...and may need to be euthanized. No, he is'nt mangled, multiply fractured or even near-death.
However, his front right paw is broken. Actually, it only looks like its broken. Slightly swollen and off by about 35 degrees. We could seee was limping when we found him so we brought him to the vet. Apparently, the ligaments in his 'cat wrist, the articulation between the paw bone and paw 'fingers', are torn and the smallish bones are all scrambled. You can put a cast on a cat if a fracture occurs in the paw bone or the fingers but the articulation area is the worst part for an animal to be injured in. There is almost nothing we can do about it besides shelling out 1.2k++ for some orthopedic surgery which, by the way, is not even guaranteed to succeed and will leave him with a non-articulated paw.
The problem with this, besides the fact that me and my roomate are both students and cannot afford 1.2k$ at this point, is that whatever they attempt to fix the paw you can't convince a cat not to put his weight on it. My cat is about 16lbs of muscle so im told that's quite heavy on an injured paw.
How can i send him to his death because i cant afford to have him fixed? He's only 2 years old and in perfect health barring this incident.
It's funny, when my roomate first brought him to the appartment last year i cant say i was in love with this cat. He's a wee-bit bizarre, sometimes aggressive having been harshly mistreated as a youngster, probably crazy and pisses me off daily. However...the little fuck grew on me. I'm used to have him follow me around now. I enjoy his daily antics to appear as the alpha male or having him just lay around with me. We left him at the clinic for the weekend and it does feel a little empty at home. Never thought i'd say this...
It saddens me. He's had a rough life and i hoped to make it better, even though he's hard to live with. I wish i could fix his paw.
We are supposed to hear back from a specialist on monday as there 'may' be other alternatives even if his future looks quite grim..