Jude's Story

So I have talked about Jude in a previous post in this blog, but I wanted to provide an update. Jude was a feral kitten I took into foster around October. When she was surrendered to the shelter all the cages were full which in many shelters might mean she would be euthanized. Bu the staff knew that they would be likely to find a place for her in the morning so they decided to put her in a wire dog crate for the night.

She has been found running in the traffic at a local shopping mall and the surrender brought her to us so she would not be hit by a car. She was bout 2 months old and wet and terrified. I saw her and decided she needed another blanket and a heating disk for the night. When I came back into the holding room to give them to her she was not in the cage. I checked with the staff to see if they had moved her and that was when we realized that she had managed to squeeze herself between the bars of the crate and was hiding somewhere in the holding room. After a long search, we found that she had climbed behind the fridge so I had to get up on the counter while a staff member tipped the fridge so I could scruff her and move her to a different style of crate. I told the staff person I would be back for her in the morning and she would be my foster. She was my type of kitty.

For while I was concerned that she would not be able to be socialized and we considered that she might need to be euthanized at one point, but we decided to give her more time. Then she developed odd health problems. Throughout the course of her foster she had a genital infection that almost caused her to be euthanized because she was too small for a catheter, concern that she might be a hermaphrodite and the fact that she just did not grow.

By the time she was 4 months old she was still only 2#7oz. At that point I knew there was something seriously wrong with her. She was social to me and me alone, but we were not concerned about her socialization because her lack of growing indicated a serious issue with her health. Unfortunately, there were no symptoms that our vets could use to pinpoint a diagnosis. Then the fever started. She had a temp of at least 103 for over a month that did not respond to any treatment we threw at it. And her official diagnosis because fever of unknown origin.

During all of this, she was the sweetest kitten I could ask for. She tolerated anything we did to her as long as she had me with her and I became more and more attached to her. The thought of giving her up was really hard to bear, but I pushed it aside because I knew in my heart that she was unlikely to ever be healthy enough for adoption.

Finally our vet decided to do an exploratory surgery on her, which was risky because of her temp, but was the only way we might get a answer as to what was wrong with her. And the results of the surgery was unfortunately what I expected for some time. She had FIP.

FIP is a condition that is untreatable, difficult to diagnose because there is not test for it and it is always fatal. If a kitten has the wet form, they will need to be euthanized at the time of diagnosis because they only have around a week before they begin to suffer. If it is the dry form of the condition, they can have a little more time. Jude had the dry form.

I asked the shelter for permission to not euthanize her right at diagnosis and instead keep her until her quality of life started to suffer. They were very supportive of this and I took her home. I had another three weeks with my baby before her kidneys started to fail and I knew it was time to let her go.

This was all very difficult for me and my family, but she was such a special kitten that I knew I had to give her as long a life and as good a life as I could. And as hard as it was, I do not regret it. I miss her terribly. Even though I only had her for a short time, she became a member of my family. And the wonderful foster coordinator I work with supported me throughout the process even understanding why it was important to me that I officially adopt her before she was euthanized.

Here is my baby Jude:

I have been taking a break since then so I will be back when I start fostering again which will probably be sometime in March or April. But I just want to say that if you ever get a chance to give an animal with a limited life span (either because of age or illness) a good home for however long they have - do it. It will break your heart and change your life in so many good ways.

Still Here - Part Four

Well the other fosters we had for 2010 were many and varied. They came and went because many of them were sick and I can only handle just so much at one time. Two that did stay with me their entire foster time and go up for adoption were Zinni and Char.

Zinni and Char were surrendered along with their sister Savvi the night of a wine tasting fundraiser at the shelter. They were from a litter of six, but the litter somehow ended up in some one's garage and three of the litter did not survive the cold night. The person rushed the three remaining kittens to us as soon as they discovered this. The three remaining kittens spent the day in our incubator and I took over their care, syringe feeding them every hour or so, trying to help them pull through.

Since we had quiet a few visitors in for the wine tasting event, many people stopped by the office door to watch me care for these little guys and we had a lot of volunteers asking about them after I took them home that night. They became known as my wine tasting kittens.

In honor of the event, I named them after wines. Zinfandel (Zinni), Chardonnay (Char) and Savignoun (Savvi). Sadly Savvi only made it a few days before she passed away quiet suddenly and dramatically. We think she may have had a twisted intestine which puts means that if you feed them it can kill them, but if you do not feed them they will starve. So there was really not much that can be done about a birth defect about this. Her sisters Zinni and Char had a difficult road and grew much slower that normal kittens, but finally at about 5 months of age they were big enough to put up for adoption and are both in homes that are great for them.

