Beartooth Humane Alliance: Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
This Emergency Medical Grant was used for the extraordinary medical expenses for Trixie, a young cat found with a rear leg injury requiring amputation.
The $450 Petfinder Foundation grant was use in its entirety to offset the veterinary costs of the leg amputation and other related medical costs (i.e. X-rays and antibiotics). This has allowed us to "pay it forward" by tending to other pets in need of extraordinary medical care. Thank you, Petfinder Foundation!
How many pets did this grant help?
1
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
On Monday, Aug. 27, 2018, a pathetic-looking stray cat was seen dragging her hind end alongside a road just outside of Red Lodge, Montana. A kind lady was able to trap her a few days later and located the owner. The owner said the cat was wild and had run away. The owner then relinquished the cat to the Beartooth Humane Alliance for care. The cat was transported to Grizzly Peak Animal Hospital in Red Lodge, where she was evaluated under sedation. An excerpt from the veterinary records: “The left hind leg has a birth defect of the hock that formed abnormally and rotated with weight-bearing one dorsal aspect of hock with contracture of the leg with very limited range of motion in stifle joint.” In layman’s terms, the leg was rotated backwards and was unusable, causing her to use the stifle joint for stability, resulting in chronic, painful, infected wounds.
During the exam, she was tested for FELV and FIV (both were negative), vaccinated for FVRCP and rabies, dewormed and treated her for ear mites. She weighed in at 4 lbs. and was estimated to be a little over a year old. She was given a bath, as that deformed leg was caked with dried feces. It was the opinion of Dr. Rebecca Frank that the leg needed to be amputated to give her pain relief and more mobility. The foster mom complained that her leg would get caught on different things and accumulated feces on it when the cat used the litter box. With much time and patience from her foster family, this initially frightened cat, named Trixie, now craved human attention and enjoyed the companionship of the foster family’s dogs and other cats.
On Sept. 20, 2018, Trixie had her left hind leg amputated and was spayed at the same time. She weighed in at 6.4 lbs. She was started on pain medication that consisted of Onsior and a Fentanyl patch. During the surgery, she was given an antibiotic IV called cefazolin. One day post-op, she developed a fever of 103.5 and required an antibiotic injection. She went back to the foster home mobile and afebrile. This cat truly has done remarkably in all aspects – medical and personality.
Trixie, who had been severely handicapped and fear -aggressive, was now a normally functioning, healthy cat with an endearing, sweet disposition.
Within days after Trixie’s surgery, one of our own employees, Patty, fell in love with Trixie’s affectionate personality. Patty recently lost her elderly cat and was able to offer Trixie a quiet home in which to recuperate and unlimited attention and love. Patty reports, “Trixie sleeps on the bed with me pretty much all night, but she plays off and on through the night. So affectionate and playful, you would never know she only has three legs — it doesn’t stop her from having fun one bit! It surprises me how much love some cats want, even after a rocky start with people. Her favorite spot now is by the electric heat or lying in the window. She is queen of the house, for sure!”
