Stinky and her littermates were basically my first rescues. Cats aren't my cup of tea and they weren't what I had in mind when I decided to help rescue/foster animals but these are cats I will never forget.
In the winter of 03 while I was talking with a neighbor a Cat walked up beside her. It was the most beautiful cat I had ever seen. I gasp and said "Who's cat is that". The neighbor replied "He's mine" and "He's a Daddy want to see his kittens, I'm selling them. I decided against it as again I wasn't a cat person reguardless how beautiful He was.
About four months later I had a knock on the door from that same neighbor. She was in tears and said she had another litter of kittens and they were dying on her and asked if I could come down and look at them and advise her as to what to do with them. As the neighbor explained the situation on the walk to her home I was getting upset before I had even seen the kittens. She said this was the same mother that had kittens 4 months prior, The mother had, had 7 but was down to 5 and she thinks the fifth one was ready to die. She also stated the mother was rejecting the kittens and wasn't feeding them and that one of her dogs had killed the first two dead kittens. She brought the kitten she believed to be dying to me. Within minutes this kitten died in the palm of my hand. I then looked at the remaining four kittens and they all looked small for their age (they were two weeks old at this point), underweight and badly infected. I told her they needed medical attention now. She explained to me that she couldn't afford that and then asked if I could take the remaining four and try to save them. As I walked into the drive way with them my boyfriend had returned home from work and wasn't happy with me for bringing them home. He decided to help me out though and went to the pet store for bottles, litter, formula and canned kitten food. I started to call Vets around the area to find everyone was closed. I then took them into the bathroom and started bathing them with dawn dish soap and an old toothbrush. The water that drained off these kittens was bloody as they were badly infected with fleas (I was later told this was actually Flea poo that was turning the water bloody). I bathed these kittens several times each one by one until the water had turned cold and still couldn't get the water to run clean off of them. My boyfriend helped me dry them with a hair dryer and then we started feeding them. We had to force feed them bottles every 2 hours for the first two days and then they started to accept the bottle and went to town on it all by themselves. They went to the vet the following day and were prescribed antibiotics, eye ointment, fleas bath and vitamins to add to there milk.
This picture was taken of Stinky when she was able to open her eyes about 1 and a half weeks after I had them. Up till then their were badly infected and the infection made their eye develop crust and so they were unable to open them.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...PICT0029AB.jpg)
By the time this photo was taken I had taken in a pregnant mother cat that needed out of the pound before she was put to sleep. This mother cat ended up being a godsend. She wanted nothing to do with my rescue litter until after she had her kittens. When her kittens were 2 days old she moved the rescue kittens in with her litter and nursed them. She raised a total of ten kittens all together.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/PICT0040.jpg)
With that mother's help and the Vet that was working with us soon all the kittens started to gain weight and beat their infections. Stinky was the runt and seemed to be behinde everyone's development. The Vet told me several times to let her go. I couldn't do it, though she was a struggle.
Stinky
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0064L.jpg)
The other female eating her canned cat food
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0007B.jpg)
This was the biggest kitten. He was a Male I named Boss because he was the leader of trouble.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/PICT0002.jpg)
This was a toy my boyfriend had bought the kittens and they all loved it. talk about a herd of kittens!!!!
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0015L.jpg)
The mother's kittens and her were found new home when the kittens turned nine weeks. A sweet lady that I had met while caring for this herd offered to spay and nueter these kittens and the mother plus give first shots for a total of only 50.00. So that's why they had to wait until 9 weeks to find new homes as that was done when the where eight weeks old. The mother cat and her long hair calico cat daughter live in a beach home in Florida. A older couple where here in Ohio to visit there daughter and took them back to florida with them. They sent me a photo in the mail about 6 months afterwards of the two cats laying on a window seal looking out on the ocean. How's that for this special mama cat.
