Shasta Cat

For those of you who don't know, we have a cat named Shasta or as Brody likes to call him, kitty. I got him the summer of my sophomore year in college. It has definitely been a bumpy road with this cat. I'll start at the beginning. When I first got him I started to let him go outside. He ended up licking up some anti-freeze that had leaked out of a car. His kidneys shut down and he got very sick. We had to take him to the vet every other day for a month to get injection of fluid pumped under his skin. Anyway he recovered and I was afraid to let him go outside again. He got depressed and wouldn't eat so I called the vet and he said it would be fine to let him start going outside again. So I did and things were fine for a while. Then I got a call and someone had found him and he was badly injured. Turns out he had gotten attacked by either a raccoon or a possum. He had 100 puncture wounds in his tail alone (300 stitches) he had holes the size of dimes and nickels clear through to his bones. He had to have several surgeries, he had tubes hanging out of him. It was awful. Well after that I decided no more going outside for Shasta. It had been about a year and Mark and I moved into an apartment that wouldn't let us have a cat so Mark's parents offered to take him until we moved. After a few months Judy asked if she could let Shasta go outside I told her it was fine, her neighbor hood is a lot calmer then Isla Vista our crazy college town. Anyway she started to let him go outside and things were going good. Then she had a small party one night and one of her friends ran over Shasta and broke is back leg. This cat seriously has 9 lives. Well that brings us to our current situation. We love Shasta he was definitely our first baby. Overall he has been really good with the move and having a new baby in the house. He did attack Brody once and got him pretty good. After that I was ready to get rid of him. But we deiced to have his claws clipped really short and also gave him a summer haircut and thought we would see how things went. Well after his grooming he really started acting out, he peed in the office and on some stuff in the garage. We got so fed up with him that we decided to start letting him go outside. I really didn't think it was a good idea considering his past experiences. Well I'm happy to report it has been the best thing we could have done. Shasta is loving going outside. He doesn't go very far, he seems to really like just hanging out in the back yard. We leave the garage door cracked at the bottom and he comes and goes as he pleases. Now whenever he is inside he mostly just sleeps and cuddles with us because he is so tired from his outdoor adventures. Here are some pictures of our furious furry friend. He looks a little funny right now because of his lions haircut, they weren't supposed to shave his tail but they did. It might look funny but with the heat he loves having the short haircut.