Cats and Steering Wheels

We lived in Lanzerote for about 5months and quickly renamed it Lanzergrotte. We hated it. There was 2 days when there was no wind blasting over it. It was very flat, there was hardly any nice big trees. It was just… grotty.

One morning we were heading into work when l saw a cat injured and alive by the side of the road. Hub slammed on the brakes as l bellowed. I jumped out as did he but moaning at me for scaring the pants off him, should have been more observant then not my fault. The cat scooted into the high grass. We tramped all over, nothing so had to give up.

At work hub stopped and went a bit pale and said “oh no l wonder……”
He undid the engine and there was the cat balanced on it. I managed to grab it and hauled it into the car it was not in a good way. When we hunted it he must have darted back and climbed up under the van.

We went in to tell them that we had to find a vet to take the cat to so it could be put down. Our South American helper gave us advice on where to find the English semi retired vet. l rang her and warned he we were on the way in and we went back to the van. Only the cat had disappeared. This did not make sense as it was firmly locked in.

Hub stood outside and turned the air blue with his mental thoughts, he refuses to swear aloud if people are around. When we met he would apologise to me if he even said buggar, he has moved on since then, he doesn’t apologise to me but still won’t swear in company. I am the one that can and does out cuss a trooper. I saw a tail hanging out of the dashboard. Oh well at least l found it.

Enter the toolbox and stressed husband. The more hub took the front of the van apart the higher it climbed and it finally became obvious that it was not coming out conscious. Hub put the dashboard and steering wheel back as best he could so that he was able to drive (just) and we set off.
This was Lanzergrotte and not UK so we had a roadworthy vehicle. I mean the steering wheel was solid even if everything else was hanging apart what more was needed?

Finally about 4 hours from finding the cat arrived at the vets. The vet was semi disabled took one look and declared no chance. She couldn’t bend her body to even see it properly, and agreed it was not coming out alive. She gave me the pentobarb and asked me to inject it as best as l could. I managed into the abdomen.
It is an area used if needed and is just a very slow way of introducing the medication. It doesn’t hurt and given the state of the cat was the only option. After about 30minutes the cat was dead as the drug had worked it’s way slowly through the cats system. We managed to pull it out even then there was a lot of bending and tugging. The pelvis, which 99.9% of the time in cats involved in RTA’s was fractured, in this cat was in bits. At least it was now out of it’s pain.

The horrific thing was that until the vet had arrived on the island in the mid 80’s any animals that needed putting down they injected strychnine into it, refusing to believe anything else worked. The vet was so horrified and upset she started to treat animals despite being disabled and in a lot of pain all the time.