A little over a year ago we were lucky enough to have two kittens come to live with us, a brother and sister, Murphy and Misty, who had been brought back to health by Wizz at the now re-opened Wizz-Cats having suffered neglect and malnourishment and been thrown out of a car prior to their rescue.

Both cats seemed to be thriving although small and a bit neurotic but when we came back from holiday recently Misty greeted us by weeing left right and centre. While clearing it up, we thought there might be some blood in it too. So we made an appointment at the vet which we ended up cancelling for some probably mundane reason and because she wasn't showing any more symptoms.

But despite appearing bright eyed and sleek, she went off her food and she didn't come home yesterday and this morning Mrs T found her dead, peacefully stretched out in next door's front garden with no sign of trauma.

The question is, what do I do? Should I get a vet to examine her to try and find the cause of death in case it was caused by a disease or a poison? Or is it best to let sleeping cats lie?

I am sorry to hear about Misty, I doubt though that her death is due to the symptoms that you describe and more likely that she was the victim of a car I'm sorry to say, often a cat will run away and then just collapse in a quiet place :sad:

I would say that it is up to you really whether you feel like taking her for further examination to a vet, speaking from a purely personal point of view I wouldn't as there is nothing that you can do now.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take the other one for a thorough check up though to put your mind at rest.

Thanks for the reply. Obviously we have wondered whether she'd been hit and it's possible of course although there was no outward sign. However I've never seen her across our road.

I think you're right about taking Murphy for a thorough check though. And I'll think about getting him some companionship too.

Thanks for the reply. Obviously we have wondered whether she'd been hit and it's possible of course although there was no outward sign. However I've never seen her across our road.

I think you're right about taking Murphy for a thorough check though. And I'll think about getting him some companionship too.

There isn't always any outward sign of a Rd accident, but sometimes the cat might have a patch of dirty fur, I once picked a cat up off the Rd outside my house and if I hadn't known how she had been killed I would never have guessed... there wasn't a mark on her :sad:

I hope that Murphy is ok, and that a new little girl kitten will help him and you after you don't feel so sad about Misty.

Hello Tricky, I'm so sorry to hear about Misty. I don't normally post much but your story reminded me of a cat we had. Billy was 9 months when we found him dead in our garden. A few moments previously my husband had shouted him and he had lifted his head up. I had just got in and went into the garden to check on him. I soon realised he had died, but he was still warm so I knew he had only just gone. We were absolutely devastated, there wasn't a mark on him and like you we wondered whether he had been poisoned. I decided to have a post mortem and the vet examined his claws and said it looked like some sort of trauma. He phoned us after the post mortem and said that Billy had suffered bleeding into his abdomen- likely to have been caused by blunt force. Together with the marks on his claws he decided that he had probably been clipped/ hit by a car. I know it might seem a strange thing to do but having the PM did put my mind at rest as to what had happened. Take care, we have since got another two cats which did help a bit!!

Thank you for the kind words; we rang the vets and they were of the opinion that in a lot of cases a PM investigation still wouldn't fully explain the circumstances so we decided to bury her in the garden last night and we'll take the other one to the vets to get checked over.

We'll look at getting a companion for Murphy at a later date.

Sorry to hear about your loss :( Sleep tight Misty. x