Danger Cat

On Saturday at around 5pm, I answered a knock at the door to be told that our cat had been hit by a car and "it looked really bad". We went into panic mode - we found Oscar in the carport with his face all scratched up and his feet bleeding. It didn't look like he had massive injuries but we still felt really really worried and scared.

We ran around getting a cat box out of the shed and calling the vet, and then drove very quickly to the vets - luckily they are only about 1 minute away (when Adam drives!) We got straight in and the vet checked him, and said he looked ok but that they would keep him in overnight for observation. I was feeling very shaken - I think hearing he'd been hit was the worst as it was quite dramatic and not something you ever want to hear.

The person who saw him get hit wrote down the numberplate of the car and gave it to us. They said the person didn't stop although they thought they knew they had hit something. I rang the police infoline to ask if it was worth reporting and they said it probably was, as you're meant to stop and exchange details if you hit anything, even just a garbage bin or something.

So this morning, after an awful night's sleep, we went to the vet's to get Oscar, who looked a bit better, and took him home. He wandered around for a while before settling down for a long sleep on the bedroom floor. He kept trying to sharpen his claws on the furniture but there's nothing there to sharpen - his claws were all ground down by the road.

Then we went to the police station.

The lady we spoke to there was initially quite brusque and unhelpful, but then she relaxed a bit and offered to check the numberplate and call the registered owner. She rang them and told them they'd hit a cat and said they should come to our house before the end of the day, or she'd advise us to file a report. We felt a bit weird about this and nervous about a possible confrontation with whoever was driving the car.

A man turned up around 4pm-ish - it was his wife driving the car and she knew she'd hit Oscar and totally freaked out when it happened. She was on her way to pick up her husband and when they came back they had a look for Oscar but by then we would have been at the vet's with him. Turns out they live just over the road, so they are our neighbours, and I had quite a nice chat with the man. The wife didn't come over because she was too nervous - I think she felt really bad about it and he was really relieved to hear that the cat was ok.

So there you go - all's well that ends well. Although it is unlucky that Oscar got hit, there are a lot of things that were quite lucky - he wasn't too badly hurt, people saw it happen and told us immediately, the vet was open, Adam wasn't working so we could drive to the vet's, and we were able to speak to the people involved. It could have been a lot worse.

The cats are on house arrest for the time being and we're thinking of putting in a cat run of some sort so they can go outside without going on the road. I know that cats like to roam around but our road is busy and people go along it quite fast, and I don't want to have to scrape one of my cats off the road ever.

Having the cats on house arrest means the dogs have to be tied up when they come inside - we were going to do this anyway when the baby arrives. So far Ruby has settled down quite quickly to her post, while Saffy is whinging her head off. She'll get used to it! It's less stressful than having them chase the cats around, especially while Oscar is recouperating.

The end result for Oscar is some gravel rash on his face, all his claws shredded or missing, and a few scratches on the pads of his feet. I imagine he feels pretty bruised as well. We calculate he's down to 7 lives.

I think Oscar has always helped Adam and I to feel like a family so it's quite traumatic when anything happens to him. He is a top cat and we love him a lot. I'm so glad he is ok.