I have been absent from this blog for awhile because of a new stray that has shown up. I am calling him Sundance. He is a Tom, and he is very skittish. He would vanish the minute that I stepped out the back door, even though he was only lurking in the bushes at the end of our four acres. He was that scared.

I started to feed him on a regular basis at the same spot, at the same time. I could only “look” at him through my patio window with the aid of my binoculars. I could see that he wasn’t in good shape.

A few days ago, I was surprised to see him at the drinking pool in the middle of the yard. I guess, I shouldn’t have been, because the temps were in the triple digits. Although I was providing food and water back by the creek daily, his bowl must have been empty prompting him to move closer to the house.

Tonight, I decided that I would try and trap him before dusk. Usually, I trap in the mornings. Although, I don’t know why, I had a feeling that he really needed to be helped. I saw him appear in the customary spot by the creek, so I loaded my trap. I prayed all the way to the spot, put some tasty FF in a dish. Since I didn’t want him to see me load it. I stopped halfway there and set it up to trip. I had to carry it very carefully so not to trip the lever.

I set the trap down. I  turned around and went back in the house. I grabbed my binoculars and waited. All the time, I am thinking of that old adage: “A watched pot never boils.”

Pretty soon out he comes. I placed the trap so the door was toward the bushes, not the house. I didn’t want him to come around the trap and see activity in the yard and get spooked vanishing back in the bushes..

All of a sudden- he goes to the front of the trap and he vanishes! I’m praying that he is inside and trapped, but I have my doubts because trapping is never this easy! I grabbed my telescoping boat pole. My thought was if I get close enough to the cage to use the 8 foot pole, maybe I could just reach out and hit the trap with the pole and snap the door shut. But he was trapped!

Poor boy, he was so scared. He was spitting and hissing, So I went back to the barn.  I grabbed  a dark blanket and covered him up. Before I put him into one of the empty enclosures (still in the trap) I took a better look at him. His right eye, the orb is missing. 🙁 His left side of his face is swollen.) I will take him to the vet in the morning and let them sedate him and evaluate him.. If they can, neuter him. I suspect he will have to have his eye socket surgerized. I hate that he has to stay in the trap for 12 plus hours, but the pay-off is worth it.

On a more somber note, by boy Baker is not doing well. I took him to the vet the other morning..He went postal during the exam, but they did manage to draw blood. He also managed to draw blood on me! He shredded the inside of my thighs- big time. He was so scared. He is currently living inside the large enclosure with Pigeon and PITA but he is semi-feral.

The vet called tonight and the  news is not good. He has pancreatitis. If some of you don’t know that that is, it is when the pancreas is misfiring and eating itself up. It is very painful. He also has hyperthyroidism and is in early stages of kidney disease. He is 14 years old.

He was 6 months old when he arrived here. Someone sped down the highway and tossed him out of their car as they passed our home! He suffered massive bruising and has a protruded disc in his back.because of this trauma.

The plan is for now, we are going to put him on anti-nausea medication, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs and I will try and get him to eat whatever I can. If he continues to lose weight, and the vomiting does not stop, (now I know where all those piles of vomit have come from out there) I will have no choice but to put him to sleep.

Please if you can- and ONLY if you can, please send something to the CATS fund to help cover some of the expenses we are about to be hit with. Between Molly’s seizure medications and now this- my head is spinning. I just made a large payment to my vet too and was starting to relax. Not anymore.

Thank you for anything you can send and here is my Baker Boy. This was taken just after he got home from the vet. He is giving me stink-eye.