I also had some additional feral fosters that went up for adoption including a sweet girl named Gwen and a half blind long haired cutie named Merlin who was afraid to be picked up. They both found people willing to work with their personalities and give them the home they needed.

Still Here - part three

Next I brought home three feral kittens from various places. Two are still with me. One is now at the rainbow bridge.

Charlie
He is a sweet black and white boy who got very sick with an upper respiratory infection right after he came to us. I moved him into my room to better monitor him. He struggled with his URI, but very quickly became a very sweet and social boy. He was just about over his URI and living loose in my house with my two cats and we were all getting very attached to him. Then late one night he just stopped moving. I rushed him to the shelter the next day and he had a temp of 104 (very high) and still would not move. The vets were very concerned about his survival. They sent out blood work and his levels raised concern about a condition known as FIP. There is no known cause of FIP, other than that is it a mutation of a common cat virus, there is no real way to test to be sure if a cat has it and it is always fatal.

We decided to go ahead and try and injectible antibotic for a week and see it helped. He had no improvement for almost a week and I was preparing myself for the vets to recommended euthanasia when I brought him in for his vet check at the end of the week when he suddenly was fine. All his symptoms were just gone one afternoon. Everyone is baffled, but very pleased. He is now perfectly fine. In fact, he is sitting on me right now making typing this difficult because he chases the cursor. The vets have cleared him to go up for adoption, but we have no plans to bring him into the shelter to go on the adoption floor. He is not going anywhere. We were so devastated when we thought we would lose him, we realized that he had become a member of our family and decided that he needs to stay with us forever. So on Christmas morning we gave Paige a tag with his name and our phone number on it. That was one happy 5 year old. :o)

Glory
Glory was another feral girl I brought home at the same time as Charlie. She was a little tortie girl whose brother was hit by a car in front of her. One of our foster families saw this happen and scooped her up to bring her to the shelter. I am sad to say that I was not able to socialize her. After over three weeks in my home, I was still in danger on being bitten every day when I cleaned her cage and changed her food and litter. She became more dangerous the bigger she got and it was breaking my heart to watch her live in such terror. I brought her to the shelter to have the staff evaluate her to see if moving to another foster home might help her, but she was just as aggressive with them. It was really not safe for her to be in a foster home anymore and she was not likely to ever be an animal we could place in a home no matter how long we worked with her. We tried to find a feral rescue who could take her and let her live out her life in a feral cat colony, but given the time of year, there was no room. It was a horrible decision to make, and I felt like I had failed her, but she was so unhappy and flat out terrified, euthanasia was really our kindest option for her.

Jude
She is a feral that was actually in the same cage as Glory and came to me at the same time as Glory and Charlie. Jude was also acting aggressively and I brought her in to the shelter for evaluation at the same time as Glory. We almost decided to euthanize her too. But while I was heartbroken about Glory, I knew it was the right thing for her. I was not entirely sure about Jude, so I asked the staff to give me a few more days with her to see if she would be as aggressive once she was no longer with Glory. I was please to be able to report that after just two days alone, I was able to pick her up and she purred very quietly at me. Then the medical issues started. First she had a large mound a poop caked on her butt to the point that she could not go the bathroom. I had to soak her in the sink to clean her up which was not easy given how feral she was. The next morning I could tell that she had signs of infection coming from her genital area which is probably what caused the problem in the first place.

I rushed her to the shelter and the vet looked at her and told me "she" had an infection in her penis and might not be peeing at all. So it appeared that Jude was a boy. We started treatment for the infection, but "he" went downhill quick and a brought him back to the vet a few days later. The vet said that she felt he needed a catheter put in in order to survive, but was so small that might not be possible. We almost had to euthanize Jude that night, but it turned out that we had an emergency vet coming in to volunteer the next day so we decided to wait and see if that vet had any options for treatment that we did not have. The emergency vet said that Jude had to be leaking urine or he would already be dead and gave me strong pain meds and a different treatment plan and said to recheck in a week.

Jude was doing somewhat better at the recheck in a week and I was able to stop the pain meds, but the vet who did the recheck was confused because according to her Jude was a girl, not a boy. We were all confused. Well, it turns out that Jude visually appears to be a girl, but when the vets palpate her abdomen, they can feel undescended testicles. Yup - Jude might be a hermaphrodite. They told me to bring her back when she was two pounds and they would spay her and see what they found.

