Recovery Tails – Day 4 – Bagheera

Bagheera’s story is a rare one, thankfully, but one worth telling. His owner got in touch with us after needing our help to rehome him due to a condition that she and the vets hadn’t been
able to get under control.

His owner was desperate and although she loved Bagheera dearly, she couldn’t see a way to manage his condition along with her personal changes at home.  We welcomed Bagheera into our care and endeavoured to find a solution for him. We discovered that he had a wound half covering his neck, and had been suffering with this for around 2 months. We had our vets assess Bagheera and started to get him some treatment. He started on antibiotics to fight the infection, pain relief and anti-inflammatories for the pain, and calming products to help him deal with the stress of the whole situation. Poor Bagheera was a fearful cat, but he didn’t have a nasty bone in his body. He was very sweet when he did trust you, but this took some time.

While in the shelter with all of the noises and strange smells and other cats, Bagheera wasn’t settled, so a member of our cat team took him home, where he would hopefully be able to relax a little more. Wound care and treatment continued at home, along with some steroid treatment and other medications. Being in a more familiar, homely environment, he started to come out of his shell. He loved his treats and was very acrobatic during playtime! He especially enjoyed to watch keys being typed on the computer keyboard from the shelf above, and if he wasn’t there, he’d be catching some rays on the windowsill. We remained hopeful.

After the course of treatment finished, it was clear that it hadn’t worked and he was becoming very unhappy, depressed and withdrawn. So we tried our last resort, a biopsy of the skin affected to see if that could tell us more. The vets called us with the result that Bagheera had a very rare, incurable skin condition. We were devastated.

After months of trying so many different ways to try to heal and help this gorgeous boy, we were now in a position where there was nothing more to try. We couldn’t watch him suffer any longer and made the difficult and upsetting decision to put him to sleep.
His carer was with him throughout the process and was with him at the end. Although his passing was incredibly sad, it was also peaceful and we knew he wouldn’t suffer any longer.
He ate Lick-e-lix as he fell to sleep and was cuddled and embraced until the gates to the rainbow bridge opened to let him through.

Euthanasia is often a taboo subject, but it shouldn’t be. Realising that euthanasia is sometimes the best welfare outcome for the animal takes more courage and bravery from us, than to keep the animal in unnecessary pain.

The quality of a cat’s life always takes precedence over anything else, including our emotions as carers. It is our job to look after these animals and prevent suffering and provide good welfare.
When a cat’s quality of life is compromised, we do as much as we can to improve that, and take away pain and suffering.

We wouldn’t be able to go so far to help our animals without your continued support, so
please donate if you can.