Billy Without His Ear Tips

This is a topic related neither to our guild nor about Angora. We are all animal lovers; I thought this information might help some who also have cats.

Billy belongs to Vada, a neighbor of mine. He is neutered but behaves like a Tom Cat, roaming the neighborhood as if he were the king. He has two followers, Dandy and Bo, who would follow him like a groupie to a rock star. Dandy and Bo even think that Billy's pee smells good.

On the right, Billy is peeking into the door of our sunroom, picture taken in February 05. He had nice and straight ears. In August, Vada noticed that Billy's ears were full of blisters and scars and took him to the vet. Vada was informed that after testing, Billy had skin cancer on his ears. To save Billy's life, the vet removed the cancerous part of his ears. The picture on the left was taken the first day when he was allowed out of Vada's house. Luckily the loss of his ear tips did not change his self confidence. He still roams the neighborhood as if it were his kingdom, and he still has the two groupie cats following him around.

I used to have white cats and loved them. I recall my vet advising me to put sun block lotion on their ears if I allowed them out. I did that. Since I haven't had any white cat for over 20 years, I did not think to tell Vada about it. Now I am on a mission to spread the message: Put sun block lotion on the tips of the ears of light skin cats or dogs if they are allowed to go out. I suppose it could also apply to rabbits, but rabbits are usually caged and not exposed to the sun.