I did a cat rescue on Sat. of a spayed, long-haired female that was clearly a house-cat that had been hanging out in my mom's neighborhood for about 3 weeks. My mom had told the neighbor across the street that I had a foster cat and so he thought I would know what to do once he'd finally determined the cat did not have a home (you know how it goes!). I took one look at her and decided we needed to move fast- she'd already been outside too long. She had a collar on with a rabies tag on it with the vet's number, but by the time we got her in a carrier and I had the collar off (it had rubbed the fur off her neck) the vet's was closed. My mom left a message w/ the vet's, but come Mon. morn., still hadn't heard back. On Mon., she drove past the vet clinic and it's closed- like out of business!!! We were hoping to match up the
rabies tag number with the owner, however, my mom is really skittish about actually finding the owner because there's no free newspaper ad looking for her, there's no signs up in the neighborhood, and she was in SUCH bad shape when we found her...? Also, my mom says the vet the cat went to to at least get her rabies shot is "not a good one," so she is reluctant to just immediately turn this cat over, even if we do find the owners- which at this point, is not looking promising anyway.
We haven't taken her to a vet yet because we thought we would maybe find the owners, and now I am trying to work my Shamrock contact to see if I can get her in with a Shamrock vet who will give us a discounted price. When we found her she had horrible runny eyes- all down her face. She has fleas (of course). We are keeping her in a downstairs room of my mom's house in a crate- which we do let her out of when someone is there because she doesn't do anything- she is SO good; clearly a housecat who was desperate to get back inside, so she will do anything right now (I can handle her easily, she doesn't fight, I can treat her eyes easily, etc. I don't think she even knows how to scratch?!)
Her main problem is she is clearly severely malnourished-- she is skin and bones literally. She has dander. I think she would have died this week outside of heat exhaustion, shock, etc., complicated by malnutrition if we hadn't taken her in. We are feeding her Wellness wet food, which I am adding a Colostrum and L-Lysine too, as well as Pet Calm. Thank god I remembered that I had a tube of Nutrical (from Monkee), so I have been mixing that in the wet food too and she just gobbles it up. We are also feeding her Wellness dry food, but it took a while for her to eat it because I don't think she knew "how" to eat dry cat food. My Shamrock contact gave me a tube of Terramycin to treat her eyes and they are already a lot better. The green discharge has lessened and the overall watering and sneezing
is better. She's had two BM's- we had to help the first one along with some Laxatone. The first one was pretty normal, but yesterday's was runny (but that could have been from the laxatone).
I just wanted to see if anyone else had advice for how we can improve her nutrition until we can get her into a vet? I've never rescued a cat that was this malnourished before and my mom is just really worried about that, so I really just need some advice- even if it's things I can tell my over-worrying mother to calm her down!
Thanks,
Caroline
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