The Tale of the Three Legged Cat (Part I)

In the summer of 1992 I was given two beautiful black kittens. They were litter mates and at first I couldn't tell them apart, but they were very different. One was a loving cuddly kitten, a bit perturbed at being placed in new surroundings, but instantly as devoted to us as we were to him. The one who later became the Three Legged Cat was not happy to be taken from his home and his mum, in fact at first he didn't like me at all. It took weeks before he grudgingly purred for me, but he became my jealously devoted friend and followed me around like a shadow for the next 14 years.

He was only just over a year old when disaster struck. I woke up to find him hiding in a pile of clothes and sticky with blood. Whilst I was on the phone to the vet he stood up and hopped out: most of one leg was torn off and his tail was partially severed. I was hysterical, the vet was surprisingly calm. He came round and sedated the cat (who was actually very calm) and tried to calm me down (I would have appreciated the sedatives). The vet took the soon to be Three Legged Cat away and left me with hopeful words, but I did not feel hopeful at all.

I then had to pull myself together and go to work. One of my housemates worked at the same school and had explained my lateness, apparently to students as well as staff. I arrived to be met by sympathetic colleagues and concerned pupils. One lad, possibly one of the most notorious ne'er do wells in the school ran up to me, hugged me (I wasn't expecting that!) and said "I really hope your cat's alright Miss." He asked me for a progress report about the Three Legged Cat's recovery every day for months. It's at times like this that my faith in human kindness is renewed.

We never found out exactly what had happened; we know that some neighbours (who used to be housemates) startled the cat when they got out of their car (he never seemed to be startled by strangers, only by people he knew well), they saw him run into a passing car and then sprint away. They couldn't catch him, they weren't even totally sure that he had hit the car - he appeared to be OK. They tried to get in touch with us, but we were out and of course I didn't have a mobile back then. By the time I spoke to them the next day he had already been at the vet for several hours.

He spent a few days at the vet, then we were allowed to bring him home. In the first three weeks of his three-leggedness, the TLC took a lot of looking after. It was February and the vet had needed to shave off almost half of his fur, so we had to keep the house very warm, almost tropical, 24 hours a day otherwise he shivered from the cold. His remaining back leg had sustained minor injuries so at first he needed almost constant supervision and care because he couldn't even use a litter tray without being supported. My sister took a week off from university and looked him during the day, the following week was my half term holiday. Amazingly after just two weeks at home (less than three weeks after his accident), he could cope if we left him for a few hours.

Over the next few weeks he got stronger, he started being able to groom himself properly, he learned to walk and balance again. He seemed to suffer more from the loss of his tail than his leg, I had never realised just how crucial a cat's tail is for their balance until then. He stood slightly differently and bizarrely his whiskers grew longer as if compensating for the increased width that his new, slightly twisted, stance gave him.

The vet told us he would be back to normal in three months, we didn't believe it, but he was. Three months after his accident the Three Legged Cat was charging around at full speed, playing with toys, climbing the stairs and finally lugging a large dead bird in through the cat flap. Usually this would provoke annoyance from his human housemates, but on this occasion we were delighted "Oh well done Three Legged Cat, you've caught a bird, you clever cat!"

He really was back to his old self, just with a bit of a limp.