Hello all! Yes, it has been a year already. Little will officially be 1 year old on january 20th. In celebrstion I thought I would post an updste and some pics
For those who missed my very first posts almost a year ago, I thought I should you in on his beginning. I work at a vet clinic, and a lady brought in her cat who had been in labor for several days. Upon exam the doctor found there was a kitten stuck and beginning to calcify in the birth canal and told the owner we would need to do a c-section right away to save her and any kitten that may be still inside. As we were shaving her belly for surgery it began to reveal severe bruising all over her abdomen. The doctor called the owner and recommended that in light of this new discovery it may be best that we put her to sleep as she did not believe she would survive surgery. The owner agreed but wanted her to check for any live kitten first. So we did, and when we opened her up we discovered that the right horn of her uterus had actually ruptured from the trauma of contracting and pushing and that is where all the bleeding was coming from. But low and behold, despite all the odds, there were two live kittens in there - one grey female and a white male with a grey spot on his head. It took over 20 minutes of CPR before they came around and they were tiny and looked about a week premature.
We showed the owner how to bottle feed them and stimulate them and she took them home that night. The next morning after a night of hourly feedings she decided that she could not do it and dropped them back off at the clinic. Unfortunately the little grey female died about 2 hours after she dropped them off, leaving only the little tiny white boy. Everyone in the clinic was pretty doubtful about the poor kitten chances at survival; born a week premature after labor he should not have even survived in the first place, no mother and now now siblings.
But the little guy had a HUGE appetite and a fighting attitude and continued to grow, albeit a little slow. Nobody at the clinic really wanted to take him, so I took him in at about 4 days old intending to bottle feed him until he was weaned and then adopt him out. Here he is at about a week old:
Well, no surprise to anyone but me, I ended up keeping the little buggar. Just think, about this time last year I had NO IDEA I would soon be bringing home kitty number five! I must have lost my mind...
Here he is now. Happy, healthy, and sassy!
He gets along pretty well with all the other cats but still much prefers human company to cat company. He HATES dogs and will attack them if he gets the opportunity to. He is very independant and only likes to be picked up and snuggles on his terms. But when he's snuggly he's real sweet and still reminds me very much of the teeny kitten I had last year. He's also quite mischeivous and gets into any food that is in a container he can tear open (chips, cereal, boxes of cookies, bread, etc), so I have to put all my food in plastic containers.
I love him to pieces and couldnt imagine my life without him. I wonder if he realizes how lucky we r!!
For those who missed my very first posts almost a year ago, I thought I should you in on his beginning. I work at a vet clinic, and a lady brought in her cat who had been in labor for several days. Upon exam the doctor found there was a kitten stuck and beginning to calcify in the birth canal and told the owner we would need to do a c-section right away to save her and any kitten that may be still inside. As we were shaving her belly for surgery it began to reveal severe bruising all over her abdomen. The doctor called the owner and recommended that in light of this new discovery it may be best that we put her to sleep as she did not believe she would survive surgery. The owner agreed but wanted her to check for any live kitten first. So we did, and when we opened her up we discovered that the right horn of her uterus had actually ruptured from the trauma of contracting and pushing and that is where all the bleeding was coming from. But low and behold, despite all the odds, there were two live kittens in there - one grey female and a white male with a grey spot on his head. It took over 20 minutes of CPR before they came around and they were tiny and looked about a week premature.
We showed the owner how to bottle feed them and stimulate them and she took them home that night. The next morning after a night of hourly feedings she decided that she could not do it and dropped them back off at the clinic. Unfortunately the little grey female died about 2 hours after she dropped them off, leaving only the little tiny white boy. Everyone in the clinic was pretty doubtful about the poor kitten chances at survival; born a week premature after labor he should not have even survived in the first place, no mother and now now siblings.
But the little guy had a HUGE appetite and a fighting attitude and continued to grow, albeit a little slow. Nobody at the clinic really wanted to take him, so I took him in at about 4 days old intending to bottle feed him until he was weaned and then adopt him out. Here he is at about a week old:
Well, no surprise to anyone but me, I ended up keeping the little buggar. Just think, about this time last year I had NO IDEA I would soon be bringing home kitty number five! I must have lost my mind...
Here he is now. Happy, healthy, and sassy!
He gets along pretty well with all the other cats but still much prefers human company to cat company. He HATES dogs and will attack them if he gets the opportunity to. He is very independant and only likes to be picked up and snuggles on his terms. But when he's snuggly he's real sweet and still reminds me very much of the teeny kitten I had last year. He's also quite mischeivous and gets into any food that is in a container he can tear open (chips, cereal, boxes of cookies, bread, etc), so I have to put all my food in plastic containers.
I love him to pieces and couldnt imagine my life without him. I wonder if he realizes how lucky we r!!
