sundance-communications.com Forums Member Forums Phone Booth Rokumon update

Hi all,

Just wanted to let everyone know that my little kitten, Rokumon, is doing very well. She has doubled in weight, her tail is literally twice as long as when I got her, and she is healthy, active and acting like a kitten should act. (I had her for four days before I took the photos on the previous thread about her.)

When I got her, there was question as to whether or not she would survive. She was terribly dehydrated, malnurished (momma went dry because she was half starved) and very scared. The first day, she got sub-dermal hydration, fed from an eye-dropper with replacement milk for kittens, and I massaged her every hour (to mimic a mother cat's 'washing'of their babies to keep the blood circulation up and digestive tract working. My old mamma cat actually helped a bit with that too. Two days later, we went from the eye-dropper to the bottle. A week after that, she tore the bottle nipple up, and was eating canned food, though warmed and fed to her from a spoon. (I did creat a monster with that). Now, she eats kitten chow when I am not home, but canned food (warmed and served properly) when I am. I am still concerned about her fur being too thin, but the vet assured me that it will get thicker now that she is getting the nutrition that she needs, but it will take a month or so.

She has become my special feline friend, and claims me as her human. She keeps the other cats away from me (especially if she thinks that they are going to horn in on the attention), and rides around on my shoulders, and if I wear a lab jacket, in my pocket. Where-ever I am, she is near. She even supervised me when I worked on my switchboard frame and touched up the rusty areas. When I go to bed at night, she conks out and puts her nose in my ear and purrs like a diesle locomotive pulling up hill at full throttle.

Don't worry, momma and siblings were also removed from the environment, and are all doing well too. (Rokumon was the worst off, health wise.) The siblings all have forever homes, and momma is in the Belton, MO no kill cat shelter and has been modified so she will no longer have babies. They are putting weight on her so that she will not look so emaciated, and probably keep her themselves as she is rather skittish (they do not keep the 'clients' in cages, they are free to roam the facilities). I will post new photos soon!

Joe

I love a story with a happy ending...

I have to laugh about the spoon feeding though--by the time she's a year old you will have hired her a private chef!

My cat was a stray I found. In that neighborhood, we had a real problem with strays so I would catch them, have them fixed, then return them to the wild. This one was about two years old, but turned out to be FIV positive, so the vet recommended putting him down instead of releasing him. They said he only had 6 months, perhaps a year to live anyway. So I decided that if his life was going to be cut short by a disease, the least I could do was give him a good home for that 6 months or so. Of course, that was 14 years ago, so the vets math was obviously a bit off.

Now he's my buddy...always happy to see me when I get home, and never griping that I was out too late.