Unfortunately, she just did not grow normally and over a month passed with her still not being over two pounds. Then one morning two and a half weeks ago she felt heavier so I weighed her. She had gained 7 ounces in 3 days. That was way to much in such a short time and it was all in her belly. This is another sign of FIP. After another rushed trip to the shelter vets, it turned out that she had a temp of 103. And despite multiple different antibotics and treatments, she still has a temp two and a half weeks later and we do not know why. Her temp right now is 102.6 which is high normal and otherwise she appears fine. She is the sweetest little girl who has helped me socialize many other feral kittens and many people at the shelter have fallen in love with her, but her long term survival is not looking great right now. If her temp comes down anytime soon, we will attempt a spay surgery and see if we can figure out what is going on with her. Here is my baby Jude with the sweet soul.



I have had more fosters and lost another little baby, but I will post more on that later. I these three post are more than enough for now.

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.

Still Here - Part One

It has been quite a while since I posted, so I thought I would check in to let you know that I am still here and still fostering. It has been a rough couple of months here in the Animal House and I have been so busy just trying to take care of my fosters, and just did not have time left over to post and update here. So here is a summary of what has been going on since August.

In late August, for the first time we foster some puppies. Just overnight until they could be reunited with their mother, but they were awfully cute and a nice experience for Paige. And reaffirmed to me that I prefer cats - puppies are much more high maintenance.

Then, I had a litter of kittens that were initially known as the "skanky kittens" at the shelter because they were in such bad shape. They were suffering from a very bad case of an internal parasite called coccidia. Initially there were 4 of them and then I brought home two more from another litter that had similar issues. They immediately got along like they had been separated at birth. We named them Lily, Rose, Violet, Briar, Bramble, and Bumble. It was a long fight to get them over the coccidia and adopted into forever homes, but worth it. They were all loving, snuggly kittens who would come running the minute they saw me so they could climb in my lap to snuggle. My whole family was very attached to the entire litter, but I was especially attached to my little long haired orange boy, Bumble. I had the hardest time letting him go up for adoption and almost cried the day he went to his forever home. I might have kept him, but it just was not the right time to add another member to our permanent family and he really would do better in a quiet home.

Here he is shortly after he came to us when he was still "skanky" but cute.

In September I brought home a little kitten who came in with the name Ace and who we thought was semi-feral. After a very short time in my house he was trying to sleep with me and cuddle with me and purring up a storm but would flinch and hide the minute I reached toward him. I began to suspect that he was not feral. He knew humans, he was just afraid of them. Which probably means that someone treated him unkindly in his young life. I decided that my noisy house full of active people, a young child and other cats was not the place for him. I transferred him to a much quieter foster home where he, at my request, he was given a new name (they chose Huckleberry) and a fresh start at learning that some humans would treat him kindly. I am happy to report that he did wonderfully in his new foster home and ended up not only getting adopted, but going home with a nice couple who also adopted another kitten from the same foster home who Huckleberry had become really attached to while in foster.

Daisy, who I mention is my last post in August, recovered completely and was adopted into a home with three little boys who actually had enough energy to keep up with her. She and my baby Doyle became fast friends while she was with us and actually looked a lot alike.

September was also when we also participated in Paige's first fundraiser for the shelter, the Walk for Animals. She had a great time and I am proud to say that this amazing 5 year old managed (with a little help from us) to raise over $800 to help the homeless animals we both care so much about. Here she is walking with me. We were so proud of her that day, and the next day when she started kindergarten.

Beth goes home

On August 15th, the shelter I foster for had a kitten-adopt-a-thon event to try and adopt out some of the many kittens that were ready to come out of foster to find new homes. There were over 25 kittens ready to find new homes and I am happy to say that Beth was scheduled to be one of them. I was also supposed to bring 2 other foster kittens in with her, but that was not to be.

Daisy, I kitten I had for just a little while in order for her to gain weight, started showing signs of a bad form of upper respiratory infection that causes mouth ulcers. And Thin Mint, a kitten I was watching for our foster coordinator was having trouble with her lungs. Beth, however was doing well. Her eye was finally healed and she was over her upper respiratory infection. So to be safe, I sent Beth to the home of another of our foster homes who took wonderful care of her and brought her to the event for me. And I am glad to say that she found a wonderful home with a loving couple and is now happily settled into her forever home.

