We will do that. Thanks for the websites. I will use them to try to find her owner. I don't think we will ever hear back from the out-of-business vet that my mom left a message for. He still hasn't called and I'm sure our message is low priority. I think she is drinking enough water. My mom says that she estimates the cat is urinating 3 times a day in the litter box. She had another BM this a.m.- formed, but loose, but not diarrhea (that's the third since we took her in on Sat.). I think it's more just the digestive tract trying to get kicked into gear. My mom also has been mixing Wellness wet and dry and she said last night, she eats all the wet, and then will leave the dry, so we think she is "getting full" and deciding to stop eating- which we think is a good sign. The first time I fed her....wow-- I'd never seen anything like it, I thought she might choke or throw up (she didn't) because she ate so voraciously...poor thing. She's definitely calmed down with the exciting eating, so that seems like a good sign.
She really is a beautiful cat...LH grey with tan splotches and she is sweet as can be. Very docile. She kneads ALL the time and purrs a lot. I think she LOVES the A/C. We leave a tv on for her and my mom has caught her "watching" it.
I still haven't heard from my Shamrock contact, but we need to get her to a vet. I am afraid she needs oral antibiotics and not just Terramycin for the eyes- she keeps showing the third eyelid and it's definitely red and irritated. I just want to make sure that what she indeed has is an infection and not something more serious. My mom is going to make an appointment with her own vet and explain the situation...that we just need the most dire things taken care of now and not an entire $200 vet visit please!
An observation: it's funny to me how some of them can survive quite well out there and others, not at all. Monkee was out there at least 6 months and kept himself so well-hidden from humans, so clean (his white was always so white!), and so well-fed, that it took me forever to realize he was stray! He made it through 3 months of a Northern Ky winter that saw lots of snow! He was certainly not malnourished when I took him in-- he was lean and sinewy and strong like a dog. But my mom's cat Tally- with her flea dermatitis- she couldn't have been out but a few days and she was already a dire case with her bald head and open sores! And this poor cat....I do think it's kind of funny...like Monkee should've taught an "Outdoor Survivalist" class to kitties or something! Monkee didn't want for much when he was out I can tell you that. When he wanted to eat, he ate (a bird, a baby rabbit, etc.) Which was all evident about a week after I took him in and my apartment courtyard bloomed with life...chipmunks, birds, and for the first time since I'd lived there, I saw a baby rabbit in the courtyard that was previously Monkee's "killing fields"!!! It was like a scene out of "Snow White" with all the forest animals out in full-bloom because the black and white killer cat was trapped in the apartment! I don't think this poor cat ate anything while out there that wasn't provided to her by a human; maybe some bugs?
Thanks for the insight.
-Caroline
From: wendy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: OT: Advice for Malnourished, Rescued cat
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 11:37:24 -0700 (PDT)
Hi Caroline,The fact that this kitty is in bad shape and that there are no signs looking for her to me says that she wasn't necessarily neglected, but maybe she's been lost for quite a while and hope may have been given up in looking for this cat. The right thing to do would be to try to find out who the family is and go from there, keeping in mind that this kitty MIGHT not have been taken good care of, but not necessarily. What if it were your cat and you had been looking for her for two months and had given up hope? You would certainly still want to find her if you could, but after so long, the chances are pretty slim. There are quite a few online lost pet sites that I would look through. Here are a few that I found:
Bless you for taking this sweet kitty in. Monkee would be so proud of you! She is lucky that you found her. It would probably not hurt her at all to have subQ fluids, if you know how to do it. It's really easy. Is she drinking enough water? Also, you might think about boiling her some chicken and letting her drink the broth from that, and mixing chopped boiled chicken in with her food. She probably would love that. Thank goodness that she is eating and pooping good. That is wonderful!!!:)Wendy"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever has!" ~~~ Margaret Meade ~~~
----- Original Message ----
From: Caroline Kaufmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
Sent: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 10:09:28 AM
Subject: OT: Advice for Malnourished, Rescued cat
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
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