Fat Boy gets in a fight

This is a picture of Lucky Geraci aka Fat Boy. He wandered up to our house about 8 years ago and plunked himself down in our yard. He looked like he'd just escaped from Auschwitz he was so skinny. He wasn't wearing any tags (and I'll be honest, I didn't think about taking him to the vet to see if he had one of those chips inside him.) He had been declawed and was obviously starving.

Now, I'm not a cat person, but I'd been tricked a few years earlier into getting a cat (Lizzie aka Heartless Bitch) by my two daughters, so I wasn't totally clueless about cats. Urged by Daughter #2 to "do the right thing" I put some food and water out by the garage. Of course, the dang cat gobbled it all up. So I put some more food out there. Repeat previous sentence (the dang cat gobbled it all up again).

Later that night it began to storm. Now Daughter #1 joined in the fight to "save" the cat. Clueless Son, who was probably off playing Nintendo, did not join in the argument one way or another (clearly he is destined to be a dog-man). So because I still have a heart, I took the cat in. Hence she (we later found out he was a neutered male) was bestowed with the name "Lucky."

Lucky spent the next 3 days in the laundry room lying on top of my warm vibrating dryer (which saw a lot of action in those days because I have 3 kids), alternately eating, using the litter box, and sleeping. After about 2 weeks, he looked more like a fat prison guard at Auschwitz and Mike Geraci bestowed the name "Fat Boy" on him and we have loved him ever since. However, we cannot keep the dang cat inside. He craves the outdoors. So he's an indoor/outdoor cat with no claws. Ay caramba. If I had a teenager who was driving I couldn't be more worried (oh, wait, I have 2 of those as well).

Speed forward to the next 8 years. Lucky now roams the neighborhood like he's King Cat. Mostly he guards our front yard, but he also likes to go over to the neighbor across the street because there are horses in the lot behind their house. He's had one snake fight that I know of (because I witnessed it and subsequently killed the snake myself) but other than that he's pretty peaceful. So imagine my surprise when he came home one day with a part of his tail scratched. I figured he had scraped it trying to squeeze in between the fence. I put some Neosporin on it and kept an eye on it. Within a few days it had begun to abscess and all the hair on his tail was falling off. This means a visit to Dr. Steve (local veterinarian.)

According to Dr.Steve, Lucky was in a tomcat fight. What? My sweet old Lucky is running around fighting at night? It appears so. A shot of good old fashioned antibiotics and few days later, Lucky is on the mend. Of course, he still goes out several times a day, although I've noticed he's now hanging out in the backyard more. Still, it's weird knowing he has this secret life I know nothing about. It makes me wonder what my teenagers are up to...

This is a bad picture of Fat Boy's tail, which is healing very nicely.