Back to Stinky's litter. As they were overcoming there infections the neighbor was ready to take them back. She told me of how she was planning to keep the girls for breeding and would sell the boys. After everything I had been through with this litter, It would be over my dead body to see them wind up with that fate. She never once offered any money to help out with their expenses. I was seeing red and said somethings I probably shouldn't have because I think she means well but isn't going about things the right way. So once all that was settled I started looking at rescues. I found a woman at Kittyhaven Rescue in Columbus Ohio that agreed to take the litter. They were 4 months old at this point. The day that we were to take the kittens to the rescue Stinky went missing. It took us a day to find her. She was hidden underneath a dresser. She was very sick and very weak. We rushed her to the emergency Vet in Dayton. They ran a slew of tests on her all of which came back negative. After the bill was run up to 500.00 they suggested putting her down. We decided to let another Vet look at her before we made that decision. She went to my Parents Vet in Huber Heights the following morning. That Vet admitted her to his hospital. He tested her for a infection of the blood/Parasite in the blood (I don't remember exactly what it was). She tested negative but was responding to his treatment plan as He was expecting her to come back positive. Three days later she came home and was back to trying to body slam her siblings and chase the Rottweilers around. She has never been sick since. When the kittens were about six months old We made arrangements with the rescue to take the litter again. We were hoping for them to take Stinky as well but they thought it might be a bad idea to take her out of the home with as rough as she had had it. We took the other three kittens to them with two bags of 20 pound Nutra kitten food. They offered to give us 60 percent of the adoption fee for the three kittens but we refused it. A few weeks later I recieved an email telling me of each kittens adoption. Two kittens stayed in columbus while one Kitten went to pennsylavania.
Stinky has stayed here ever since and she is the coolest cat. She thinks she is a Rottweiler. The neighbor that orginally had her has several cats that roam the neighborhood and they get in the window to try and fight Stinky. She'll start her low growling and the Rottweilers will run to which ever window Stinky is in. As soon as the other Cat sees the Rotts they take off and Stinky sits there with a puffed out chest almost like she saying "That's right run..Bear, Daphne did you see me scare them off" not knowing it's the dogs that helped her out. lol Stinky has made me a Cat Person or maybe I'm just a Stinky person. lol
Here's a few more pictures of them.
Stinky is in Daphne's first water bowl here. She'd wait until the dogs drank their water at night and then lay down in their bowl.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0147a.jpg)
This was the Boss the day before He left to go to the rescue. I was close with him and I cried for two weeks non stop after he left. He's the one that has gone on to pennsylvania.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0164H.jpg)
When you buy animals from a BYB this what you are helping them to continue to do. The parents of this litter ran away shortly after I took the litter. The father was later found dead on the side of the road. The mother hasn't been seen since.
In the winter of 03 while I was talking with a neighbor a Cat walked up beside her. It was the most beautiful cat I had ever seen. I gasp and said "Who's cat is that". The neighbor replied "He's mine" and "He's a Daddy want to see his kittens, I'm selling them. I decided against it as again I wasn't a cat person reguardless how beautiful He was.
About four months later I had a knock on the door from that same neighbor. She was in tears and said she had another litter of kittens and they were dying on her and asked if I could come down and look at them and advise her as to what to do with them. As the neighbor explained the situation on the walk to her home I was getting upset before I had even seen the kittens. She said this was the same mother that had kittens 4 months prior, The mother had, had 7 but was down to 5 and she thinks the fifth one was ready to die. She also stated the mother was rejecting the kittens and wasn't feeding them and that one of her dogs had killed the first two dead kittens. She brought the kitten she believed to be dying to me. Within minutes this kitten died in the palm of my hand. I then looked at the remaining four kittens and they all looked small for their age (they were two weeks old at this point), underweight and badly infected. I told her they needed medical attention now. She explained to me that she couldn't afford that and then asked if I could take the remaining four and try to save them. As I walked into the drive way with them my boyfriend had returned home from work and wasn't happy with me for bringing them home. He decided to help me out though and went to the pet store for bottles, litter, formula and canned kitten food. I started to call Vets around the area to find everyone was closed. I then took them into the bathroom and started bathing them with dawn dish soap and an old toothbrush. The water that drained off these kittens was bloody as they were badly infected with fleas (I was later told this was actually Flea poo that was turning the water bloody). I bathed these kittens several times each one by one until the water had turned cold and still couldn't get the water to run clean off of them. My boyfriend helped me dry them with a hair dryer and then we started feeding them. We had to force feed them bottles every 2 hours for the first two days and then they started to accept the bottle and went to town on it all by themselves. They went to the vet the following day and were prescribed antibiotics, eye ointment, fleas bath and vitamins to add to there milk.
