Whew! Been busy with this guy! For those who didn't read the previous post or have forgotten, Armani is my newest addition. My fiance found him on the side of the road just moments after he was dumped there by his previous owner, poor thing. He is all white, short-haired, with one blue eye. And he's big; the vet estimated him to be about a year old and he weighed in at 11.5 pounds! Very pretty boy though. I will post pics as soon as possible but he's not much of a picture-taker and with all the changes in his life recently, I've been trying to just let him be.
First things first: the kitten he attacked did not make it. I took her to the vet that very next day because she had stopped eating. The visible wounds were minor and had already started closing up, but many of her organs had been crushed by the force of his jaws. I hadn't thought of that and felt truly horrible for not taking her sooner, but there wasn't anything they could have done to help her even if I had. She was only 2 weeks old so surgery wouldn't have been an option. She is playing with Klein across the Rainbow Bridge now. And NO, Armani SHOULDN'T have been in the same room with the babies. That was a silly mistake made by someone who didn't know any better. Everyone has been trying to convince me to get rid of Armani since it happened, but I will not. As heartbreaking as it was to see a tiny kitten hurt like that, it's simply in his nature and I will not punish him for that.
He got neutered and vaccinated on Sunday. He's calmer than he was, and I thought he was a mellow cat before! He's already lost the urge to mate my females, and the girls all seem to have noticed so no one is in heat anymore either, thank goodness. He is still not allowed in the general population unsupervised, though. Callie and Kipper have both taken an extreme dislike to him and I also can't trust him to play nice with Mira's kittens yet. He did accidentally get a hold of Simon yesterday but one claw to the nose sent Armani running for the hills. After a few weeks when the testosterone is out of his system we should be in the clear with that but I'd rather play it safe right now.
So he is penned up in the bathroom, which he doesn't seem to mind. The first night he was here he found an empty pizza box and claimed it as his bed, so that is in there with him. Just last night I also found that he had completely shredded an ENTIRE roll of toilet paper and piled the scraps neatly in the corner of the under-sink cabinet, and he uses that as a makeshift bed as well.
It's very cute, but needless to say I hid the rest of the toilet paper.
And he and Milo get along quite well now that he's figured out Milo is a DOG not a MOUSE. I can understand the confusion there but I'm glad we've gotten that cleared up.
They have a blast chasing each other around. In my house there is this divider in the middle of everything (basically if you knocked out this one wall my whole house would be one huge room), and they run in circles around that thing for hours. One will suddenly change direction and cut the other off and then they will switch again. It's great to watch. Armani is also well behaved around all the other cats, though still iffy with the kittens as I said before. He is even civilized around Callie and Kipper despite the fact that they take delight in ambushing him any chance they get, and have torn him up pretty badly a couple times. He doesn't even fight back, which I don't really understand because he's much bigger and stronger. Maybe he's just a lover instead of a fighter.
But all in all he is doing well. He's taking it easy right now after his surgery but here in a couple weeks he should be a functioning member of our furry family.
First things first: the kitten he attacked did not make it. I took her to the vet that very next day because she had stopped eating. The visible wounds were minor and had already started closing up, but many of her organs had been crushed by the force of his jaws. I hadn't thought of that and felt truly horrible for not taking her sooner, but there wasn't anything they could have done to help her even if I had. She was only 2 weeks old so surgery wouldn't have been an option. She is playing with Klein across the Rainbow Bridge now. And NO, Armani SHOULDN'T have been in the same room with the babies. That was a silly mistake made by someone who didn't know any better. Everyone has been trying to convince me to get rid of Armani since it happened, but I will not. As heartbreaking as it was to see a tiny kitten hurt like that, it's simply in his nature and I will not punish him for that.
He got neutered and vaccinated on Sunday. He's calmer than he was, and I thought he was a mellow cat before! He's already lost the urge to mate my females, and the girls all seem to have noticed so no one is in heat anymore either, thank goodness. He is still not allowed in the general population unsupervised, though. Callie and Kipper have both taken an extreme dislike to him and I also can't trust him to play nice with Mira's kittens yet. He did accidentally get a hold of Simon yesterday but one claw to the nose sent Armani running for the hills. After a few weeks when the testosterone is out of his system we should be in the clear with that but I'd rather play it safe right now.
So he is penned up in the bathroom, which he doesn't seem to mind. The first night he was here he found an empty pizza box and claimed it as his bed, so that is in there with him. Just last night I also found that he had completely shredded an ENTIRE roll of toilet paper and piled the scraps neatly in the corner of the under-sink cabinet, and he uses that as a makeshift bed as well.
And he and Milo get along quite well now that he's figured out Milo is a DOG not a MOUSE. I can understand the confusion there but I'm glad we've gotten that cleared up.
But all in all he is doing well. He's taking it easy right now after his surgery but here in a couple weeks he should be a functioning member of our furry family.
