Hi everyone! My name's Tay. I now have four cats and have signed up because I suspect that the road to health for the newest babies will take a little while and my partner and I may need some moral support.
I've had cats my whole life but, for the most part, they've been very healthy. We lost one to FIV when I was about seven, but other than that our cats were in awesome shape. We lost the last of my childhood cats when I was sixteen--she was 22 years old.
I wasn't allowed another cat until I was 19 because my sister was allergic. At 19, though, I was leaving home and a stray mama cat had a litter of four little babies in the crawlspace under my house. One of them was abandoned when he was just barely old enough to wean and I took him in (I never could catch the others or mama). He grew and grew to an eleven pound boy. He is, according to the vet when we saw when he was younger, clinically stupid enough to be considered handicapped. I thought there was something wrong with him because he did things that were so stupid--he nearly drowned in his own water dish on multiple occasions. She ran hundreds of dollars of tests on him and determined that his only issue was that he is actually mentally handicapped. He is very much loved and we do what we can to keep him safe from himself and happy. We have to keep him out of things because he'll eat anything that looks vaguely like food and he pees himself when he's scared. His name is Leonardo Turtle and, at 5 years old, he's the most laid back cat on the planet--you can literally do anything to him and he'll just take it.
The next kitty I acquired came with my partner. Shinigami weighs approximately 5-7 lbs (she's put on some weight since she was last weighed, but is still very sleek) and was underweight when I moved in. We transitioned her from a prescription Science Diet food which she was on for weightgain to a higher protein grain free formula, Taste of the Wild. She's put on weight, but we haven't had her weighed in awhile, so I suspect that she's closer to 7 lbs than the five when I moved in. She was rescued from the Toronto Humane Society as a tiny kitten--she was the last baby from her litter to be adopted. She's very smart and can open most doors, which is problematic by times. Fortunately she has shown no interest in opening the room to where we're quarantining our sick new babies. She's quite stand-offish and she doesn't often enjoy the company of humans, but she's slowly getting better, at 4 years old.
Most recently (as in Friday!) we acquired MALP and DHD. Their previous owner acquired them through awful circumstances (their owner died suddenly and the woman we got the babies from had been looking after them until the woman got out of hospital) and was unable to care for them properly. She was trying to protect them from being destroyed while she found a place for them with a rescue. Unfortunately, all the rescues in the area have been full for months and she had been unable to find them homes. Her landlord was going to evict her for having the kitties so she had the options to either find homes for all the kitties (and she had acquired, through this unfortunate circumstance, a dozen cats) or destroy them. She had more than the legal limit for Toronto, so no other landlord was going to be more merciful. We were told that they were half-siamese, half russian blue and small for their age with a 'touch' of diarrhea, probably, we were told, from eating poor quality food.
When we got them, they were tiny--Leo was much larger than them at five months in photos comparing him to my hands--and they had diarrhea that smelled so bad that being in the room while they were pooping was enough to make you vomit. It was so liquid that they would run for the litter pan and poop themselves while they were halfway in. We hadn't been expecting a vet bill this close to Christmas (the 'big' cats are obscenely healthy and are indoor in a highrise, so very unlikely to be exposed to anything new) and had just done our Christmas shopping, so we could only afford to take one. The vet was lovely and helped us out to be able to dose both babies with medicine for what looks to be a raging giardia infection. At approximately 2 years old, the larger of the two babies is only 3.4 lbs. In just a few short days, we've seen such massive improvements in their attitude (they've got HUGE 'siamese' voices) and their energy levels that I'm sure we can get them healthy, though I'm going to keep them quarantined until we've had Feline Leukemia and FIV tests back on both of them and they've been at least 7 days symptom free from the giardia.
MALP is the kitten on top in this picture. She often lays on top of her sister and is definitely the more dominant of the pair. DHD is calmer and hides until MALP tells her it's okay to come out.
I've had cats my whole life but, for the most part, they've been very healthy. We lost one to FIV when I was about seven, but other than that our cats were in awesome shape. We lost the last of my childhood cats when I was sixteen--she was 22 years old.
I wasn't allowed another cat until I was 19 because my sister was allergic. At 19, though, I was leaving home and a stray mama cat had a litter of four little babies in the crawlspace under my house. One of them was abandoned when he was just barely old enough to wean and I took him in (I never could catch the others or mama). He grew and grew to an eleven pound boy. He is, according to the vet when we saw when he was younger, clinically stupid enough to be considered handicapped. I thought there was something wrong with him because he did things that were so stupid--he nearly drowned in his own water dish on multiple occasions. She ran hundreds of dollars of tests on him and determined that his only issue was that he is actually mentally handicapped. He is very much loved and we do what we can to keep him safe from himself and happy. We have to keep him out of things because he'll eat anything that looks vaguely like food and he pees himself when he's scared. His name is Leonardo Turtle and, at 5 years old, he's the most laid back cat on the planet--you can literally do anything to him and he'll just take it.
The next kitty I acquired came with my partner. Shinigami weighs approximately 5-7 lbs (she's put on some weight since she was last weighed, but is still very sleek) and was underweight when I moved in. We transitioned her from a prescription Science Diet food which she was on for weightgain to a higher protein grain free formula, Taste of the Wild. She's put on weight, but we haven't had her weighed in awhile, so I suspect that she's closer to 7 lbs than the five when I moved in. She was rescued from the Toronto Humane Society as a tiny kitten--she was the last baby from her litter to be adopted. She's very smart and can open most doors, which is problematic by times. Fortunately she has shown no interest in opening the room to where we're quarantining our sick new babies. She's quite stand-offish and she doesn't often enjoy the company of humans, but she's slowly getting better, at 4 years old.
Most recently (as in Friday!) we acquired MALP and DHD. Their previous owner acquired them through awful circumstances (their owner died suddenly and the woman we got the babies from had been looking after them until the woman got out of hospital) and was unable to care for them properly. She was trying to protect them from being destroyed while she found a place for them with a rescue. Unfortunately, all the rescues in the area have been full for months and she had been unable to find them homes. Her landlord was going to evict her for having the kitties so she had the options to either find homes for all the kitties (and she had acquired, through this unfortunate circumstance, a dozen cats) or destroy them. She had more than the legal limit for Toronto, so no other landlord was going to be more merciful. We were told that they were half-siamese, half russian blue and small for their age with a 'touch' of diarrhea, probably, we were told, from eating poor quality food.
When we got them, they were tiny--Leo was much larger than them at five months in photos comparing him to my hands--and they had diarrhea that smelled so bad that being in the room while they were pooping was enough to make you vomit. It was so liquid that they would run for the litter pan and poop themselves while they were halfway in. We hadn't been expecting a vet bill this close to Christmas (the 'big' cats are obscenely healthy and are indoor in a highrise, so very unlikely to be exposed to anything new) and had just done our Christmas shopping, so we could only afford to take one. The vet was lovely and helped us out to be able to dose both babies with medicine for what looks to be a raging giardia infection. At approximately 2 years old, the larger of the two babies is only 3.4 lbs. In just a few short days, we've seen such massive improvements in their attitude (they've got HUGE 'siamese' voices) and their energy levels that I'm sure we can get them healthy, though I'm going to keep them quarantined until we've had Feline Leukemia and FIV tests back on both of them and they've been at least 7 days symptom free from the giardia.
MALP is the kitten on top in this picture. She often lays on top of her sister and is definitely the more dominant of the pair. DHD is calmer and hides until MALP tells her it's okay to come out.