Here she is all grown up and ready to go!


Daisy is still with me. She is recovering and will hopefully be able to go up for adoption on Friday. Thin Mint, I am sad to say, has found her forever home at the Rainbow Bridge. A vet exam confirmed what we feared. She had a birth defect that would make it harder and harder for her to breathe as she got older and so we had to make the hard decision to euthanize her. We all wished for a different outcome for her, but at least we were able to give her five months of loving care and happiness.

The medical care that these three foster alone have recieved in the short time they have been in the shelter's care is amazing. The shelter does not give up on animals without a fight even though all their funding comes from private donations. It is because of this attitude and how much they truly care for animals that I am participating in their annual Walk for Animals.

And this year, I am making it a family event. My five year old niece Paige is our team captain and she is thrilled to be learning how to raise money for a cause she cares about. And my niece Katy who is 13 has also joined our team, along with some staff and foster people.

We are walking in honor of all the little fighters that come through our lives, both the success stories like Beth, and the sad outcomes like Thin Mint. Please consider making a donation to our team to help this wonderful shelter continue the essential work it does every day. You can make a donation to our team, or to individual team members. Thanks in advance for your generosity. Michelle.

http://support.mspca.org/site/TR/WalkforAnimals/General?team_id=11471&pg=team&fr_id=1300

Cones and Strep Throat

Beth is still recovering well. She is doing well enough and the pain has settled down enough that the incision is getting itchy. Which means that she is trying to scratch at it. That meant an after hours trip to the shelter for a surgical cone. She was NOT happy about it. It was wat too big (because she is so small) and heavier than her.

Just overnight she got her foot caught in it about six times and then managed to pull it off, scraping it along her eye in the process. After that I just left it off and watched her for the rest of the night to try and stop her from messing with her eye. But since we were up all night with Paige (who is 5) because she has a mouth full of strep blisters, it was not that bad to be up with Beth too.

I went back to the shelter in the AM when the surgical team was in and they were able to make the cone small enough to fit her. It required cutting new holes in it and shortening it a lot because she was already wearing the smallest size. She still hates it, but at least it is safe now. Here is Beth a few days after surgery.

Bailey is also doing well recovering from his pneumonia. He is active and playing and being a typical 12 weeks old kitten. I am really hoping he will be well enough by his vet check next week to go back up for adoption.

Beth is Awake!

Beth is awake! Well, actually she is asleep right now, but the important thing is that she woke up from her eye removal surgery. The very skilled vet and surgery team at the shelter were able to successfully remove her damaged eye.

There was concern that she might not wake up from the surgery because she was so little, but the damaged eye was bad enough that the surgery just could not wait and we had to take the chance.

It was a stressful day for me, especially since 5 of my other fosters were having routine spay / neuter surgeries the same day, but thankfully everyone came through surgery just fine. Buffy, Batty, Bubbles, Eric and Quinn stayed at the shelter and went up for adoption and Beth return home with me to recover. As of today, Batty, Eric and Quinn were already adopted!

Comings and Goings

So it has been a bit since I posted. Things have just been a little crazy. But here is what has been going on. Bubbles and Quinn became well enough to come back home with us, but on that same day their brother Eric had to go to stay at the shelter because he was sick with a bad upper respiratory infection. Thankfully he only had to stay a few days.

However, all the kittens were exhibiting slightly odd symptoms. As a result I had Batty and Buffy (who seemed healthy) in my bedroom, Bailey and Eric (who had URI signs) in the spare bathroom and Bubbles and Quinn (dehydration) in the foster room. It was a little crazy.

Eventually, all the kittens but Bailey started having the same odd symptoms: lack of eating and dehydration for now known reason. So we decided to have Bailey go back to the shelter (they are all old enough) and go up for adoption so that he would not get sick being with the other kittens.

A few days later I was volunteering at the shelter manning an informational table on fostering when one of the volunteers came out of the cat adoption area to tell me that she thought Bailey was wheezing. So I went in to check him out. He was visiting with potential adopters and was active and playing so I was not initially too concerned. The potential adopters had some questions about him and decided that they wanted to adopt him so they gave him back to me to go fill out the adoption paperwork and talk with staff.

