It was on Memorial Day, 2005 (a day that we are normally closed to the public) that we found a woman frantically knocking on our front door.She was carrying a cardboard box.We knew what that meant so we began to explain about our Intake Policy (we do not accept cats from people who just show up at our door).The woman quickly interrupted us to explain that she thought the cat was dying.The woman had found him huddled in obvious pain in a parking garage in Philadelphia, PA (over an hour from Tabby’s Place).Because it was a holiday, she had not been able to find any place that could help him.She remembered passing Tabby’s Place the previous week, so she drove up hoping we could do something.One of our vets happened to be here at the time, so we brought the cat back to the exam room.Miguel (as we named him) was, indeed, close to death: he was severely dehydrated and all four of his paw pads were burned badly.

It took a few weeks of constant care, but Miguel eventually recovered fully.He was somewhat aggressive while in his cage, but we are used to that and we felt that he would calm down once he was in a suite.Much to our dismay, while Miguel is only slightly aggressive with people, he has proven to be very aggressive with other cats.We have tried him in every suite and he has relentlessly attacked virtually every other cat.He even managed to terrify the cats in Suite A, which houses our most aggressive cats.

Our vet suggested we try Miguel on one of several psycho-active drugs used commonly for aggression in cats.To date, we have tried two drugs.Neither has made a dent in his aggression.Within an hour of being returned to a suite, he began his violent attacks on the other cats.For now, Miguel is isolated in a small room of his own.We are going to start him on a third drug, in hopes of curbing his aggression.He needs several weeks to adjust to the new drug, so it will be awhile before we know whether he can live with the other cats.

If not, we will have to decide whether to make him a “barn cat” or leave him in his own room, in hopes that someone will adopt him into a single-cat home.Unfortunately, his tendency to have a short fuse and bite people will mean that it will take someone very special to adopt him.