Ok, I really didn’t know where else to come. Before I explain what happened last night I really want anyone who reads this to have an open mind because we really do have a very loving home. My boyfriend and I have 3 cats. 2 Female, 1 male. We’ve lived together for 6 months now. the oldest cat originally belonged to me, she’s rounding 5 yrs old, then comes the little fuzzy cutie who’s about 4 that belonged to his ex and lastly the youngest little guy whoes about 3 1/2 and a total daddys boy. All of our cats we’ve had since they were kittens. Well last night there was an accident with the male cat. I was upstairs reading, my boyfriend went in the basement to vacuum up cat hair and litter on the floor. Well the male cat freaks out as always and jumps into the rafters of the basement. To this day I’ll never know how the cat does it but he leaps about 12 foot in the air and gets behind the insulation. This has happened before. Usually when we do get him out he might at most get a firm talking to and a butt smack (by far beating). We’ve tried to re stuff everything so he cant get up there but he still does. He then gets sooo itchy from the insulation that he ends up biting his fur out. Yet instead of running up the stairs away from the vacuum, he rather go in the rafters. Well last night like I said, i was upstairs. My bf comes up and asks me to come look at the cat to see if he’s dying. I rush down the stairs and find the little guy laying on his side breathing really hard. I tell my bf to grab the phone book and look up vet hospitals. We found the closest one and rushed him there. Well my boyfriend had told me on the way what had happened. Basically the kitty again climbed in the rafters, he got him out again. this time when my bf got him in his hands out of the rafters, the cat clawed him pretty good on his arm and hand (which is not like him at all. I dont know if it was done out of anger, suprise or whatever else but my bf threw the cat and he hit the wall. Now before everyone starts accusing us or him of being animal abusers know this. We love and care about our pets deeply. none of them have ever gotten more then a tap on the butt. We dont abuse our cats. heck my cat wont let me stand up if she’s on my lap. Each of our cats respond to different disapline. The male is the only one that would get his butt tapped because nothing else would work. Anywho, so the doc said that he suffered a fractured jaw and a possible broken front leg but the major concern was his blood ox level. He was not breathing the best. The said in order to know if the breathing issue was coming from trauma or just pain related they would need to run a bunch of test. Do I believe if we had money he would have survived, yes I do. The bill was going to be over $800 and they wanted $380 down in order to treat him at all. We live very pay check to paycheck so just coming up with $300 on the spot just doesn’t happen. My dad most likely would have helped but he’s on vacation 8 hrs away. the refused to make payment arrangments with nothing less than $300 down. We were givin 2 choices, take him home in pain and now treatment or put him to sleep. So my bf had to make the choice of putting him down so he wasn’t in pain. On a normal case they would most likely have kept him for pain and checked him further. When they brought him in the room to put him to sleep, he was acting alot better and was moving but again, with no money, they wouldn’t treat him. Needless to say my boyfriend is now overcome with not only grief but guilt. As he held his cat last night he just kept saying he was sorry and daddy loves you so much. It simply just breaks my heart. My bf is not a violent guy. He’s never laid a finger on anyone or anything. Heck when I freak out about a spider, he’ll be the guy that puts it outside. I know he’s not an animal abuser and he never meant for this to happen. I honestly think he lost his temper when the cat clawed him. We’ve been together for over a yr but I’ve known him for 5 yrs and I’ve never known him to snap to the point of hurting. He’s lost his temper with me and might have slammed a door. So how do I handle this. I dont want to make it worse but I dont want him to think its ok either. He excepted what the doctor says so I dont know if I should tell him that I think max would have been ok if we had the money. I have no idea how to handle this one. In a normal case I know it would just take time but with him feeling the death of Max was souling is fault and done by his own hand, I’m worried he may do something crazy. He admits he has a temper issue and is now wanting to find help but how do I help him with the grief and guilt with out making it seem like i except what he did.