We saw Black Cat because for the previous few days he had been limping on one of his front legs and was quieter than usual. 

This was something unusual for this seasoned outdoor yard cat (tiger), normally very resilient and confident, which concerned his owner and prompted her to bring him to us.

When we examined him, he was obviously lame on his right foreleg but still able to put some weight through the leg.  Physical examination was challenging because of his “strong personality”, but we managed to detect a hard lump in his forearm next to his elbow. We were unable to fully determine its nature at that stage, owing to him resenting examination of the specific area, which is something that vets do sometimes have to deal with, balancing accurately examining the patient versus overstressing or hurting them. 

Having discussed the options with his owner, in the light of no obvious fracture, we initially dispensed a course of anti-inflammatory medication and recommended complete rest. Further advice was to recommend that if he was not improving, we would re-examine Black Cat under sedation and perform Xray’s.

Despite resting him, which he didn’t appreciate, he continued to limp and so his owner brought Black Cat back to see us. This time, with some oral sedative on board, he allowed a slightly more thorough exam, confirming a lump on his forearm, which was consistently painful on direct touch. 

To determine the nature of the lump, we sedated him by injection and then X-rayed his leg.

To our surprise, the lump turned out to be a tooth imbedded within his foreleg. Surprisingly, rather than being the tooth of another cat, it appeared to be more like that from a fox or badger!

We then proceeded to surgically remove this most unusual foreign body under general anaesthesia.

After another week of forced rest indoors Black-Cat has made a great recovery and is back patrolling the yard. Hopefully he won’t get into any fights any time soon.

Mario Amaral – DVM PGCertSAM MRCVS and RCVS Advanced Practitioner in Small Animal Medicine