Special Needs Kitten Needs Home

She's all white (with a few sprinkles of black hairs on her head and tail), approximately 10 - 12 weeks old.

She is blind in one eye. Her ears were sunburned and the hair will probably never grow back in on the tips of her ears. She may have a limp.

She was rescued from a liquor store parking lot - small, bloody, riddled with parasites, badly infected, sunburnt. She'd been attacked by something - most likely another cat. She was dropped at our vets and we're acting as her angels.

She required stitches and several surgeries - but it looks like the eye will not recover.

She's been in the hospital a little over two weeks. She will be coming home with us for fostering as soon as the Doc gives us the OK. She required stitches in her ear, her tummy, and several legs. She was so malnourished and emaciated she needed to be tube fed. At first they only thought she was 3 - 4 weeks old! Now that her legs are out and fixed, it's easy to see she's a "full grown" kitten. She weighs 2.2 pounds now! She's grown like a weed with the good care of our wonderful vets.

She'll need lots of love and care, but she's a sweetheart.

Your location is not an issue if you meet our rigorous adoption requirements.

If you are interested, please Private Message (in "Options" at the top of the TCS Forums page) me or contact me via e-mail ( [email protected] )

Bless you and Gary for what you do.

Another pic:

she is a cutie , poor thing . Thank you for being a for her .

that poor little baby You and gary are such angels!!

Oh that poor baby! I do hope that she finds a furever home soon! Bless you and Gary for helping!

You're not in California are you? I would be her mommy, but I think you live far from me ...

Thanks for loving her! What's her name?

OMG, I just want to hug her! I pray that someone is able to give her the love she needs in a forever home!! Bless you for caring for her!!

Oh, Laurie,

What a darling little kitten. I'm sure you'll find her a great home (hopefully very soon). That poor girl has been through so much already - she needs some stability and lots of love. You and Gary are truly angels!!! At least you're showing her life can be wonderful for the time you have her. I'm just happy she ended up with some caring people to nurse her back to health. Best of Luck and I'll be checking back to find out what happens.

Is that her name? Hope?

She is beautiful. You guys really are angels.

She's lovely, I really hope she finds a nice home, If I lived over there, I'd take her in a heart-beat!

SHE IS THE SWEETEST THING IN THE WORLD!

I don't know how many of you read Lucky's story (Socializing a Feral: the story of Lucky), but this is going to be the exact opposite situation. I don't know if this little girl ever learned to be scared of people from her mum - maybe she was part of a litter from an unspayed pet that simply got dumped. But her growth was so stunted, she had to have been malnourished and on her own for some time. I don't know how she would have survived on her own if her mom isn't a feral. Either way, she is not scared of people. She's scared of everything else. Actually - I need to revise this statement. She is scared of people, but reacts by purring and trembling, not by hissing or trying to fight for herself. Perhaps the past few weeks have just confused her. People haven't been horrible to her, and people have been feeding her. And she already trusts Gary and doesn't tremble for him - and will come out of her box to get over to him.

MA - we decided to name her Hope.

AND the sad news is - we're not sure at all that she can hear. She does not seem to react to noises. I think the only way we'll find out is when she's soundly sleeping.

We've got her set up in the bathroom. The oyster shell bed and snuggle kitty went with MaeMae, so we're trying something different. We purchased a rubbermaid storage container, and cut a small hole in it that only she can get in and out of. We lined it with towels, and she's very snuggly in there. She's already "adopted" it as hers, and she's comfy enough in there to stretch out and sleep on her back.

But when it comes to checking things out around here - she has absolutely no interest yet. She is very happy in the bathroom, and I expect that'll be fine for a while. As a matter of fact, it'll probably take her a few days to check out all 11 square feet (or whatever it is) of the bathroom. She walks just one step at a time, and she's good with two or three. I doubt she'll walk all the way around (three feet from where she is) to get to the litterbox until she has no choice. (Which we've learned from experience can be over 24 hours!)

But I was crying earlier. In order to show here where the litterbox was from the entrance of her box, I used a little mouse toy to entice her out the entrance of her box. She did get interested in the little mousey - but having sight only in one eye, she has no depth perception! I hadn't stopped to think about what that meant. She did try to pounce on it, but kept getting confused as to why it wasn't in her paws - it kept being just folds in the towel.

Can cats with one eye survive in the wild? How do they hunt? Rather - how do they actually catch their prey?

Hope is so fitting for her as a Name , she is so pretty . That poor little girl . All my good wishes for Hope coming your way .

Poor baby! She is such a pretty little girl! Bless you and Gary for taking such good care of her!

As for the one eye thing . . . animals are amazing. I once heard of a dog that lost two legs and learned to run again (it lost one in front, one in back, and managed to balance on just the other two). I'm sure a one-eyed cat in the wild would adjust. But Hope is so young, she must have lost the eye recently, so she is still probably getting used to her "handicap."