This picture was taken of Stinky when she was able to open her eyes about 1 and a half weeks after I had them. Up till then their were badly infected and the infection made their eye develop crust and so they were unable to open them.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...PICT0029AB.jpg)
By the time this photo was taken I had taken in a pregnant mother cat that needed out of the pound before she was put to sleep. This mother cat ended up being a godsend. She wanted nothing to do with my rescue litter until after she had her kittens. When her kittens were 2 days old she moved the rescue kittens in with her litter and nursed them. She raised a total of ten kittens all together.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/PICT0040.jpg)
With that mother's help and the Vet that was working with us soon all the kittens started to gain weight and beat their infections. Stinky was the runt and seemed to be behinde everyone's development. The Vet told me several times to let her go. I couldn't do it, though she was a struggle.
Stinky
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0064L.jpg)
The other female eating her canned cat food
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0007B.jpg)
This was the biggest kitten. He was a Male I named Boss because he was the leader of trouble.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/PICT0002.jpg)
This was a toy my boyfriend had bought the kittens and they all loved it. talk about a herd of kittens!!!!
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0015L.jpg)
The mother's kittens and her were found new home when the kittens turned nine weeks. A sweet lady that I had met while caring for this herd offered to spay and nueter these kittens and the mother plus give first shots for a total of only 50.00. So that's why they had to wait until 9 weeks to find new homes as that was done when the where eight weeks old. The mother cat and her long hair calico cat daughter live in a beach home in Florida. A older couple where here in Ohio to visit there daughter and took them back to florida with them. They sent me a photo in the mail about 6 months afterwards of the two cats laying on a window seal looking out on the ocean. How's that for this special mama cat.
Back to Stinky's litter. As they were overcoming there infections the neighbor was ready to take them back. She told me of how she was planning to keep the girls for breeding and would sell the boys. After everything I had been through with this litter, It would be over my dead body to see them wind up with that fate. She never once offered any money to help out with their expenses. I was seeing red and said somethings I probably shouldn't have because I think she means well but isn't going about things the right way. So once all that was settled I started looking at rescues. I found a woman at Kittyhaven Rescue in Columbus Ohio that agreed to take the litter. They were 4 months old at this point. The day that we were to take the kittens to the rescue Stinky went missing. It took us a day to find her. She was hidden underneath a dresser. She was very sick and very weak. We rushed her to the emergency Vet in Dayton. They ran a slew of tests on her all of which came back negative. After the bill was run up to 500.00 they suggested putting her down. We decided to let another Vet look at her before we made that decision. She went to my Parents Vet in Huber Heights the following morning. That Vet admitted her to his hospital. He tested her for a infection of the blood/Parasite in the blood (I don't remember exactly what it was). She tested negative but was responding to his treatment plan as He was expecting her to come back positive. Three days later she came home and was back to trying to body slam her siblings and chase the Rottweilers around. She has never been sick since. When the kittens were about six months old We made arrangements with the rescue to take the litter again. We were hoping for them to take Stinky as well but they thought it might be a bad idea to take her out of the home with as rough as she had had it. We took the other three kittens to them with two bags of 20 pound Nutra kitten food. They offered to give us 60 percent of the adoption fee for the three kittens but we refused it. A few weeks later I recieved an email telling me of each kittens adoption. Two kittens stayed in columbus while one Kitten went to pennsylavania.
Stinky has stayed here ever since and she is the coolest cat. She thinks she is a Rottweiler. The neighbor that orginally had her has several cats that roam the neighborhood and they get in the window to try and fight Stinky. She'll start her low growling and the Rottweilers will run to which ever window Stinky is in. As soon as the other Cat sees the Rotts they take off and Stinky sits there with a puffed out chest almost like she saying "That's right run..Bear, Daphne did you see me scare them off" not knowing it's the dogs that helped her out. lol Stinky has made me a Cat Person or maybe I'm just a Stinky person. lol
Here's a few more pictures of them.
Stinky is in Daphne's first water bowl here. She'd wait until the dogs drank their water at night and then lay down in their bowl.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0147a.jpg)
This was the Boss the day before He left to go to the rescue. I was close with him and I cried for two weeks non stop after he left. He's the one that has gone on to pennsylvania.
(IMG:http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../PICT0164H.jpg)
When you buy animals from a BYB this what you are helping them to continue to do. The parents of this litter ran away shortly after I took the litter. The father was later found dead on the side of the road. The mother hasn't been seen since.
