Where I live is a bit of suburb residential area. Squirrels are common, and I've seen opossum, skunk, and raccoons in my backyard.
In this season, my cat goes out in the morning and comes back at night. He is a half-outdoor cat.
On 1/10/2018, right after his 5-years old birthday, he came home with lost collar, looked all dirty, and miserable. I thought he got into another fight with a neighborhood cat, and just grabbed him and gave a shower to clean him up.
Afterwards, he looked strange, like in a lot of pain, with root of tail swollen and the tail limp.
I thought he might have gotten a tail-pull injury by a cat fight-gone-wrong, or by encountering a vicious dog, or by having a car accident, or by an abuser (a pet abuser will go to special place in hell).
Tail-pull injury can make cats incontinent by damaging nerves controlling bladder and bowel movement. I was concerned. Fortunately he was able to urinate, then later, defecate.
Next 3-4 days he was asleep all day, with a swollen and tender spot at the root of his tail. He's lost weight and gotten lethargic.
Six days ago I noticed the swelling finally subsided. Also noticed a bald spot in his tail fur right next to his rear, with two necrotic lesions, one inch apart.
It wasn't a tail-pull. It was a bite, likely from a snake.
Since it is winter, I forgot about snakebite. But snakes can bite even in this season, if you step in their den, wake them up, and disturb them. And apparently that was what happened. Lucky enough the bite did not kill him.
My cat is getting recovered and I am very happy about it. He started nagging me in the morning to get out. But I will keep him inside at least until he regains his weight and strength more, has better control over his tail movement, and both the open wounds close. Although one of the wounds is almost gone, there still is an open deep puncture wound, that I'd hate to see gotten infected. Until he sees recovery, I'll just keep using vetericyn spray to sanitize the wound and observe.
He was vaccinated for rabies. So he should be okay for rabies even if the bite was from other animal. I'll keep an eye on his behavior for a while, just in case.
As a semi-outdoor cat and a member of neighborhood fight club, he's got some injuries before. A bump on his head in 2016, an abscess on his head that took almost a month to heal in 2017, then, this bite in 2018.
Now he is curling up on my lap and asleep. Cats are resilient animals. Yet, he's got only six more lives to go. Be careful.
