The following is a chronicle, told to me by a dear friend. This is the wild, chilling and sad tale of her and her much loved giant feline’s adventure.“Chucky”, (not his real name), is a loving yet intense cat. He has incredibly strong upper body strength and super long and sharp claws. Like most cats, he hates going to the vet (you just know this isn’t going end well, don’t you?). His old vet moved (hmmm, was this because of "Chucky?"), so last year he saw a new one. The new vet was very aggressive with him, too much so, which made for an extra hard visit since it caused Chucky to become more upset and agitated than he already was. The vet ended up calling for back up (back up!) to help with the exam -- they had to use arm length leather gloves to avoid getting shredded by himself who’d turned into a feline turned into a feline Freddy Krueger.
Last winter, Chucky had been peeing around the house vs in his litter box. I brought him to the vet to get checked out but this time I requested a different vet, hoping for a calmer outcome.
We were brought into an exam room to wait -- Chucky was agitated and paced around the exam room while waiting for the vet’s arrival (I imagine he would've smoked if they'd let him do that indoors). He had swatted me a few times as I tried to calm him down -- he wasn't having any of this. To make matters worse still, there was a cat in the waiting room who was yowling and waling nonstop from within his carrier. This put humans and beasties alike on edge, including Chucky.
Finally the vet came in. A nice, very pleasant English woman. I explained to her that she would probably need to get support from another vet and would also need the protective armor but she decided to tempt fate and go it alone. She was great with him. When he got angry, she gave him time to cool off -- this happened a few times. Finally she said that she was going to need to bring him to the next room for an ultrasound. He was letting her hold him but he still seemed quite stressed due the the asshole yowler in the waiting room.
As she was holding him, the cretinous other cat let out an enormous blood curdling screech. At this, Chucky’s eyes went wide and all over black. He pulled away to face the vet and then grabbed her head with both paws, claws extended. There they were face to face -- the vet had him by the back of the neck and Chucky had her head secured by her ears. There I was, horrified, looking at this face off. I asked what I should/could do as blood began streaming steadily down her face and down her white exam coat.
She was frozen as was my psycho cat, UNTIL Chucky tried and then finally succeeded in pulling his claws out of her ears. He then hopped down to the floor. The vet stayed calm but had me clear the waiting room of children so the innocents wouldn't be afraid and panicked when she came out of the exam room bloodied with the lobe of one ear hanging lose.
Bottom line, Chucky "calmed down" and thankfully, incredibly walked into his cat carrier -- I locked him in. The veterinary assistants rallied and helped calm the vet, who was having an after trauma episode, and got her cleaned up. She then, get this, returned and finished the exam!!!
What a saint -- a saint who had to be in shock. I refused to let her continue and told her that she needed to see a doctor. We reached a compromise -- she finished off the paperwork, gave Chucky a prescription to, hopefully, fix his bladder issue.
She was adamant that Chucky was a good cat and was just spooked by the other bad, screechy, squawking cat. She did say, however, for all future visits we needed to come during quiet office hours and might need to sedate him (as in knock him out fully) before all future exams (which was underscored after Chucky charged the next poor vet).
The sainted, vet we later learned, had to go to the ER that night to get her ear stitched back together, BUT thankfully wasn't scared away from her career of taking care of kitties.
My friend “Claire,” not her real name, wishes to remain anonymous. Of course.
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