Collar wounds again

This story does have a happy ending because the cat's microchip enabled us to trace her owners. She had been missing for nearly nine months and they had given up hope of ever seeing her again. However, they are now going to be faced with a pretty substantial bill at their own vet as the wound caused by her collar will need cleaning and stitching under anaesthetic, and possibly a skin graft because so much of the skin around the area is infected and rotting. She's otherwise well and is eating so has a good chance of surviving and not losing the damaged leg.

All cat collars are potentially dangerous because the cat can be caught up and hung, or put a leg through the collar and slice into the soft skin where the cat's leg and body join. The least dangerous kind have a fastening which is designed to click open if it is put under tension, but this may not work if the cat is small and light or if the fastening is glued together by mud or food. Flea collars are the most dangerous because the wound they make will be contaminated by the insecticide with which they have been impregnated, making it even more difficult to heal.

Another benefit of getting your cat chipped

You can now get cat flaps which detect your cat's chip in order to release the locking mechanism. This ensures that only your own cats can use the flap without the use of uncomfortable and potentially dangerous collars. Cat flaps can sometimes be a bit of a mixed blessing for a timid cat because of the risk that they might allow rivals to invade what should be a secure haven.

There are currently two UK manufacturers, PetPorte and Sureflap. The SureFlap system is nicely appropriate for Cambridge Science Festival fortnight as the technology that powers it was developed by Cambridge Resonant Technologies Ltd of the St John's Innovation Centre

Yet another collar wound

Another cat with a collar injury. Her owner contacted us wanting her rehomed because she'd returned after being missing for some time and in the meanwhile the owner had got a dog and no longer had space for a cat as well. I suspect this wasn't the whole story as she'd taken the cat for first aid at one of the Huntingdon vets, and they would have warned her the wound would need stitching under anaesthetic.

Huntingdon is outside our branch area so we referred her to Block Fen who have their own on-site vet for animals admitted for rehoming.

Update on Santa

Hallelujah!

The wound flap has closed up except for a very small area at the lowest point (where all the pus and gunk was draining). He still needs to have it monitored and dressings changed daily, but a student has offered to take him home for a trial period. Hopefully by the end of next week he may be ready to go to his permanent adoptive home. As some of the healing is by "granulation," which is the formation of scar tissue, he may be left with some permanent lack of flexibility, but they're now confident that he'll live.

This just serves to demonstrate what terrible damage a rigid, unbreakable collar can do to a cat. This was a flea collar, and it probably didn't have any beneficial effect in killing fleas, but it very nearly killed poor Santa. As it didn't carry any identity tag it didn't even serve any useful function in linking him to his previous owner.

Another cat with a collar wound

Call from Arbury road vets to say they've just taken in a stray cat with a badly infected collar wound that will need surgical repair to close it. He's another entire male, but fortunately has tested negative for FIV/FeLV. He'll need to be transferred to the clinic tomorrow morning.

Collar wound

The stitches are difficult to see in the photo because they're black thread against a strip of black fur (pinkish part is where poor Emily was shaved so they could establish the extent of the lacerated area). Basically the collar sliced into her skin along a line from her shoulder to breastbone, going just behind her right foreleg. The Elizabethan collar is to stop her licking her stitches.

I'll put up more photos when she's got the Elizabethan collar off and some of the fur's grown back in case anyone recognises her.

Yet another cat

Collected by one of the ACOs from Burwell village, with a very nasty collar wound. This happens where a cat manages to get a leg through a collar and it cuts into skin in the equivalent of our armpit, and shows why it is so important that cat collars should be made so that they will break if they get caught up. 

It will certainly need stitching and probably a tissue graft as these injuries are very difficult to get to heal because the skin is continually being pulled apart when the cat walks. Most of them are caused by flea-collars, which is possibly another reason why they don't heal as the chemicals of the collar are worked into the damaged area.

No micro-chip, and no tag on the collar so we can't easily reunite the cat with an owner. 

Flea collars are dangerous and not very effective as a way of getting rid of fleas. It would have been so much better to use an efficient veterinary "spot-on" treatment and to have used a micro-chip for ID.