Still Here - part two

Later in September, a very sick mother cat named Miracle gave birth to four tiny babies. She was in no condition to care for them, so the foster team at the shelter took over their care. This meant keeping them in an incubator and feeding them with a feeding tube every hour around the clock. It was my first introduction to tube feeding and they were so tiny and weak. We all knew it was unlikely they would survive, but had to try. We passed them back and forth between us until a foster home who could bottle feed them opened up. We lost one of the kittens very early in because he was just too small, but against all odds, not only did their mother survive her life threatening illness, the remaining three kittens also survived and found wonderful homes.

Here is my cat Doyle investigating his tiny new foster brother.

And here are the four of them snuggling with me for a bit to get that mom feeling before they went back into the incubator. They are so tiny, they kind of blend into my shirt design.

Since October, things have gotten rough in the Animal House. I had a little of three very sick compromised kittens that had already gone through two foster homes. They were constantly covered in food and poop. They could not keep themselves clean, were dehydrated and had diarrhea. They were adorable and when they came to me did not have names. We temporarily named them stinky, skanky and yuk because the smell that came off them daily was like nothing I had ever smelled before. I also did not want to name them because they were potentially going back to their previous foster person when she returned from vacation. She told me before she left that she did not know what to do with them because nothing she did was helping them improve. After just a few days with them, I went to the foster coordianator and told her that I felt like I was torturing these kittens. They needed multiple medications, force feeding, fluids and daily baths just to survive. They also had to be kept crated because I could not take the chance of whatever they had spreading to my other fosters. I do not mind doing this sort of treament as long as I am seeing some improvement, but I was seeing nothing out of them.

We consulted with our vets and they ran tests which did not tell us much. These kittens were not improving despite our best efforts and there quality of life was terrible. After talking with the vets, the foster coordinator and the shelter director, we all came to the hard decision that the kindest for them was to humanely euthanize them. It was devestating to lose an entire litter like that, but I truly felt that we were doing what was best for them by letting them go while they were still somewhat happy rather than forcing them to continue to go downhill and likely die a slow death. I was later comforted by the knowledge that our instincts were right. The vet did a necropsy (animal autospy) on them and they were all suffering from various birth defects and diseases that are fatal so they never had any chance of long term survival. We gave them the best life they could have while we had them and let them go before they began to suffer. Here is the only photo I have of one of the litter right after his bath.