The deed is done. We have a new cat.

Thanks to the extremely generous contributions that our friends have so graciously provided to us, we were able to get Stormy Cat to the vet and get his leg looked at. The most challenging part of getting him in the carrier was getting the thing to shut (we set him down in it and put the top half of the carrier down over him and the door easily enough, but then struggled to get all the latches and bolts that secure it into place) and he was singing us the song of his people loudly all the way to the vet. They got him in and gave him a once over, and gave us the results – no broken bones! He had instead suffered a bite of some sort that had apparently gotten very infected, to the point that he couldn’t bear to put any weight on his leg at all. So they shaved the site of the wound, gave him a very strong, long-lasting, one-dose antibiotic, tested him for fleas and worms (yes to the fleas, no to the worms), treated him for the fleas, gave him his rabies vaccine, and did a couple of other diagnostic things to check him out. We also got him chipped, so if he does manage to get out of the house and someone picks him up he’ll have an owner of record. He still needs to get his distemper and feline leukemia shots but it was recommended that we bring him back for those once he’d healed up. He was amazing at the vet’s office, hardly giving them any trouble at all throughout the whole procedure. At the end of the visit, it turned out that we’d manage to raise enough to cover his vet bill, thankfully.

He weighs about what Two Socks, our other cat, weighs, despite being about half again as big – he’s pretty lean, where Two Socks is a little on the chubby side. They estimate he’s about 4 years old, which is about a year ahead of Two Socks.

We got him home and had planned on having him stay in the spare bedroom for the day to give him a chance to recover, but the first time that we opened the door to get out he shot out and went under the bed. That was this morning, and he’s still under there at the time of this writing, so we hope he’ll come around tomorrow and come out for some food and water.

I’ll keep you posted on his progress as time passes, and as we make the attempt to convert him from being an outdoor to an indoor cat. I think that urge to go outside is going to be a very strong one for him, since he’s lived outside for the close to three years we’ve been in this complex, and he’s surely going to want to return to familiar territory.

Because we’ve met our objective without reaching our fundraising goal, we shut down the campaign. Thank you again to those that donated and helped spread the word about Stormy Cat.

And just like that, our little family has grown by one.