Albus tends to shy away from strangers. He will walk through the pet door, through the kitchen and turn the corner into the living room. If he sees unfamiliar faces, that means six more weeks of winter. If our visitors have dogs with them, we won’t see Albus for the remainder of their visit. That is why I was surprised to see him stretched out on my bed Saturday night when Chad and Jess were here. Albus’s ear had a cut that was actively bleeding and a scratch over one eye. This is typical. We’ve seen this before on him. Michael went to move Albus from the bed so I could go to sleep, but I stopped him. “No, let him stay in here with me and Josephine tonight.”

Usually, this is a big no. I will say that Josephine and the cat do less arguing about who is going to sleep where these days, but two pets in the bed is bit much for me. I always wake up in the middle of the night, sweating because one of them is pressed the length of their body to my right side and the other has pressed the length of their body to my left. Which is exactly what happened on this night. Nothing unusual. The next day, I saw Albus laying in various places around the house. This too is normal. At bedtime the next evening, I noticed Albus curled up in the dog crate that is in my room. This is also normal. The crate is right next to a heater vent. This time, Michael put his foot down and went to remove the cat from the crate, but when Albus got up, we could see that he was walking with a serious limp.

Michael did a thorough check and nothing seemed broken or out of place. Albus was able to hop up to his food. He could hobble out side. The next day, he had even hobbled down to the basement. Monday evening, he hobbled over and got into my lap. I gently petted his head and asked him a string of questions that I wish he could answer. “Were you hit by a car?” “Were you attacked by a coyote?” “Was it an altercation with a raccoon?” “Can you tell us what happened to you?” He blinked and continued to purr, refusing to answer. When I moved the fur around on the back of his neck, I could see scratches. He acts like none of it bothers him, yet I have fretted over that dummy for days. I hate the not knowing, but I’m pretty convinced he was in an altercation with a big dog. I can imagine the wounds on the back of his neck was from being shook like a rag doll.

This morning, Albus was barely walking with a limp. He’s much improved. He was sitting in the kitchen looking pretty smug, watching me put away dishes. I looked down at him and asked “Are you plotting your revenge?” He yawned and swished his tail to the side. I’m pretty sure that means he is definitely plotting something.