We've now had these special kitties in our care for 6 days, and it's amazing how much they have improved since getting them in! They still look pretty ratty, but all six of them have such distinct and amazing personalities!
Daily, these kitties require a lot of work, and we thought we'd share some of that with you :)
When these kitties came to us some of them were dirtier than others. Most of them spent the seven hour car ride grooming themselves, so pleased to finally be somewhere clean! Poor Fig, however, was filthy. Fig has the worst diarrhea of the bunch, so he was caked with feces and too sick to clean himself. First up for him was a bath!
Unlike just about every other cat we've ever had the joy to bathe, Fig just sat and purred while we cleaned him. He also was perfectly happy to snuggle with us post-bath!
Since all of these kitties came to us with raging upper respiratory infections, we put them on antibiotics. They are getting oral liquid medication twice a day; their responses range from dislike to hate!
The medication for the Ronidazole, the drug used to kill the Tritrichomonas foetus (which is causing them to have diarrhea), had to be special ordered in capsules. We just got it in yesterday, and have added these pill to the mix... One more challenge to overcome.
Because we were hitting them so hard with oral meds, we decided to treat their ringworm with a dip instead of another daily medication. Lime sulfer dip smells like rotten eggs, stains jewelry and some clothing, and turns white cats yellow. It's nasty stuff, but it works to kill the fungus and stop the spread of the disease AND only needs to be done 1-2 times per week. We were lucky enough to dip the girls while they were sedated (before their spay) but now get to try it on awake cats! Again, Fig is the model citizen... The rest are not so well behaved!
The rest of the care for these kitties comes down to lots of feeding, watering, and cleaning. Because they all have diarrhea, it gets pretty smelly and messy pretty quickly!
Persimmon's biopsy came back last night, and lucky for her the mass on her ovary was NOT cancer! We all did a celebratory dance knowing that she's been cleared medically and gets to recover and then go to a home like she deserves!
Our biggest challenge is Papaya. She's still petrified of us and has gotten so scared that we now can't handle her at all. Stopping the antibiotics was a necessary decision, but in order for her to ever be able to be moved, we needed to find a way to get the trichomonas medication. We've moved her into a crate where she can be monitored more closely, and put the medication in a Pill Pocket (treats made to hide pills in) and sure enough, she ate it! Now at least she can be medicated without being handled, and then hopefully moved once she is healthy to someone that can do the work to help her trust people again.
Everyone else is doing great; Kiwi is discovering the kittenhood he never got to have and spends his day playing up a storm. Guava still hates being medicated, but forgives us more quickly now, as long as we spend plenty of time with her during the day NOT trying to force things down her throat!
Again, please try to join us for our fundraising happy hour for these amazing kitties at Tabu in Center City from 6-8 next Thursday, May 12th. We hope to see you there!
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