Roman Wonders What Creature We've Let Loose in Our House

Most of our feline household seems to understand that Teddy, our injured cat, is spending much of his time isolated in an upstairs bedroom until he's completely healed from his recent tail surgery. Tiger, for instance, who has always been friendly to fellow tabby Teddy, doesn't even bat an eye when we let Teddy out of his room so he can have a little jaunt around the house.

You have to picture poor Teddy as he looks now - he's wearing this huge, saucer-shaped, blue collar around his neck so he won't reach back to his hindquarters and muck up the stitches he received in his tail during surgery. And also, he has a tiny, stubby tail now, so he resembles a furry little piggy more than a cat when you look at him from some angles.

Most of the cats don't seem to react when this apparition makes an appearance, marches through the house, and settles down in his favorite window seat for a nice afternoon nap.

But I don't think Roman got the memo about Teddy. Roman is our orange boy, one of the "kittens," although he and sister Becka are over two years old by now and don't really qualify as being kittens anymore. To me, though, Roman will always be momma's little boy.

Anyway, whenever Teddy is out and about, Roman freezes in place, and his eyes get really big, as if he's wondering "Who let the ET into the house, and how long is he staying?" Poor Roman is completely shocked from his sightings of Teddy.

Telepathically, I've been trying to send a lot of reassuring energy to Roman and to let him know that, while Teddy is healing, he has to wear that silly collar, but he's still the same big loveable Teddy underneath all that.

I'm not sure if the message is getting through.

Cat management is so interesting! If I didn't work from home, I wouldn't know how I'd manage. At least when you have an invalid cat and you are on the premises, you can attempt to make things more comfortable for him.

Poor Teddy.

The good news is that Teddy received a big thumbs-up from the vet, and he's doing really well. His stitches will come out right after Christmas, a painless, in-house procedure that takes about five minutes, and then Teddy can return to some semblance of normalcy. He can go back outside again if he wants to (I shiver at the very thought of it, though. Hunters in our area have seen a coyote out in the woods carrying a cat in its mouth!) So I'm going to keep encouraging the cats to STAY INSIDE. A monster lurks in the woods, and the little ones aren't safe!