I buried someone’s cat Sunday. Thursday I’d sent a classified ad to the Press:

“An injured Siamese cat wearing a pink and white flea collar found in the Scott Road–West Bare Hill Road area.”

Apparently it had lived in my garage for a week, though in two brief sightings it appeared healthy—like a neighbor cat just stopping in to visit.

Between Thursday and Sunday, I learned that “it” was a pure-bred female Siamese, that she was about two years old, that she’d been declawed, and that her flea collar, which she’d stepped her left foot through, had cut her almost to the bone. I learned this from my vet, Dr. Katherine Reiner, whose business is making house calls in her Katmobile.

For however long the cat had been away from home—weeks probably—she couldn’t hunt, so didn’t eat. Friday, when she finally lapped some tuna fish juice, she couldn’t keep it down. Grass and cat hair had been her diet.

Dr. Reiner’s daily fluid drips didn’t help. Daily injections of antibiotics and painkillers didn’t help. My hot water bottles in her box every four hours didn’t help. Hundreds of dollars and hours of care didn’t help.

Loss teaches us lessons. The lessons I learned were many. Don’t declaw your cat. If you have a declawed cat, don’t let it outdoors. Don’t use a flea collar. If you do use a flea collar, make it tight enough that your cat can’t get its foot through it. And investigate what you don’t understand.

Thursday’s found cat was lost Sunday. I hope she wasn’t yours.

Nineteen-year resident Laura Andrews is a former editor of The Harvard Post, The Bolton Common, and The Harvard Press. She has two cats.