Unfortunately when I actually got my hands on Bailey I could tell that he was really struggling to breathe and that it was more than the mild URI symptoms that he had shown in my home. I immediately took him back to a staff member to be evaluated and more than one agreed that his breathing was not right and there was no way he could be adopted that day. I felt bad disappointing his potential adopters but we could not send them home with a sick kitten.

I took Bailey home hoping that he was breathing heavy because he had been visited with a lot that day and it was very hot in the shelter since the air system was being repaired and he spent his whole life in my air conditioned home. But after 24 hours back in my home his breathing had not improved so he went in to see the vet that Monday. The vet said that he either had pneumonia or a partially collapsed lung and he would need to stay in foster with me for a least a month to receive treatment. She also looked at his brother Quinn who I brought in for some fluids since he was still dehydrated. When she learned that the whole litter was having problems and that their mother had had mastitis, she put them all on medication for two weeks.

I am happy to report that the medications were just "what the doctor ordered" and everyone is doing well. Two weeks after being put on medications all the kittens except for Bailey are healthy enough to go up for adoption and will be leaving tomorrow. Bailey is improving well, but to be safe we are going to keep him on the medication for the full month since lung problems like this one can be really hard to beat.

So as of tomorrow morning I will be going from having 6 foster kittens to having just one. Although if fate is on my side and a special new little kitten named Beth manages to survive her life saving surgery I will have two. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Where are we now

I am happy to report that Nemo has completely recovered and been adopted into a loving forever home. His name is now Darwin and he is being loved and spoiled as he deserves. We miss him, but are happy to see him doing so well.

April has also returned to the shelter to hopefully find her forever home real soon. She has developed mastitis which happens sometimes when a mom cat stops nursing her kittens. I am hopeful she will recover soon since this is a relatively common thing for a mom cat that was producing as much milk as she was to feed all six kittens.

As for her kittens, we have had our ups and downs. Unfortunately we are in a down swing right now. They are 8 weeks now and should be able to go up for adoption, but are not healthy enough. At first they were just showing mild signs of an upper respiratory infection which will just take time to pass. But on Monday night one of the kittens, Bubbles was very suddenly lethargic and very dehydrated. I quickly gave her some subcutaneous fluids to help her hydration. Subcutaneous fluids (or SubQ fluids) are give by using a needle placed under the skin at the scruff of the neck. The fluid is then quickly absorbed by the kitten.

Bubbles was dehydrated again in the morning when I brought her into the shelter for evaluation. She got more fluids to try to help her out since there did not seem to be any obvious reason for her to be feeling badly. By the time I got her home, she had started having liquid diarrhea almost non-stop and did not want to eat anymore. I force fed her through out the night and cuddled her to make her feel more comfortable. This continued the next day.

Right before bed, I gave Bubbles her SubQ fluids and then went downstairs to the foster room to feed her siblings and was dismayed to see that her brother Quinn was showing all the same signs that Bubbles had shown two days ago. I got him fluids as well and since I was going to be away from the house all day today, I brought the whole litter to the shelter to be observed by the staff because I was very concerned that Bubbles was no better and Quinn was now starting to be sick.

Bubbles and Quinn are now staying at the shelter because they need fluids twice a day and they are not easy to give fluids to. It is also the beginning of Summer Vacation for the 5 year old in my home, which makes it hard to find the time to give the kittens the fluids without her seeing it and potentially scaring her by how they meow and fight when it is being given. So we decided it was best for them to stay at the shelter for a few days.

The rest of the litter, Buffy, Batty, Bailey and Eric came back home with me. I will be watching them closely and crossing my finger that they do not start to feel sick as well. Wish us luck. I will post an update on all of them when I have one.

Nemo - a fighter

Nemo is another foster that we took in right before I ended up with a Kidney stone. He was a failure to thrive kitten from another litter and he just needed more care than he could get in his current foster home. His wonderful foster mother was doing everything that she could for him, but he was still going down hill. He reached the point that he needed Sub-Q (IV) fluids multiple times a day, along with force feeding and multiple medications. She had already been driving him to the shelter once a day for fluids and had his mom and siblings to care for at home.

Since I can do the fluids at home, I offered to take him home and see if I could get him stabilized. We were all very worried that he was not going to make it for even 24 hours after I took him home because he was having massive diarrhea and pooping neon green bile. He was a fighter though and so we were not giving up.

