Chloe and the Giant Paw

Chloe is Bastet's sister and litter mate. She is my son's cat, but he moved to a place where he can't have cats so he left her with us.

She wasn't very friendly at first, sticking to herself and hanging around outside a lot. Then one night she got into a fight with a big feral male cat who was after the cat food on our porch. The screams and hisses were bloodcurdling, right below our bedroom window!

In the morning she limped inside with a bite wound in her side and another on her left front paw. She had defended her territory, but at what cost?

I got some triple antibiotic ointment into the side wound and it healed quickly, but her paw was nearly crushed and had open gashes on two sides where the attacker's teeth sank in.

A friend of a friend, a vet, gave us some oral antibiotics even though it was the weekend, which seems to be when my animals always get hurt or sick. I locked her in an upstairs bedroom alone with a litter box and food and water, and dosed her twice a day with an eyedropper.

Her paw swelled up to three times its normal size before it started to respond to the treatment. It was GIANT! She is much better now and walks on it, but it is still much bigger than the other one. You can see she shows it to me like she is saying, "See, it's my boo boo!"

The good news is, we have bonded. She knows I am trying to help.