I've posted several times about Jethro, my name for a feral cat I've been feeding for some years.



Well, I think I saw the last of him on Sunday. I pulled into the driveway after a visit to my parents, and he was standing in the middle of the driveway. Strangely, he didn't move when I stopped the truck about 3 feet from him, and when I got a look at his face I noticed that his eyes were black (they looked like the eyes of the dead angels in "The Prophecy.") When I got out he slowly walked away, not running like he normally would when I was that close. A little while later I went out on my porch and startled him, and he walked slowly down the stairs and headed toward my Jeep which is at the far side of the driveway. BONK! He walked face-first right into the tire. That's when I realized that whatever had happened to his eyes had made him blind, and I decided I'd try to catch him and bring him to my vet in the morning. Of course, I'd just brought my stepdad's live trap back a couple weeks earlier. Well, even a blind cat isn't easy to catch! He was lying under my Jeep, so I grabbed an old blanket to throw over him, put on the heaviest sweatshirt and gloves I could find to protect against claws & teeth, and went down to get him. No dice the first time, he managed to head off into the tall grass behind my Jeep. I did get a good look at his eyes, though, and it looked like he was bleeding into them, the right eye was 100% occluded and the left about 40%. There were also small trickles of blood at the corners of his mouth. I figure he got clipped by a car or somehow got hit in the head pretty hard. A little later my cats were out on the porch and staring at something downstairs, which turned out to be Jethro trying to find his way to the foot of the stairs. I suited up again and went downstairs, he'd tucked himself underneath the very bottom step. My plan was to have the blanket sort of spread out to my right side, and I'd grab him by the neck and trap him with the blanket. Yeah, right. The instant I touched him he came out of there like he'd been fired from a gun, startling my cats who'd been down in the driveway watching the show, and off to who knows where.

Monday morning I called animal control, who was off but whom the police officer I talked with said would call me Tuesday morning. He never did, which is probably for the better because odds are he would have ended up trapping one of mine. Back to Monday, I put out a tin of nice, smelly sardines in the hope that Jethro could find them by scent alone, but never saw him. So in all likelihood he died wherever it was he ran off to Sunday night. I'll miss him even though he wasn't officially "my" cat. Say hi to Max, Damon, Tiger, Squeaks, Toni, Clarice, Hannibal, George, and Captain Hook for me when you see them, buddy, and tell them I miss all of them!

That is soooo sad :(((
I truly hope that if he didn't make it, he didn't suffer.

I'm sorry man, losing a critter sucks, sounds like you did the best you could by him.

Sorry OP, Jethro was a good looking cat.

Well, Jethro is alive, I saw him run down my stairs when I pulled in the driveway the other day. So I borrowed a trap and of course, I haven't seen him again. Eventually I'll get him and probably take him to Friends of Feral Felines, where they may give him a home in a nice warm barn.

Glad to hear he's OK. Looks like a real bruiser.