Paquito Is Back From The Veterinary Clinic

Paquito is now home since Saturday from a 2-day sleepover in the veterinary clinic. The doctor made a minor operation on his back because he has infected wounds. It turns out that a huge parts of his skin was already dead, so the doctor had to drain the pus from the wound and cut the dead part of the skin off. The wound was caused by an attack of a very jealous cat more than a month ago. I initially thought that it will heal by itself, but intead, it went from bad to worse.

Searching for a vet here in Jeddah is not easy, and if ever you find one, it will definitely cost a lot because most of their clients are rich people who can afford to spend thousands for their pets, and I'm not one of them. So, after asking a lot of people if they know any veterinary clinic in Jeddah, I've found one that's just near my apartment in Faisaliah district, the Jeddah Veterinary Clinic.

The name of Paquito's doctor is Khumbulani T. Nyathi, he's South African. He obviously knows that I'm not one of those wealthy pet owners who frequent their clinic, and I think he gave us discount for Paquito's minor surgery. He initially said that I'll just pay SR. 345, I guess that was for the surgery and the consultation fee of SR.120, excluding the medicines. All in all I just paid SR.365.

Right now, Paquito is rerecuperating in our apartment. The doctor said that it's not necessary anymore to put an elizabethan collar on his neck, but I still put it to prevent him from scratching and licking his freshly stitched wound. I'm also giving him antibiotic 2 times a day for 7 days to prevent infections. I think he'll fully recover soon enough.

Paquito Is His Name!

The other day my housemate found a stray cat in the street just outside our apartment. I think the cat had an owner before because my friend said that it was not afraid of him, in fact the cat was the one who came towards him and seemingly asking for food. My friend called me so that I would   see the condition of the cat personally. The cat was not in good shape, he was having a hard time walking, a huge part of his back has a bald patch and it seems that there's something wrong with his skin, it almost looks like a big open wound when I saw it.

We already have 4 cats inside our small apartment and I know it'll be crowded, but still we decided to take the cat in. I can't imagine how that poor cat could possibly survive outside without food and water under the burning heat of the sun in that condition. I then bathe and fed the cat. I can tell that he was very hungry and thirsty, but may be because of what he was feeling, he just can't eat the way a starving cat usually does. I also noticed that he moves very slowly, another sign that the cat is sick.

This was not the first time I took in a cat inside my apartment, in fact there were 3 of them (in 3 different occasions), but I released the two back to the street when they got well, I really didn't want to do it, but I had to, I couldn't possibly keep them all. The one that was left now has 2 offsprings and a grandkitten, that is Brüno.

Anyway, the other day I tried to find the breed of the cat in the internet, for me to know more about him and yes I did find out his breed, he is a Himalayan, a cross between Siamese and Persian, meaning they have the color of the Siamese and the long fur of the Persian cat. Himalayans have light colored bodies and dark extremities which are called Color Points, the colors could be lilac, blue, chocolate, flame and cream. I'm just not sure about the color points of my cat.

And about the name of the cat, we used to call the cat 'Sweety', but after I discovered that the cat is a male,  it's appropriate to give him a name that would suit the gender. We wanted to give him a name that has a 'growl' in it, that would sound mean to offset his pitiable condition and so we decided to call him Paquito, after Paquito Diaz, a Filipino mestizo actor who always played the role of  'contra vida' or villain in most of his movies.  I think his new name suits him.