My poor kitty! We wanted to do the responsible thing, so our sweet little Autumn went to the vet. Since we had no idea if she had ever been to the vet she got the works. A complete physical with all the tests and shots. Thank God she was negative for the bad things like Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids. She did test positive for some kind of worms but I am told its no big deal, and she got some pills for that. We also had her spayed and declawed. I was really torn over the declawing part. I know some people think it’s really mean to do. I spoke to my vet at length about it… He assured me that she would be heavily medicated for the procedures and the recovery. Also, she had done some pretty good damage to my furniture already. We had decided that she was going to be strictly an indoor cat… so logically, she needed to get declawed. She went in the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we picked her up the next afternoon. Having no cat experience, I had no idea that she would have to wear this sad, sad cone for ten days. I have had many dogs spayed in the past and we never had the cone of shame.

I have to say, she never appeared to be in any pain at all. She was alert and playful from the minute she got home. She did however, HATE the cone!! Her first night home, the cone almost killed her. I still don’t have a bedroom at the farm so I sleep on the pull out couch. Autumn sleeps with me. At around 3:00am I was awakened by this weird sound… Autumn had fallen in the space between the bed frame and the couch and was hanging by her cone. I was not able to pull her back up, so I had to push the cone down so she didn’t strangle herself. Then, I couldn’t get her out of that space with the cone on so I had the pull the bed frame up while trying to snatch up my poor scared little girl. Thank God I was right there!! I was afraid to leave her alone in the house after that. In the days that followed, she kept walking into the wall and getting knocked down. She would try to run up the stairs and at some point the cone would hit a step and send her backwards down the stairs. It has been awful! I think the worse part is that she keeps looking at us like we are crazy. I know she is thinking “What is wrong with you people?!?! Don’t you see that my head is caught?? Help me!!!”

Clearly she had had enough of the cone and her family… Last night when I walked through the door with the kids, Autumn was at the door to greet us WITHOUT the cone. She had chewed her way out, one day early. She was really quite proud of herself too! She kept strutting around the cone, purring.. She had a very different look in her eyes. More like a “That’s right bitchez… I did it myself!”