Squirrel goes for Treatment

Our semi-feral ginger cat has had a bad eye for a wee while. We wondered if his eye had been injured in a fight, as he often has scratches on his face. But his eye kept weeping and we thought it might be infected. So we decided to take him to the vet. Given that Squirrel is semi-feral and is afraid of being in enclosed spaces, such as a room in our house, this presented us with a challenge.

The vet told us that cats must be brought to the practice in a box. We checked out cat boxes but they were very small. Given his enclosure phobia we decided that we would never get him inside one. But we knew that Squirrel trusted us enough to let us pick him up. In our arms he was quite relaxed for a while and purred as we stroked him. So we thought that I could pick him up and take him to the car and T would drive us to the vet, which was in Banbridge some five miles away. We reckoned that this would probably be the only way that he could get treated, and it was worth a try.

The day of his appointment came and our journey began. I picked Squirrel up and sat in the passenger seat. He didn’t seem troubled. So far so good. T started the car. Squirrel wriggled and tried to find where the noise was coming from. But he settled again. Then T began to reverse out of the drive. Squirrel struggled out of my arms and climbed up onto my shoulder. He was looking through the side window. As we turned into the lane Squirrel leapt onto the back seat and scrambled onto the parcel shelf. He pushed his head against the rear window and clawed at it. He was trying to get out. Then he turned from the back of the car and raced towards the front. Running between the front seats he leapt above the dashboard and tried to get out through the windscreen, emitting the most plaintive howls.

We stopped the car. We had gone only fifty yards. I opened the door. Squirrel jumped out and lay on the ground, rolling around happily. We took him back to the house and gave him some food and milk. The ordeal of the journey to the vet seemed to be quickly forgotten. We rang the practice and apologised.

The problem of his weeping eye remained. I checked the internet and found that a cat’s eye can be treated with lukewarm salty water. I also rang my brother, a cat owner of many years experience, who explained how he had administered eye drops to his cat.

We got a large towel and opened it on the kitchen table. Then T brought in Squirrel and wrapped him in the towel so that only his head was sticking out. He looked a little like a baby in swaddling clothes. I dipped some cotton wool in the saline and dripped several drops into his eye. He scrunched his eyes up but didn’t struggle very much. We gave him food and milk afterwards. The next day we did it again. After only a couple of treatments his eye seemed to improve.