I carried him around with me for days, wrapped up in various blankets that we changed constantly because he as always covered in poop. He got fluids 2 or 3 times a day and a high calorie food mixed with pedialyte to replace the electrolytes he was losing due to the diarrhea, that I was syringe feeding him. After about a week, he was doing a little better and had actually gained some weight, going from 15 oz to 1 lb. 5 oz.

By the time I was in the midst of my medical issues, he was much better, but I was concerned that he might go down hill without me being able to be so one on one with him. Since I was doing everything I could just to feed him, I decided that he needed to go back to the shelter for a while. Thankfully, the wonderful shelter staff and foster coordinators took him back and took wonderful care of him while I could not. And all my friends and other volunteers checked in with him and kept him company. In fact, he went home over a weekend with one volunteer and a friend fell in love with him and plans to adopt him!

I took him back at the beginning of last week and he is now healthy and happy and just about two pounds. He will be heading to a forever home, probably sometime next week!

Nemo day one (a very sick baby)



Kidney stones and force feedings

So Tiny


Cuddling with Sadie and Doyle




Feeling better


Nurse Nemo (right after my surgery)



Ready for a Forever Home

Kidney Stones and Growing Kittens

Hello again from the animal house. Things have been a little crazy here lately because I ended up in the ER with a kidney stone. Just in case anyone was wondering, I do not recommend it, it is very painful. And me, being me, things did not go normally. 4 ER visits, 2 surgeries, 1 severe allergic reaction, 1 ambulance ride, 2 shots of epinephrine, and 2 stents later, I am finally kidney stone free and (knock on wood) on the mends.

Of course, during all of this, April's babies have been growing like weeds. They are now about five weeks old and finally all have names. We have the girls, Batty, Buffy and Bubbles and the boys, Bailey, Quinn and Eric.

We have also had a few health issues. April, the mom, had an upper respiratory infection and was dehydrated. I tried to supplement the kittens with formula to help her out, but they would not have it. Thankfully, April LOVED the formula and just drank it herself. So I started adding it to her food everyday and between that and the meds, she is doing fine. Batty and Bubbles were born with some sort of eye infections and each had one eye that would not open and had puss coming out of it. Bubbles' eye responded quickly to meds, but Batty's just finally cleared up. Bailey, looks like he might be coming down with something so I will have to keep an eye on him over the next few days, but over all they are growing and developing like normal. They are now starting to eat solid food - although mom is not that keen on sharing. Here are some photos of them growing:

Mom, April resting with Buffy


Quinn and Bailey at about a week


Sibling Love. I love how they are hugging each other

More Cute Kitten Photos

Here are some more photos from the past month with April and her babies:

Batty with a half closed eye due to infection

Bubbles (her eye had healed by this point)

Bailey

Quinn

Buffy

Eric


The kittens one month birthday cake. With a 5 year old foster mom in the house, you celebrate a lot of birthdays.



Bucket of Kittens (first trip upstairs without Mom)

Meeting foster brother, Doyle. And no, they are not that tiny, he is that big.

Lucky Day

April Fool's Day is usually a day for jokes and pranks but here in the Animal House it was one lucky day.

After days of setting humane traps in my yard in an attempt to recapture my missing pregnant foster cat, I was ready to give up. I had managed to capture 6 of the various neighborhood outdoor cats and scarily enough, one opossum. But on Thursday morning, I checked the trap in the front yard and there was my missing foster cat.

She appeared to still be pregnant, but I was not sure how to tell so I called the shelter. We decided that it was likely that she was still pregnant and that I should watch her. That night at around 10PM she went into labor and had her first kitten at 10:50PM!

Not only did I manage to be lucky enough to find her, I was lucky enough to get her inside to have her kittens! Throughout the course of the night she had six kittens. She was very tired after her days outside and going through labor when she was underweight. Because of this, after she delivered her third kitten, she stopped taking care of the cord cutting and other disgusting stuff.

After a late night (1AM) phone call to our wonderful always on call foster coordinator for some over the phone instructions on cutting an umbilical cord, I was able to help her safely deliver and get all six kittens settled in and nursing.

I have two orange tigers, one buff (lite orange), one brown tiger, one black and one orange and white kitten. Right now they are all happy, healthy and doing well. And thankfully so is Mom. She is a wonderful Mom. She is protective, but very tolerant of me handling the kittens to weigh them and check them over each day. This is an important thing to do to be sure the kittens are growing well and especially important with these little ones since she is a small underweight cat who is trying to feed six kittens. If they start not growing quickly enough, I will have to help her out by doing supplemental bottle feeding on the smaller kittens, but so far so good.

