We think Sylvester might have a broken tail. We noticed it about a week ago. In the past he often held his tail straight up, with maybe a little curl at the end, a typical cat tail posture. Lately, though, he can’t seem to “get it up.”

This is about as high as he can raise it.

He hardly looks sassy with that loopy tail.

It also tends to droop to his right side.

He followed us down Lavender Trail Thursday night to see how the painting and HVAC are going at the new house. This is typical Sylvester behavior; he hangs back crying like a little kitten, and then trots up to us

Normally his tail would be either up or almost straight out behind him. Here you can see it drooping to his right, dangling with no apparent control.

It seems to us that the first couple of inches of his tail are normal. He can move that around and raise it up normally, but from that point to the tip of his tail, it seems to just hang there. We haven’t been able to inspect his tail closely, but there doesn’t seem to be any visible injury. We have no idea what might have happened. If a car had run over his tail, I would expect there to be some serious abrasions. If he just managed to escape a coyote by the skin of his taily-tail-tail, there should be some sign of that. But nothing, as far as we can tell.

I suggested (hopefully) to Leah that maybe Dusty bit Sylvester’s tail, but that also seems unlikely. Does anyone have any ideas?

Chloe and Dusty like to lie under the ornamental grass at the end of our driveway. She’s under there, but well camouflaged.

I made a lot of weird noises to get Smokey to finally look up at me. He was absorbed in something behind the house. A tree, perhaps? Maybe he was meditating? Daydreaming about food? Stuck on the landing, uncertain about whether to climb or descend?

You can see the abnormality in Smokey’s right eye in this shot. The pupil looks kind of like a keyhole.