Oh, Don Gato was a Cat...

This is Angelo.

I have lived with cats all my life and have never known one quite like Angelo. He has a really great sense of humor, and he talks a lot. He is also the poster child for that whole "curiosity killed the cat" thing. He sticks very close to home now, but in his younger days he liked to roam a little and he came home with:
1) a black eye, if a black cat can get a black eye, from what the vet decided was "blunt force trauma"
2) an abscess on his chest that we had to lance and pack with hot compresses for a week (pictured here), and
3) a broken scapula and other internal injuries from deciding to climb into our neighbors yard at the very moment when they let their two big dogs out to toss around the old catskin.
It was while Angelo was being treated for the tangle with the dogs that our vet diagnosed him with Feline CRF---Chronic Renal Failure. We were pretty broken up about it, but that was almost 2 years ago now and he's still with us, he's actually gained a little weight and looks great. We have to give him subcutaneous fluid injections (100 mL of lactated ringer solution) every other day, but it's a small price to pay. If you have a kitty with CRF, don't give up hope! They can still live quite a while, happy and relatively healthy if you're willing to give them the special care they need. He is, at this very moment meowing at the door and tormenting one of our other two cats to get us to let him outside to play in the grass. He is still allowed to go outside if either my husband or I can hang around with him and keep him close to home. Going outside is absolutely his favorite thing in the world, it would be torture to deny him this. Our other two cats (one of whom is pictured in the "good Morning Judge" entry below, my old friend Oni, who is 16 and golden!) are thankfully a little less interested in exploring. Here's angelo now: