One Sunday afternoon I received a call from a distraught owner. Her cat Trixie had been missing for 2 days and showed up in a horrible state. I asked her to meet me at the hospital.
When I showed her in, Trixie was indeed on death’s doorstep. It was immediately apparent that this poor cat was suffering and that the humane thing for me to do was to put her to sleep. As I was doing the examination the owner told me she last saw her two days earlier and she looked fine. I reflected on this as I stroked the emaciated black haired body. Trixie had obviously been sick for a long time. Unable to raise her head, she was seemingly unaware of any of the physical exam as I moved from her nose to the back end and prepared to take her temperature. As I lifted the tail I was surprised to find that Trixie was a boy cat. I pointed this out to the owner and she immediately cried out in relief. “That’s not my cat!”
I was left alone with a very sick stray cat and chose to end his life in quiet dignity to avoid the inevitable suffering that was ahead.
Trixie did show up a few days later. She came to see me just to be sure everything was OK. We will never know where she went but she returned the picture of good health.