That time that Coco snared herself

A few weeks ago, Reina called me as I was I pulling into the garage.  She had just beaten me home and couldn't find Coco.  Coco was in a (now ended) phase of finding my knitting projects and carrying them around the house trailing yarn behind her.  It was cute the first few times and then we started to wonder if she was trying to trip us down the stairs by entwining yarn in and out of the bannisters.  So I'd locked up all my unused yarn and tried to remember to put my current project - a scarf - in a cat-proofed spot at the end of each day.

But I hadn't put my project away enough.  Reina followed a trail of yarn to the basement and found Coco laying in the basement with her hind leg snared to a table leg with a generous portion of yarn.  From what we could tell, Coco had been carrying the yarn and somehow wrapped the yarn around her leg and the table leg and then pulled it tight in her struggle to get out.  Reina used some quick thinking and ran upstairs for a pair of scissors and cut the yarn as I came into the house.  Coco followed her up the stairs and we tried to check out Coco's foot.  She didn't put a lot of weight on her leg and sat down and made the most pitiful 'meow' in the history of meow's.  Then she hobbled up the stairs and hid under Will's bed.

Reina wiggled under the bed to get her out while I called the vet.  It was late in the afternoon but luckily they told me to bring Coco over as soon as I could.  I kept the cat/vet box from her last trip so I put her in there along with Reina's favorite blanket and off we went.  Glenn had come home to take Reina to piano and I tearfully asked him if he thought a cat could live with three legs. I was convinced she's broken hers and I was worried that she damaged the circulation by laying there for so long.  I'm not always my most rational whilst driving pets to the vet.

We had to wait a few minutes to see the vet and there was a waiting room full of dogs waiting for their vaccinations so needless to say, Coco was having a rough day.

Waiting to see the doctor.  Coco's expression speaks volumes.

After a few x-rays and a visit with the doctor, we left with no broken bones and a couple of pain pills and an anti-inflammatory.  The doctor cautioned us to keep Coco quiet and confine her activity as much as possible.  They also asked if I had a strategy for getting her to take a pill.  I had no plan besides jamming it down her little throat.  

The damaged leg on the left.  

Keeping her quiet and confined on Will's bed.  

Her leg stayed swollen for a few days but she bounced back pretty quickly. I solved the problem of the pill taking by waiting until she was pretty hungry and then she'd gobble it right down.  It helped that the pill was some sort of meat flavored.  As the doctor recommended, Coco is banned indefinitely from yarn and yarn-related projects and not surprisingly, she hasn't been super interested in it since the fateful day.  I'm so glad Reina found her when she did.

Feeling better and checking out chickens on the back deck.  

"Just let me outside.  I want to eat that chicken so bad."