Thanks, Ed. He seems to be quite happy at the moment.
kay

What a horrible thing. Can you contact your local police to see what can be done about dogs running loose? I assume these are not coyotes but someones pets left to roam at will. Your a good person Kay to take care of a stray. Hope he has a full recovery.

We called animal control, and they came, but weren't a lot of help although he seemed to know where they came from. The dogs went into a yard on the next block, the next day, and we heard the noise of a shotgun. Our neighbor across the street said the man had told her he hoped he hadn't awakened her, but the dogs had attacked cats in his yard one of them. We haven't heard them in our yard since then, so hopefully the people started keeping them up. There is no leash law, unfortunately, but they do have to have a license or they are picked up.

Yikes! Poor Gus. I am glad that he is on the mend, he is very fortunate to have you. I am just getting back into gardenweb - since I already had a houzz account, I seem to have lost my twixanddud user profile, bummer!

Thank you for helping Gus!

Gus is so fortunate to have you to care for him, so glad you got to him in time! One of our 2 cats prefers to stay outdoors. The neighbors cats seem to prefer to hang out at our house for some reason, fortunately I rarely see dogs wandering here the last few years. Gus looks remarkably like one of mine.

Laura, I originally set my name to at least close to my original, then ran into some problem & it kicked me out. I gave up & changed to just my name. I'm not sure why they would not have set this up to accept original IDs.

I'm glad Gus is so well loved. He's lucky to have you. When we added a second dog to the mix many years back, the personality of the first dog changed once it belonged to a "pack." They killed two of our cats, and I had the nightmarish experience of seeing them in action. Packs are scary, and I'm glad Gus made it.

That is very scary, Chris! I hate that for you. Our Chihuahuas never formed a pack...they all want to be only dogs, I think. Gus seems to be quite happy now. It was an expensive little adventure, but then, we are used to that...we will always take care of our animals since we are both animal lovers to the max.
kay

Looks like Gus is actually the lucky winner in the end . ( albeit it was a heck of a way to do it ) . He now no longer has to live outside, has companions and food and all the comforts of home and he can sit in the window looking out thumbing his nose at those dumb dogs.

Signet

Oh Kay. What a scary story. Had me biting my nails until I found out Gus was alright........ I've had a cat who went deaf and although it didn't seem to bother him that much, after he went totally deaf he no longer wanted to go outside for his supervised romps in the back yard. Riding in the car to the Vets also became impossible. I think it was the inner ear imbalance that made him have convulsion like fits when riding in a car. Tuffy (my boy) lived for 5 more happy years after going totally deaf, so with some restrictions, it wasn't much of an issue for either of us......
Gus is surely blessed to have you as his care giver. .....Maryl

Oh poor little kitty. How awful. So glad you saved him!

Thanks, guys. I am the crazy cat lady, for sure. Signet, Gus has certainly adapted so far, but he is still in the crate per Vet instructions. We'll see how he does out in the house with
Billy the Cat. So far Billy has done pretty well with Bella and Murphy, but Gus might be a challenge.

kay

I am also glad that Gus is coming along. What an awful story, with a good ending . I have turned into a cat lady too!! Just can't turn them away,, I had a female cat wander into my garden last summer, who was in really bad shape, but she has healed up nicely , after many vet visits, and is doing great now as an inside cat. I know she would have passed away if I didn't do anything. So, I understand. I hope they all get along.

Maryl, today I saw one the other feral cat in my yard from last year. I call her Goldie, and she is a true feral, but did take food from my hand. I've never petted her though. I do not need any more cats, but they always seem to find me. and I will feed the hungry ones.
kay

That is the thing, Cindy. they will die if no one cares. We wound up with a little stinker we call Murphy although Agent Orange was a near miss. I have never seen a cat so active and so into everything. He was maybe 5 weeks old when he showed up and sneezing and a runny noe that got increasingly bad over a couple of days...off to the vet with pneumonia. Of course he stayed and was neutered and micro-chipped. Wouldn't do for that little monkey to run off...We lost one of the old cats, Mustache and mu husband was missing him, so Murphy had managed to befriend my husband and that is good for both of them.

What a face on that little boy. Knowing cats like I do, I'd say he's just waiting for something to catch his interest and then he will be off and at it....I always find ginger cats have a distinct personality. This is Tuffy (my deaf cat). He ruled the roost around here until we rescued a little bitty ball of fluff who set him straight about girl power.........Kisses to them all.......Maryl

Tuffy was a pretty one! You are right about Murphy, Maryl. He is wholehearted ly into everything from sleeping to playing...no one else gets to play because he is so fat and jumps so high. And he is into everything without exception.

kay

One of my vets and I theorized about cat colors and personality traits. One such theory was that ginger cats seem to all have a bit of a temper. I'm not saying mean at all, just an assertiveness that comes out at times and brooks no nonsense. It will be interesting to see how Murphy and Gus get along since both have varying amounts of ginger in their coloration......Cats are nothing if not interesting...........Thanks for the kind words about Tuffy. He was one of the great ones. Some of the neighbors who knew him (the great escape artist that he was over the 18 years we had him) sent condolence cards when he died and my Vet sent me a dozen red roses. Still miss him..........Maryl

Like redheads? They also tend to have allergies. The only oter ginger I had was a very smart and a very very quick cat too. We occasionally have mentally challenged mice who come into this multi-cat household. The three mild mannered tabbies we had never seemed to be interested. Both bella and Murphy see it a lot differently. Bella actually caught one mouse, that was under mu desk!) and Murphy spends a lot of time jut sitting in a certain spot in the bathroom...I do love cats, and Tuffy looks like a very sweet one. It is nice when people realize how important pets are to us, isn't it. We have one chihuahua, Spike who is very expensive. Heart trouble and glaucoma. He has lived with heart trouble for about three years now....we told the vet it would be in his financial favor to buy us a chihuahua to replace Spike and he said it made sense him. Spike is 16 1/2 now.

kay

Poor Gus! I hope he's on the mend now. He must be a scrappy little guy to fend off seven dogs.

Debra

Well, he was doing his best, but I think he woud have eventually lost that battle if we hadn't intervened. He is eating like a pig and seems quite happy now.
kay