Poor thing LDG-Are you keeping her or adopting her out? Shes a little gem

Oh Hope is a good name for her with her catsite friends she has all the hope in the world.

Sorry I can't answer your questions.

All the best Laurie

Hugs

Sam

I sent this in an e-mail to some friends this morning:

The infection in the white kitty's eye is still not completely cleared up. Her bad eye filmed over and has all kinds of yucky crusty stuff. It is the saddest looking thing in the world. She also must have broken her front right leg before and it didn't heal properly (I don't think the bones ever mended together) because where one of her scars is her leg bends a little backwards every once in a while. But she is the sweetest, most loving little thing you've ever seen in your life.

We are now almost positive she doesn't hear. When she's asleep she wakes up easily. But when she's asleep in her little box (in the shower) and I'm sitting in the bathroom and I call her name (which right now we're using Angel, not Hope), it doesn't matter how loud I say/shout it, she does not wake up. BUT, unlike we were told to expect, she does not freak out when you touch her when she doesn't see you. She did once - but not badly. Since that one time, she hasn't.

And she does not see well out of her good eye. I don't know what happened, but the pupil is permanently dilated. We figured out she doesn't walk so slowly because she's afraid. She reaches out and touches in front of her and then steps. We figured out she can't see well out of the working eye. Once she's walked there, though, she'll cruise around. She has totally investigated every inch of the bathroom, and is already completely vertical. She'll jump up onto the toilet, then up on the counter. And we closed the other cats out of the bedroom and had her in there with us last night for a few hours. She totally checked out the whole bedroom. After her first few hours here and a good sleep, she decided that we and this place are OK. And she is a TOTAL purr monster! She is no longer purring because she's scared. She is purring because she's happy, and you can see it. She sleeps a lot though. I don't know if it's the stress of moving, or she's still a bit sick. But she curled up on Gary's chest last night under his chin and purred like nothing you've heard before. We thought Tuxedo purred a lot. Gary picked her up, and tucked her into the covers under his arm - and she did. He said "look at her - she looks just like a little angel." That's why we're now calling her Angel. But Gary doesn't like that name - thinks there are probably lots of "Angels." I like the name "Happy" better than "Hope," though, because this is one happy little girl. She loves her box, she loves the bathroom - and she loves being with us on the bed. She's curious enough to hop down the several layers of things we have next to the bed to check every inch of the room and it shelves and tubes and structures for the cats out. And she LOVES to play! She is, of course, a total spaz about it. She's slow, has no depth perception, and often doesn't see that the ball or mouse moved from where it was. She tries to pounce on any little wrinkle in the blanket on the bed. She also loves to lay on her back while we swing this fluffy ball we have tied onto a piece of nylon rope-like string and swipe at it. This she'll do quickly (because it doesn't involve moving from where she is) - she gets her little arms moving like windmills, and it is just too cute.

Gary is completely smitten - even more so than with Mae, if that's possible. I think it's because this little girl really needs us (someone). And it is the weirdest thing. All the cats are aware there's another cat here. Only Spooky and Lazlo have actually seen her, although Shelly saw her swipe her little paw out from under the bathroom door this morning and he must have jumped three feet in the air it surprised him so much! But unlike any other time we've had another cat in here, they're not mad. Three of them slept in the bedroom last night - and when we brought Mae in, they avoided sleeping in the bedroom for like a week. Spooky stopped sleeping in the bedroom for like a month (and she otherwise religiously sleeps next to me on the sheepskin on my bedside table, where Laz used to sleep). They're all their usual purr monsters, wanting to play and be loved like normal. They're not fighting more than usual and they just don't seem freaked out. Now, this could easily be because we haven't made formal intros, and she's not just allowed to intermingle in the general population. But because she's happy in the bathroom, and the rest of the gang doesn't seem to mind being closed out of the bedroom for a few hours in the day and a few hours at night, I think we're going to just leave it this way for a week or so, at least. They'll get used to her smell all over the place. She obviously feels completely safe here now. And she's so darn little and so not active like a normal little kitten her age that it shouldn't be a problem. (Knock wood!) Hopefully our gang will decide she's no threat, and hopefully no one will feel the need to beat up on a deaf almost blind little girl. With MaeMae it was clear everyone needed more room than we had. But this little girl's needs are more "emotional" than physical, and we might be able to keep her.

This little girl will be happy, I'm pretty sure, without gobs of room. She gets tired very quickly from just a little play, and Gary, so far, is her favorite place to sleep. So we've both decided she needs a name that's not one syllable. Of course, she can't hear it, but she still needs a name.

awwwwwww poor little girl . She is so cute . How about calling her "Happy Angel" ? Or "Angel of Hope " ?

Great name!! Now you make me wish I could adopt, Hope. It just seems fitting that Hope, should adopt Hope, doesn't it?