And the other thing that's been going on

When we last discussed Boe Kitty

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                      (No, you may not photograph my face.)

in December, he had been having adventures.

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                     (No, no face for you.)

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                     (I said no pictures.)

Kidnapped by a loony neighbor in mid-treatment for a mysterious limp, he turned up at the Animal Shelter where a volunteer noticed our phone number on his collar.
(Yes, the neighbor took him to the animal shelter without checking his collar. What can I say?)
We got him back, he finished his pills, and his limp slowly improved.

His limp?
A mystery at the time.
("The time" = Christmas Eve. The cat is a master.)
It was treated at the time as perhaps a smoldering abscess on his hind leg.
They did an x-ray, but saw nothing.
He got some pills, disappeared for a few days, and came home and finished his meds.
On his return he stayed in for a couple of weeks, in great crabbiness, and eventually recovered enough to go back out.
All back to normal, we thought.

Except that when I took off to Italy, leaving Tom in charge (and teaching two classes, three days a week, with a two-hour commute each way), the boy started limping again.
Uh oh.
But now it was the other leg.
This time, though, instead of the Christmas eve Replacement Alternative Professional vet (or CRAP vet), we had the last time, we ended up seeing the orthopedic surgeon.
Ah.

At Christmas the problem with the first knee was a broken patella.
You can see it on the x-ray.
You know, the one the CRAP vet had that night.
His patella had healed, but it healed itself by making a lot of fibrous junk linking together the pieces of the broken knee cap, that sort of all works like an intact knee cap, but not all that well.
And now his other knee cap is broken.

So she asked Tom what we feed him.
Tom, of course, had no idea.
("Big purple cans, or little blue ones.")
She was thinking perhaps we had been trying to turn him into a vegetarian, and explained patiently that cats are obligate carnivores.
Seemingly not really believing him about the cans.
The purple cans are Wellness, the blue are Tiki, and they are both pretty premium carnivorous kinds of cat foods.

Tiki-cat-wet-food-tuna

What the picture doesn't show is that Tiki is full of hunks of whole sardines.
We have not been raising the guy on tofu

(Wellness =/= Tofu).
When I turned up for the follow-up visit, with brand names and all, we starting to consider alternate theories, which are basically only guesses.
It remains a mystery.
Two unrelated knee accidents?
Bad gambling debts???
The best theory is that perhaps it was his mother's nutrition that was an issue.
He was a feral rescue kitten - maybe mom kitty was starving at just the wrong time for his little skeletal development?
(Which means we got a faulty kitten from Sair's ballet teacher!)
Finally, who knows.

In any case, Boe needs to heal.
The surgeon says surgery isn't a good fix - so it is just a matter of rest and recovery.
He's been shut inside for the last 10 (TEN) weeks to recover: no jumping, no impact.
(She said twelve weeks....)
He's pretty much not limping any more.
We were supposed to keep him in for twelve weeks....

But his good buddy Wolfie Cat is a complete FAIL in the matter of using the special kitty-control pet door.
You know, the expensive one that unlocks for only our cats because they have magnets on their collars?
Wolfie collects small scrap metal on the magnet, and will only use the door if we leave it propped open.
So any animal can come it.
(FAIL)

Kitty 4

                    (I am Wolfie, the lacking in mechanical know-how cat.. Don't hate me because I am beautiful.

Unexpectedly, Wolfie has, however, learned how to climb a tree to come in and out the upstairs window.
We have acquired a late night feral visitor cat (Interloper or "Loper", and we believe Wolfie figured out the tree route by observing him on his rounds.
And Wolfie has taught it to Boe.
So now we have three cats coming and going out the second floor window.
And Wolfie has been such an idiot about getting in and out that I am unwilling to mess with this newly acquired skill.
I've spent two years getting him in at night to avoid locking him out.
I'd call him at, say, 11pm, and he'd come running to the end of the sidewalk to see if there was something I needed.
And leave.
Til like 1am.
Or 3am.

It's got to be better for Boe's knees to be out a little sooner rather than climbing up and down a tree.