Sweet Little Clarence
This is Clarence, wearing his cone of shame, while his tail was healing.
In Clarence’s short 6 months on earth, he has experienced pain, discomfort, and inhumane living conditions from a hoarding case. We lent a hand to help bring him and 6 other kitties into our care.
Clarence was one, in particular, we wanted to make sure landed in our care. We could see his tail was injured but could not evaluate the extent as he was being aloof. Once in our care, we found him to be very sweet and quickly got him in to see a vet as his tail was degloved and mostly missing. (Think of a degloved tail like pulling off a glove, but in this case, the glove is his outer skin/fur that was removed due to being caught in something).
Since joining our care in November, he has earned several bandage changes weekly to try to ensure his tail heals and does not get infected. The concern is, we could not amputate the 2 inches left of his tail without risking incontinence issues. As long as there is good blood flow and improvement, the skin will regrow in time. With almost two months of bandaging, much to his displeasure, we are to a point where we can leave his stub unbandaged but continue daily cleaning and ointment until it is completely healed. At that time, the vet team was happy about his progress. It is very slowly healing, but it is healing. Poor little guy.. You would never know he's been through so much pain and stress through this whole ordeal because he is one of the sweetest, friendliest cats in our care. A true love bug who loves to cuddle.
In January, Clarence saw the Vet again, to make sure his tail was continuing to properly heal,. After examining him again with the vet team, they have decided that they are in fact, going to have to amputate the rest of his tail. Initially, they thought amputating the tail would cause incontinence issues. But after carefully examining him again, they no longer feel that that is a risk. The vet says there is enough tissue to remove the tail completely, without any added problems. And it is in his best interest to have it completely removed.
Clarence had his surgery one week later, and the surgery was a great success! He had to have bandages on for 3 days, and the cone for 10 more days.
After those 10 days were up, the vet finally cleared him for adoption! And that cone was finally able to come off! He was SO happy! He was sent to the Maplewood Petsmart, and is now officially ready for adoption! We wish Clarence all the best in his new adventures! He is such a good boy!
A brief side note: Clarence has been through quite a bit in his very short life so far. I just want to point out that even with all the pain he's had to endure, he is one of the sweetest, most affectionate cats I have ever met. He loves to be pet, he loves to be with people, and he always talks back when you talk to him. He is just a love bug. He has become a staff favorite! He should be scared of humans for what he has had to go through, but he is the exact opposite. Whoever gets the privilege to adopt him, will be very lucky.