Here is the new family:

Missing in Action

Well things are not going as planned in the Animal House. I brought home a pregnant female flame point Siamese cat on Sunday so she could give birth in foster rather than the shelter. Unfortunately, she was an outdoor cat before she was surrendered to the shelter and she got frightened on the way into the house. She managed to break open the carrier she was in and bolted into the neighborhood.

Somehow she was strong enough to actually bend the door latch away from the carrier so when I set it down to unlock the door to the house she bolted and was gone before I turned back to pick up the carrier. So I spent quite a bit of Sunday evening searching the neighborhood for her with no luck.

Yesterday I got some humane traps from the shelter and have been setting them in my front and back yard. So far I have caught (and released) one really annoyed neighborhood cat and had an intelligent animal eat the food out of the trap in the backyard twice without getting caught in it.

Wish me luck that my missing foster turns up real soon and is either still pregnant or has her babies in tow.

Four down one to go

Of my recent litter of five, four are now in forever homes. Nora, Ranger, Riley and Panda have gone in to be spayed and neutered and have already been adopted. They went in on Wednesday for surgery. When I went back on Friday for a check up on my other fosters, everyone except Riley had already gone to forever homes. Riley was adopted thought and just not being picked up until Saturday. It was great news, but not surprising because there are no kittens in the shelter at this time of the year.

Their brother Neko, the kitten with a problem leg, was seen by the vet on Friday and is doing really well. He will need to stay on his medication for another two weeks and he has some muscle atrophy that he will have to work on. Muscle atrophy is muscle weakness that is caused when a muscle is not used for a while due to illness or injury. His muscle will get stronger the more he uses it, so it is just a matter of time. This is all great news because he was so sick and was in danger of not surviving when he first showed symptoms. Now he is full of life and personality. I do not know how much longer he will be with me in foster. The foster coordinator, vets and shelter manager will have to talk about him and decide if he will stay with me until he is completely better or if he will go up for adoption so that he can be living with his forever family while his leg gets stronger.

Monkey and Tiana are doing well too. Although I did confirm at their check-up on Friday that Tiana is a boy, not a girl, so we are going to have to talk about a name change for him. They are socializing well, but are very afraid of strangers and children, which is normal for kittens like them. They will probably go in for surgery in the next week of so, and come back to me to recover and then soon go up for adoption. I am very glad that everyone is doing well.

Time Flies - Happy Birthday Doyle

My baby Doyle is one year old today. For those of you who are new to this blog, Doyle was a kitten from my second foster mom cat, Muffin. He is also my first (but probably not last) foster failure. I could not bear to let him go and he is still with me now and celebrating his first birthday.

It is somewhat unusual to know the exact birth date of a cat or kitten you rescue from the shelter, but Doyle's mom was surrendered pregnant and gave birth in the shelter so we know what day his birthday is. He and his brother Domino, along with their mom came home to me for foster when the boys were only three days old. It amazes me how much he has grown in the relatively short span of time that has passed. It also amazes me how much he has stayed the same. He is still the same sweet, loving, tolerant, beautiful boy he was when I decided to adopt him at 8 weeks.

Of course, he is not very happy with me at the moment because we just got back from his check up and he did NOT like driving in the rain. He also out grew his carrier in the six months since his last vet visit. Thankfully, he checked out OK and is nice and healthy. I told the vet that I wanted to be sure that I was not over feeding him so he would not get fat now that he was basically full grown. (He is a big boy). She said that since appears to be part Maine Coon, he might still grow a little bit more and that I was feeding him just fine since he was nice and lean.

Lean! Twelve pounds is lean! Just how big is he going to get? ;o)

Anyway, no matter his size, I love him to death. Even when he gets nervous at the vet and tries to curl up on my chest and hide like he did when he was a baby. Of course, breathing becomes an issue then, but hey, you do what you gotta do to make your baby feel safe right?

In honor of his first birthday, here are some of my favorite shots of him:

Limping Along

Neko is improving slowly now that we know what is actually going on and he is on the right medication. He saw the vet again on Monday and the improvement in the swelling was promising.

He is now allowed to stay just in the bathroom rather than locked up in a crate all the time. He is also allowed outside the bathroom to roam the house in short intervals of time as long as there are no other kittens loose. If there are other kittens around he wants to jump and play with them and that is not good for him just yet.

