Junior: RIP January 22, 2016
I’ve written about Junior numerous times. He’s been a delightful feral cat whose game camera antics are well-documented. He seemed healthy and happy if more skittish than he needed to be. I caught him this morning and took him in to be checked out and neutered if he was healthy. Unfortunately, he was FIV positive. If he could be made into an indoor cat, this wouldn’t have to be a death sentence. Unfortunately, Junior was an outdoor feral we were working with, so he wasn’t a candidate for indoor life. The safest option for other neighborhood cats was to have him put down. Ultimately, this was the most humane choice for Junior, too.
Here’s the last photo captured of Junior this morning (that wasn’t his backside) by the Cat Cam. He will be missed.
Most of the photos captured of Junior were on the game camera, so the post above is very common. Cat Cam photos will be a little less interesting without him.
Such a hard decision to make. I’m so sorry!
The decision for an outdoor feral is easy. The consequences are sad, because we’ve enjoyed his company. If he had been known to be a good indoor cat and easily handled, he might have had other options. But after nearly a year, we could barely pet him. He was still too wild.
Had Sneaky been positive, I would have brought her into the house and had all eight indoor cats vaccinated. She’s a known good indoor cat, but I haven’t been able to integrate her with the indoor cats yet. She was in the house the other night, and Ajax was giving her a hard time. Lady is always a problem. But Sneaky is more a pet than a feral, so she has earned a different consideration. For now, we’ll keep her FIV vaccination current. I thought we’d been doing that, but the vaccine isn’t known to be 100% effective, so they don’t give it except to high risk cats, which Sneaky and Walter are. I’ll have to make sure every time any of the outdoor cats go in that this is done in the future.