Do you think he's learned his lesson?

This is how my morning started...

Which ultimately lead to this.....

You may remember Neko from this post. Neko is still a sweet and loving cat, but he is now an outside cat.  Neko decided earlier this year that he no longer liked litter boxes and that he was required to mark his territory by spraying on the furniture.  After several fruitless attempts to "cure" this problem, including a vet visit to rule out medical issues, Neko became an outside cat.  Now the world is his litter box and he can spray the bushes and the deck to his heart's content.

He makes a good outside cat.  We were worried at first that he would run off, but he pretty much stays around the house and comes to get his loving whenever we're outside.  He says goodbye every morning when we leave and greets us each evening when we return.  Which is why we were a little concerned last night when he didn't greet either of us when we got home, and by this morning still had not eaten any of his food from yesterday.

When I found him this morning, he wouldn't come to me, but he didn't run when I approached...until I tried to put a damp cloth on his eye to clean it up.  I decided a trip to the vet was in order and went inside to get the cat carrier.

Neko is not a fan of the cat carrier, but he can usually be cajoled into it without too much trouble.  He was having none of it this morning.  After desperately trying to get him in and hang onto him as he twisted and clawed, I finally decided that it was more important to get him to the vet than for him to ride in the carrier to get there.  So I put both the cat and the carrier in the car.  You see the results above.  He may look like he's having fun, but he's yowling at the top of his lungs.

The vet's verdict....a corneal puncture which lead to part of his iris prolapsing through the tear.  Yes, it looked much worse once he finally opened his eye.  Fortunately, the fixing of that is not nearly as expensive as it sounds.  Neko will be coming home tonight, where he will get to spend a few days in the basement bathroom until we can get him healed up.

Let's hope when he gets back outside, he's learned his lesson about fighting with the neighbor's cat.