We had been feeding a large (like huge) ginger Tom and his younger black
female side-kick. Why these two hung around to-gether astounded me a I
thought cats were not herding animals once mature.

All was well for 6 months, they would turn up allways together and wait for
a tin of food between them, then one day 'Fatso' (the Tom) appeared to have
a swollen face on one side (his right-handside). We hoped this fix itself,
but this was not to be. Over the next week the swelling appeared to suddenly
reduce with a discharge of pus,blood and lymp-fluid. He was not the sort of
cat to be handled so any attempt at batheing was futile.

I rang the Vet describing his problem: a face abcess from fighting. They
agreed to leave out some cream, but from experience I've found applying
cream to cats only results in it being licked/wiped off, so we decided to
take him to the Vet and pay the bill.

He was not happy being taken in the car and in hindsight a cage would have
been smarter, but he decided to sit on the floor after a couple of minutes
of jumping around the car. I checked to see if any dogs were in the waiting
room before taking him in. The Vet staff could not have been more helpful.
They kept him on a drip for 4 days while they operated to drain and clean-up
his now horrible looking wound (all this from one claw puncture wound from
another cat). They also recommended he be neutered. While hesitant to
subject him to more pain than he was allready in, the staff assured me he
would be more docile and less likely to get into more fights.

The pleasant part was the bill. The Vet/s had realising he was a genuine
stray, reduced their costs to a minimum ($130). He was now in good shape
with his abcess dry and clean and on the road to recovery and minus his
manhood. Fortunately he seemed unaware of the cruelest cut.

Jason