Poor Sam

Sam is my dad's new "shop cat" -- a companion to hang around his garage/shop. Sam is just a kitten -- he was tiny at Christmas when we first met him -- and was living with my cousin's family. He's incredibly curious and kind of a troublemaker and just wasn't fitting in with the other animals and people very well, so my dad adopted him.

Strangely, he was limping from the very beginning -- favoring his left front paw. Apparently it was swollen, but dad couldn't see any cut or sore or anything. Well, the swelling went down, and it became obvious that something still wasn't right -- his toes seemed to point in the wrong direction!

My mom took him to the vet, where she found that every single one of his toes on that paw was broken. The breaks are so perfect and clean, she thinks something fell on him. Poor kitty. Since it's been a couple of weeks, the bones are already fusing and scar tissue is forming, so the vet recommended leaving him to heal naturally, I guess rather than try to reset the breaks. (Not for nothing, but that's undoubtedly a less expensive solution, too!) She doesn't expect him to have any trouble with healing -- he'll just look a little funny because his toes kind of point outward!

I just had to share -- as my mom was telling me this, I couldn't help but think of my former cat Pickles, who tore her ACL when she fell off the furniture.