Healthy Happy Orange Cat

We call him Orange Cat.  (The name just came to us.) He sits on the deck and stares at the windows when it's time to eat. He used to sit on his own deck - I'd see him out there in the mornings, perched on the neighbor's (once his home) deck railing, waiting to be let in, waiting for food, for attention. For water. Anything.

The neighbor told us one day that they put Orange Cat  outside when he started peeing inside. It happened after one of their children was born.

On very stormy or very cold days, they'd put the cat in their garage. I could be wrong, I could have missed something, but it seemed he was kept in there for days at a time. When he was released, he'd visit my yard or my deck and I'd give him water. He seemed to really need it.


Because we couldn't bring him inside (we already have three rescues and simply can't introduce one more), and because I didn't trust that the garage had food, water, or even a litter box in it (and because he would be in there for too long, it seemed to me), we built him his own apartment. We couldn't find an "O" for Orange Cat, but he probably can't tell the difference between an "O" and a zero.

The shower-curtain liner walls protect him from wind, and inside the wood structure is a doghouse insulated on all walls - including ceiling and floor - and then stuffed with straw. He also has, on his inside porch, a soft pad that retains heat. He likes to sit there when it's sunny.

He doesn't spend time in his house unless he has to, though. He likes being in the grass, cleaning himself on yard stones, playing tag with me when I'm out doing yard work - and, as in the case of this picture, supervising pruning and weeding:


He's extremely friendly, even to other cats. One day, during a fruitless effort to get my cats accustomed to harnesses, I took them to the back yard to test them out in the grass. Orange Cat stood quietly by, watching from the perimeter.

Last winter, I saw him sitting outside his insulated dog house on a cold morning. I stuck my hand inside the straw to fluff it up, and I came up against something. Stupidly, I pushed at it (what WAS that??), and a different cat came shooting out before scampering away with a horrible limp and an injured face. (I tried to track it down but never found it.)

OC had given this other cat his house for the night.

He didn't want to go back in there for a few hours, so he welcomed a soft place to hang out until the other cat's scent dulled a little bit.


Here he is, earlier in the year, giving another stray some space - as well as his food and water.


Orange Cat has even been in the local daily newspaper I used to write for. This is the photo I took of him that was later used by a different department to advertise a spay and neuter clinic:



Typically, animals used for pet health ads are thought to be healthy. Unfortunately, I can't vouch for the health of Orange Cat, which is where this fundraiser comes in.

I don't know when his previous owners last took him to the vet. They did spay him, and they didn't declaw him, but beyond that, they've been largely uninvolved. I've already approached them a few times over the last few years about his health or concerns I had, and they did nothing. It doesn't seem wise to approach them again. Too many weird situations can erupt between neighbors.

When watching him eat, I've noticed he has a  very hard time getting the food in his mouth - and this is with soft/canned food. It looks incredibly painful for him, and so the natural conclusion is that he desperately needs dental care. (Imagine day after day of tooth pain, and in many teeth at once.)

He also has a hard mass on his middle that concerns me. The hard mass was the last thing I went to the neighbor with. The response: "Oh, yeah. He's had that. They said it's nothing." I have no idea whether OC ever saw any "they" about his mass.

An over-the-phone estimate for dental care for a cat whose teeth hadn't been looked at in order to get the estimate (just a best guess based on what I could tell them) was $700 - $1225.

That was my cat, Hoser, who is currently still taking pain meds after having teeth pulled yesterday. (He's been on steroids for asthma, which I've been told can degrade teeth.) The actual bill, put on a credit card yesterday: $1065.

Hoser  demolished our cat fund. We need to rebuild, and we have two other cats to think about already.

The desired amount in the Orange Cat GoFundMe campaign is $1500 for a couple of reasons:


1. I think his teeth may be worse than those of the cat I just took in to the vet, and therefore more expensive.

2. There would be the additional charge of a first visit.

3. The money would also help pay for any medication or treatment he might need for  the mass he has, if in fact it isn't benign.

4. If the bills turned out to be less expensive than anticipated, any money left over would be given to The Cat's Meow Animal Rescue League , a wonderful cat rescue organization whose dedication is unrivaled.

Orange Cat is a sweet boy whose family rejected him and who deserves to live his outdoor life happy and pain-free.


For those who are concerned about his outdoor status and his safety: he knows his parameters like no cat I've ever seen. He's been out there since we moved in three years ago, and he's never been close to the street. Cats can be unpredictable and fly in front of a car during a chase, true, and this is something I'm afraid of, too - which is why there is an ongoing effort to find him a foster home.

But first, he has to be as free of vet bills and as healthy as he can possibly be. In the meantime, it would also be a great relief to him, I'm sure, to be able to eat without hurting.

Please donate to help Orange Cat get some basic medical care. As you know, every little bit helps, so whether you can donate $5 or $50 or $500, please know that however much this fundraiser collects will benefit Orange Cat.

Thank you,

Kristen

And Orange Cat