerry update, plz - did he weather all the stormy activity?
Jerry is still alive. The vet game me five more days worth of antibiotics this past Monday. I told her that Jerry was urinating a tad bit, and she said he could be partially blocked, which isn't great, but he'd be dead if fully blocked. We are also just assuming that a UTI is what it is. Tuesday morning he didn't show up when I called him, but it was brutally cold out. It was 24 degrees out with 35 mph winds. Brrrrr He did show up that night, even though the weather wasn't much better than the morning. He has one 1/2 more days of antibiotics left. The vet wants me to give him wet food every night for a month, and she gave me a months worth of wet food for Jerry, and about a months worth of premium dry food for the whole colony since we know Jerry is going to eat that too. When there are 27 cats out there, I can't control when everyone eats. There are early birds and late comers, and it is usually within a 2 1/2 hour span. The early birds are a bit thicker than the late comers, since they go back for seconds. I wish Jerry would lose some weight. He looks like he ate one of the cats. At least the Vegas guy is gone from the property now so he Jerry won't be getting extra food. Jerry is older than most of the cats out there. He is around 9 or 10. I'll be monitoring him for the next month. Hopefully he'll be ok.
I was surprised the vet (Dr. East) gave me some food. She took it out of her 501c3 feral cat account. She is a retired vet, and does feral and stray cat work. She isn't my regular vet (for my own personal two cats). I met her when she had the street cat project at the SPCA of the Triad. She fixed some of the colony prior to the mass trappings when I was trying to get some of the pregnant ones early. She started a feral and stray cat clinic in another county last year. I guess she knows I get no help financially with feeding the feral community so she decided to help me out with this Jerry predicament, which I appreciate. She gets donations and grants for the work she does. When one of the cats was sick last October, she put him down for me. I noticed one was missing, and went looking for him, and I found him sitting near the barrels, and he didn't look right. I emailed Dr. East, and she said if I can catch him to bring him to her. I tried for two weeks to catch him, and he was declining every day. It was heartbreaking to watch. He would not let me catch him. Finally one morning when I went out there real early to look for him, I saw him lying in the grass in the rain. I thought he was dead, but he wasn't, but he was barely alive. I wrapped him in a towel, and took him to her, and she examined him and determined he was poisoned. He suffered for two weeks, and it sucked so bad. She put him down, and said she would have him cremated. I appreciated that, and he did too. Low Rider is up there in kitty heaven with his buddies Clio, Tiger Lily/Loretta, Puff, Sam, Ozzy, Joey, and Clyde. I'm trying to keep Jerry from joining them.