Oh, Walter. This poor guy has not had an easy life and unfortunately, it's an all too familiar story to many cats that have been abandoned by their humans or raised in a feral cat community. About two months ago Walter started showing up in our front yard, curling up in the flower beds and napping in the sun. We kept our eye out for him but at this point could get nowhere near him and it was hard to tell what his condition was. One day he was sleeping close enough for me to see that he was looking a bit rough, so I began setting food out for him a couple times a day.
As time went on, he would let me stay closer as he was eating and wouldn't run as far when I came out with the bowls. But our journey together really began the day he showed up looking heart wrenchingly bad. With a bleeding wound above his eye that was swollen shut, a pretty bad limp, and puncture wounds on his front legs, neck, and shoulder. After many phone calls and research, we knew our only real option was to trap him so until we could get our hands on one, we had to wait. I continued to feed and watch him as closely as possible, after a few days we got the trap, set it up and within an hour we were able to trap him (thank goodness for having already built some trust).
Our vet fit us in, kept him overnight and went to work on all his health needs (which was quite a bit). They confirmed that he had puncture wounds covering his body that most likely resulted from his excessive fighting as he was an unaltered male with a large community of cats around us. They did the neuter, flea treatment, an antibiotic for his upper respiratory infection, and another antibiotic for his many open wounds. His kidneys were also enlarged and were the size of golf balls rather than hazelnuts. Arguably though the hardest part of it all was his FIV (feline version of AIDS) test coming back positive. Which means his immune system is compromised and any fighting if released back into the feral community would mean the possibility of spreading this uncurable disease to feral and housecats alike.
As you will notice looking through the pictures Walter has made some beautiful progress in both his health and his temperament towards humans (or at least the ones he has gotten to know). He is regularly purring and kneading, rubbing against his cage for pets, gently taking food from my hands, he greets me with meows, and we have even started to play. His transformation in such a short time has been a journey full of beautiful moments and milestones.
