1. gregladen
  2. The cat that came back after 13 years

The cat that came back after 13 years

By gregladen on December 15, 2008.

i-4f9078ec6abc10a038a6f56c3d57787e-128736949064916180.jpg

Has, sadly, died.

It was just a month ago that ScientificAmerican.com reported the happy tale of a lost cat named George that came home 13 years after rescuers traced his owners through information on a microchip in the scruff of his neck.

He was nearly 17, sick and rail-thin, less than half the robust nearly 14 pounds (6.4 kilograms) he was when he mysteriously disappeared in June 1995. But Frank Walburg and Melinda Merman of Santa Rosa, Calif., were happy to have him home, and set about trying to bulk up their long-lost kitty and restore his health.

They spent weeks pampering and comforting George, giving him antibiotics and feeding him baby food using their fingertips until he was strong enough to eat on his own. ...

On November 19, she reported that George was hospitalized to pump him with IV fluids; the vet was "disappointed" the patient had not put more meat on his bones or showed more signs of improvement, and wanted to run more tests.

The next day, a sonogram revealed that he had cancer....

And the little c would succomb to the big C.

The entire story is here, at the SciAm.

Tags
Cat

More like this

The Mystery of the Sleepy Teenager
I recently heard about an amazing case that seems to be filled with lessons for doctors. Not claming to be Homer, my paraphrasing will be modest, but let me tell the tale anyway. Then we'll try to decipher the moral of the story. Once upon a time a 19 year old man woke up feeling ill. He…
Isaac, 2004-2010
My cat, Isaac, died on Monday. He never did anything like a normal cat, and that includes the manner in which he died. He went from no symptoms to multiple organ failure in less than a week. We'll come to that in a moment. Cats like Isaac are the reason people own cats. If he were a person…
Jack, the Lion-Hearted Housecat
tags: house cat, black bear, cat chases bear up a tree Jack, el gato con corazón de león Notice the tiny orange dot at the base of the tree. That's Jack, the house cat. Now, notice the large black bear at the top of the tree, peering down fearfully at the tiny orange dot. On June 4, a black…
Two Happy Cats!
Here's Spider (the orange one) and Emily from yesterday, having just been loaded into the back of my car. See how happy they look! They were both expressing their joy with loud, some would say shrieking, meows. That's OK folks, no need to thank me. As it happens, I also have a very large…

Isn't toxoplasma pretty much endemic in cats, only really manifesting as toxoplasmosis if they're somehow immunocompromised? I reckon they should have known that something else was wrong with the poor guy.
He lived a long life for a cat, though. Here's to George!