For the past 3 years, Larry has been diagnosed with many problems: Diabetes, heart murmurs, Cataracts, Arthritis, constant diarrhea and dehydration due to some sort of liver or kidney failure, dandruff, etc, etc. Larry would be in constant need of medication - insulin injections twice a day, heart pills every 8 hours, powder in his food, etc. He was a good cat, though - just slept most of the day, reminded you when it was time for medicine in case you forgot, and followed you around, begging for food. But when he started refusing his favorite pastime and having to be force-fed, Chris's mom took Larry in and they said enough is enough. Larry is missed, though not all of the chores because of him. Meanwhile, I have taken to taming Boris, the other outside cat, for the past year or so.
Now, for the actual story: Mo, the runt of the litter and Larry's twin brother (both were all black), has always had a wild side. The other night, we noticed him running from one end of the yard to the other, pausing to lick himself, before tearing off. We knew something was odd. Must be running from an animal or hurt, or something, so we followed him inside and he ran through the house. Finally I was able to get him cornered and see what was the matter. He was laying on Chris's bed, so I started petting him. As I slowly rolled him over, I saw something wet on his side. My first thought was that it was blood from a fight, so I leaned closer to inspect his wound. Then I saw a worm, stuck in his fur. This was what he was biting at to try to get off of him. I called for Chris to bring a paper towel. He asked if the cat had thrown up, again, but I told him just to bring it and come quickly, as I tried to hold down the cat. While I was waiting, I realized this wasn't just any earthworm. It was very long, and dark. I waited as Chris tried to pick the worm out. The worm was not coming very easily. It was stuck with pretty strong goo to the cat. As Chris pulled on one end of it, we saw the head: It was a flat head, and it was moving slowly, trying to find it's way. Red flags went off in my mind. Flat worms are an entirely different thing and can be very dangerous. My mind flashed to things like tape worms, ring worms, and other awful things that live inside the bodies of animals. Chris also freaked and thought about Mo's vomit earlier in the day - did something come out of him at that time?! As Chris pulled firmly, the cat moaned - some of his hair was being pulled with the force of the slime. The worm came apart, and inside, was whiteness. Chris managed to get much of the worm off, as I held the cat to the bed. Luckily, the cat whined, but did not twist and try to get us off of him. I guess he knew we were trying to help. Chris flushed it, and we tried to wipe his fur down to get the stickiness off of his fur. We washed our hands thoroughly and then sat down to research the worm from our memories. We Googled: "flat headed worm". To our surprise, the very first picture was of the exact worm (it was also the ONLY picture of the correct thing). We learned it was a "Shovel-headed" worm, very rare to North America. It gets transferred over in pots to nurseries, from Asia. Their slime is similar to a snail's and they prey on common earthworms. Though, somehow related to other flat worms, this one is not dangerous to humans or pets, and is not poisonous (though it did say that it wouldn't taste good to dogs). We were relieved to learn that it was just picked up from the dirt and harmless. It was still one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen (the picture below is the image we found when we searched for it):
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