Christmas Adventures with Merlin

Merlin joined the family two years ago as a rescue. Along with his mother and siblings, he had been found and taken in by a shelter. Merlin ended up being the last to be adopted. No one wanted him because of his deformed tail. It is smaller than normal and shaped like a capital L. When he wags his tail, it is reminiscent of someone waving a signal flag. While others may find Merlin undesirable, we love him and believe we are lucky to have him.

One of Merlin's many pleasures is inspecting the contents of bags. When I come home from the grocery store, he hops up onto the counter, checks the contents of the bags and supervises unloading the groceries and putting them away. Actually, bags from any shopping we do are subject to being inspected by the little guy.

His curiosity, his love of bags and the availability of Christmas gift bags are what got him into trouble yesterday. My wife has a large blanket chest in our bedroom, and she had several gift bags on top of it awaiting delivery. Merlin jumped up onto the blanket chest to begin his inspections.

Unfortunately, with one of the gift bags, he stuck his head through the handle to look inside. Everything was fine until the inspection ended. When he tried to pull his head out of the bag, his head was stuck in the loop of the handle and things went downhill from there. Merlin panicked, jumped off the blanket chest and took off through the house, still attached to the gift bag. bumping into furniture and scattering Christmas gifts as he tore through the house. The bag was quickly destroyed, but the remnants were still attached because the loop of the handle was still around his neck.

Merlin ended up back in the bedroom under our bed. My wife tried to reach him to remove the bag, but he kept moving away. After several attempts, the bag was removed and he went downstairs to my daughter's bedroom to rest and recover from the trauma.

When he finally emerged a few hours later, he was crying and limping as he tried to climb the stairs. My wife and I were hoping his injury was just a sprain or strain, by his crying indicated he was in pain, and it was clear he needed to be checked by a vet. It was late afternoon on Christmas eve, and naturally our vets office was closed. This left us with having to go to BEVS (Burlington Emergency Veterinary Service). Our Christmas eve ended up being 4 hours there.

Because of the pandemic, we were not allowed to enter the building and had to wait in our car in the parking lot. Conversations were over the phone, and a vet tech came out to take Merlin and his pet carrier into the building. It turns out that Merlin has a fracture of the head of his femur (the "ball" of the "ball and socket" joint).

While he is scheduled for surgery on January 5th, our job in the meantime is to restrict his activity and to keep him from jumping and making things worse.

If you have ever owned a cat, you know from experience that telling the little guy to do something (or not to do something) is a colossal waste of time. If you mention the word "supper", he will come and await being fed. Otherwise, he does pretty much whatever he wants. Currently, he is residing in our guest room, with the mattress and box spring from the bed leaning up against the wall, leaving him with nothing in the room that he can jump up onto. He is well-medicated, and destined to spend the next several days eating and sleeping, with the only down side being restricted to the room/

After all this, you have to ask yourself: Will Merlin keep his nose out of bags in the future? Not likely.