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april 22, 2006 - May 24, 2006
Dolly, adult mom, snowshoe type markings
Red, kitten, born 3/28
Blue, kitten, born 3/28
Green, kitten, born 3/28
Paws, kitten, born 3/28
Baby, adult mom, snowshoe type markings
Light paws, kitten, born 5/3
Light, kitten, born 5/3
Dark, kitten, born 5/3
Dark Paws, kitten, born 5/3
I fostered these as a favor to a woman traveling to India. I first agreed to take Dolly and her kits, then reluctantly added expectant Baby (who is from another litter of Dolly's). I was unhappy to find that this woman was letting these cats breed on purpose and selling the kittens. I know this happens, but I don't like it. I have to deal with too many unwanted cats to agree that any non-purebred cat needs to be bred. I decided to go ahead and help her anyways, because the kittens did need help and they were already here or soon to arrive. My not helping wouldn't stop this from happening.
So this ended up being my largest ever group of fosters. It was interesting. They had fleas and Giardia (parasite), and looked so similar that I had a hard time telling most of the kittens apart. Meanwhile Baby didn't trust us at all at first and I hurried to win her over before her kittens were born. Her younger group just started showing some real definitive colors at the end (two darker and maybe orange tint, two lighter -- with one of each color having white paws). They're adorable. The two moms shared duties. Dolly helped out with the little ones, and Baby was often nursing a mix of big and little kittens. Dolly was a bit jealous of Baby's group at first after the birth. Her kittens were getting old enough that they no longer really needed her and she wanted badly to get involved with the newborns. One day I came down and found she'd kitten-napped one of Baby's girls from the nest and taken it up on the couch to nurse it.
This is one of the few groups of fosters that I never named. I called the first group by the colors I tried to keep them marked with so I could tell them apart. I got blue and green mixed up all the time. I'm pretty sure (though I'm not great at sexing cats) that all 8 kittens are girls. Just keeping them straight was hard enough -- I didn't chance adding names to the equation!
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May 26, 2006 - August 6, 2006
Leo, adult male, brown tabby
Leo needed a home for the summer. His human mom was home from school, but she couldn't keep him at her mom's house because the resident cat didn't like him. Leo was an easy foster, very fun and healthy. He gave hard head butts. He also hissed at people initially no matter what (even his owner), which was pretty funny considering he'd pretty quickly dissolve into a little lover kitty.
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August 18, 2006 - January 12, 2007
Bobbie, adult female, buff tabby
Bobbie came to us from another fosterer who'd had her since March. They'd been struggling to find the cause and/or cure for her extensive hairloss. At first they'd treated her for ringworm, which maybe upset her skin enough that she overgroomed, but whatever happened she didn't get better. When we got her she groomed to the point of bleeding (ouch!) every day. I made up a soft ecollar for her to wear so the sores would heal.
Bobbie was tiny and at first a bit nippy. She loved to greet, but would get easily overstimulated and nip at us. It didn't make it easy to love her (especially with her awful skin appearance on top of that), but we tried. The e-collar also helped avoid the nipping, since I could pet her and keep my hand beyond her mouth's reach.
We tried changing to a prescription food. After a few weeks on that I finally risked taking off the collar to see if there was any improvement in the overgrooming. Within a few days she'd reopened the skin on several spots (which had long since healed). So the collar went back on. Eventually I took her to the vet for some other problem (I think it was an odd flap of skin in her mouth) and the vet said the mouth skin was fine and normal, but we need to try something else with her for the grooming.
We put her on prozac. At first she just slept, but after that she not only stopped overgrooming, but she also stopped biting us! Yay! We were thrilled. We weren't sure who would ever adopt a cat who needed daily pilling, but we figured once we were sure what dosage to give we'd at least start taking her to adoption fairs and try.
Her appetite flagged a lot, which we thought was due to the prozac. We cut way back on dosage (try cutting pills into eighths sometime -- it's not easy) and finally around Thanksgiving realized she LOVED turkey, especially dark meat. For at least a week that was ALL she would eat. I realized it wasn't the best diet, but I couldn't get her to eat anything else. A bit after that she became bloated. I felt guilty about all the turkey and thought I'd caused this through bad diet. I figured she was constipated and took steps to fix that.
Just after Christmas I took my cats to my vet and brought Bobbie along for a quick look at the same mouth tissue I'd worried about before. It looked upset and was getting bigger, but I didn't want to ask the volunteer vet again about the problem she'd dismissed before, but I was worried about her.
My vet was very concerned about her bloating. It was liquid in there and that's usually FIP. Yikes! My heart sank. A week later, a volunteer vet confirmed it. Bobbie had FIP. I felt awful. I was being pressured to keep her alive as long as possible by the volunteer vet, but I knew it would be very stressful. I don't mind doing the hospice bit, but getting medical care under extended circumstances like this through a volunteer organization can be harrowing. I felt unsure I'd be able to be sure she didn't suffer and I was considering just euthanizing her soon as an option.
They had drained the liquid so she was comfortable and of course I took extra time with her over the next week, snuggling and petting her and giving her all her favorite foods.
Friday morning she seemed extra extra sleepy. I snugged her goodbye, but she didn't want to be bothered. In fact she crawled into her carrier to nap better without interruption.
When I came back from some errands a few hours later I found she had died in that same sleeping position. I was actually relieved. I knew ABSOLUTELY that she hadn't suffered and I no longer had such a terrible life/death decision to make. She'd had a lovely last week and gone quietly and peacefully. It was an unfortunate, but beautiful death.
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