We adopted the youngest of our two cats at the beginning of the pandemic, which makes her a little over five years old now, from a person who’d rescued her from the streets and took her and her litter mates to the vet for basic care, like immunizations and spay/neuter.
Because of the youngest’s “colony cat” status, the vet who spayed her also clipped her ear to make it easy to know right away that she’d been fixed and wouldn’t be recaptured should she ever find herself on the streets again, which I plan to prevent to all costs.
Youngest’s claws also happen to be incredibly long and sharp, earning her the affectionate designation of tough little street cat and survivor, though she is as sweet and cuddly as a bunny in a basket.
I mean, I’ve never seen claws like these!
One time, when we had the vet trim her claws, she skulked and hid for two days. We felt like bad cat-parents for traumatizing her like that and vowed never to put her through that again.
Though it’s never intentional on survivor cat’s part, G and I have sustained more than a few impressively deep scratches when she’s leapt from our arms or laps to chase a shadow or tackle a can of wet cat food.
Which is why we keep lots of Neosporin and Bandaids in the house.
The Zingara Project 