Garfield

Garfield is an amazing little guy! He's extremely friendly and affectionate. He loves to cuddle and he'll let you hold him for about a minute before he gets bored and wants to get down. He LOVES shoe boxes and given his size, he's accidentally broken a few. He's got a great personality, though I've never introduced him to children or other cats so I'm not sure how he'd behave around them. He is a BIG cat- he weighs about 16 pounds right now, but I talked to the vet about it and the vet said he didn't need a diet. He does have some scars from his street days; his ears are marked up and he's got a lot of scar tissue on his face and neck.

We haven't found any "missing" posters in this area, and the vet scanned for a microchip and didn't find one.

He's healthy and had his first round of vaccines, and he's been neutered, but I was concerned about the way he walks. His back legs would randomly give out and his legs would get "stuck" occasionally when he was stretching, so I took him to the vet to get an x-ray. Poor Garfield experienced some sort of trauma- a bad fall or hit by a car, something along those lines, and the wings of his hips are not even. He has one normal side and one side that is compacted from the accident. His spine is also curved (cat spines are usually straight), another effect from the accident. The vet theorizes that this accident also damaged the nerves in that area, which is the real reason he walks awkwardly. We tried putting him on an anti-inflammatory medicine, and it wasn't effective, so for now he's off medicine and just has a bit of a funny gait. The vet just recommended that we try and build the muscles in his back legs and hips to maintain a more controlled walk.

Although Garfield has been in such a bad accident, he doesn't let that stop him! He plays, he never seems to be in pain, and he can jump onto low surfaces. He does attempt to jump onto higher ground sometimes and his back legs don't have enough strength to get him all the way up, but other than that he's just a normal cat looking for a forever home. :)