Since the Weekly Poll was clearly in favour of publishing the “disturbing image”, here’s a photograph of Artemis’ tail injury. Yes, you have to follow the link since some people thought that “appropriate”.
The basic deal is that our beautiful cat was probably hit by a car. She ran, but the car’s tyre caught the hair on her tail and scalped a 20cm section. The photo shows what it looked like after the vet had shaved it back for inspection.
Since then, Artemis “failed to re-gain tail functionality”. The tail has been amputated. So, as I explain to friends, we now have 1.95 cats. Apparently this is quite a common injury for urban cats.
Artemis is coping remarkably well, and it was a neat piece of surgery (thanks Katherine!). The main trauma was that it all happened while ’Pong and I were in Bangkok. Thanks to the Snarky Platypus and my office manager Virginia Bridger for helping out while we were away.