He is trying to use the leg more and more each day. He puts it down and tries to walk on it, although it is still too weak to hold all his weight. But I have hopes that it will continue to improve as the days go one.

His siblings, Nora, Ranger, Riley and Panda are all almost big enough and old enough to go back to the shelter and be adopted out soon. Although Panda, being the runt is still the smallest and may have to stick around with us a little while longer than the rest of them. All of them miss Neko and meow at the door to the bathroom trying to get me to let him out, but I just can't let them play because Neko can not resist jumping and wrestling with them.

When ever they go up for adoption, they will all find homes in a heart beat. Not only are they adorable and really fun to play with, there are also not a lot of kittens to be found at this time of year.

Poor Neko :o(

This is Neko. He is one of the 5 young kittens I brought home recently. Last Thursday I went down to the foster room around 5 pm to give the kittens their dinner and noticed that Neko seemed unsteady when he was in the litter box. When he crawled out of the litter box I saw that he was not using his right hind leg at all and that the leg was swollen to about two times its normal size. I immediately scooped him up and called the shelter foster coordinator to let her know I was on my way in with Neko. I was very concerned that he had somehow broken his leg.

The foster coordinator and the vet of staff and the time looked at his leg, but we were not really sure what had happened. It was obviously painful to the touch and to use even though he had been fine at about 2pm that same day. The vet prescribed pain medication for the next three days and told me to keep him confined to a cat carrier in the hopes that the swelling would go down. So I took him home with the instructions that if he got any worse at all, or the swelling did not improve over the next few days, to bring him right back in for an x-ray.

I brought him back the next day because it was Friday and there was no improvement. Both the foster coordinator and I were concerned about waiting any longer for x-rays. The vet on staff that day agreed and I took him to a local animal hospital for x-rays. As our vet had thought, the leg was not broken. She was concerned that what he had was a septic joint, so she sedated him and withdrew fluid from the swollen leg to send out for testing. He was also put on multiple antibiotics.

Saturday morning I woke up and got ready to head to the shelter to do an orientation for a new foster family. After checking on Neko, I called in to the shelter and said I was bringing him with me, because I was not comfortable leaving him home alone. His paw was now swollen three times its normal size and I wanted him where I could check on him throughout the day. And it was a good thing I did because midway through the day, he started shaking and breathing hard and stopped eating. We tried to drain the fluid from the foot, but nothing came out. We gave him fluids to help with the fever and the shelter manager called the vet on call who said to give him a shot of prednisone which thankfully seemed to help somewhat.

By Sunday morning the foot was no smaller, but he appeared to be feeling better and acting more normal and was eating again. He still needed to stay in his carrier though. (Just an FYI, a Siamese kitten unhappily confined to a small cat carrier equals sleepless meow filled nights for his foster mom). He went with me to the shelter again that day since I had another orientation to do. Everyone checked on him throughout the day. We repeated the fluids to control the temp again. He appeared in good spirits, but had no improvement in the swelling. The shelter manager told me to bring him back first thing in the morning on Monday to be re-examined by the vet even though they were doing a feral cat spay clinic that day and were not doing exam appointments. He felt that it could not wait until the next day.

The vet looked at him again on Monday and decided to repeat the prednisone shot since it seemed to be helping, at least until the results of the joint tap came back. He continued to feel good and want out of the crate for the next two days. The swelling even seemed to go down just a little bit. And I was so happy because I was really concerned I was going to lose him over the weekend.

Yesterday, the results of the joint tap came back and it turns out that he has a bacterial infection in his leg. His medication has been changed to a different antibiotic and he will be weaned off the prednisone over the next few days. The vet told me that we will probably not be able to figure out how he got this infection. The most likely reason is that he was bitten by one of his litter mates during play, but she had not found a puncture or bite wound when she examined him. So we may never know how this happened, but at least we know what is wrong and how to treat it.

He will been seen by the vet again tomorrow as a follow up to be sure that he is continuing to improve. And hopefully as time goes on he will start to move the leg and regain function. I am just glad that he is feeling well and wanting to run and jump and play even if I can not let him.

So that was my week. How was yours?

Oh, and somewhere during this stressful week, I brought home two new semi-social foster kittens (Yes I know I am crazy). They are named Spider Monkey (just Monkey in our house because Paige does not like spiders) and Tiana (after Tatiana from Disney's Princess and the Frog). They are cute but scared. I will have more on them later, but for now I think I need a nap.