I do feel depressed about this and feel the obvious answer is dreadful. However, the situation is that our lively, jumping, Maine Coon cross male cat, aged about 4 (former rescue) disappeared for 36 hours a month ago and returned traumatised and injured. The vet thought a traffic accident and the main injury was what was called subluxation of his paws. It's a ligament injury which means he has an awful limp and we are supposed to keep him caged.
We did for a week or two and then DH and myself just cannot bear it because the cat hates it and tries desperately to escape. We have been letting him out in the house and outside though he only goes on the patio and does seem to take care of himself. However, the vet is annoyed/upset at the lack of progress and that we were letting him out and now wants us to see a consultant with a probable result that surgery will be recommended. More time in a cage!!
I feel pushed to the edge by this. Our life is quite stressed, DH and myself live a busy life and don't often have people to the house. Our adult children live some way away, we don't have grandchildren. We feel this is condemning the cat to worse than solitary confinement and he's a clever cat as well as being noisy. The original instruction was 6-8 weeks of confinement, presumably surgery will be more of the same. It feels like imposing torture on a lively cat. I would appreciate any thoughts. I am seriously depressed at the thought of how we might deal with this, DH tends to have his head in his computer etc so I know it will be me who will end up being the main carer. What to do? Thanks in advance.
Is it me or am I getting mixed messages