First, the good news: Fergus Simon was adopted on Saturday!
And then the OTHER good news: MAGGIE WAS, TOO!!!!
(They didn’t go to the same home. But I think they’ll be just fine!)
The fact that Maggie was adopted just makes me SO happy. At this time of year there are so many kittens that the adults often get overlooked, and I was concerned that that would happen with Maggie. I’m so glad that it didn’t, and that she’s gone to a good home where she will be loved and pampered. Yay!!!
So we’ve still got Ciara with us, of course, and the Spice Girls. They’ll all be going to Petsmart when there’s room, but it will likely be a little while yet. I hate that they’ll be going, but this is really my favorite time with fosters: they’re all past their shots and surgeries, they’re happy and healthy and are having no issues, so all we have to do is enjoy them! It’s a rough job, but I think we’ll manage.
Those of you who don’t remember – or who haven’t been reading long enough to have read about it – I did write about what was going on with Corbie back in March, but I’ll cut and paste what I wrote then, so you don’t have to go back and read it:
So I haven’t told you exactly what’s going on with Corbie – don’t worry, it’s not bad! It’s just that he’s a thin cat, and in the past couple of months, we’ve noticed that from the waist up (not that cats have waists, but you know what I mean) he looks perfectly fine. But from the waist back, he looks like he’s starving to death. Which he’s NOT, let me tell you, boyfriend can eat when he wants to.
He also has this kind of knock-kneed thing going on that’s hard to explain – he walks fine, but his back two legs kind of go one in front of the other. I originally mistakenly told Fred that Corbie was bowlegged, which triggered a memory, and I thought “What if he has cerebellar hypoplasia?”, but I went and read about it, and watched some videos, but that’s not it. He also can’t really jump – he can get up on the couch if he wants to, but that’s by pulling himself up by his claws rather than jumping. Though he can jump from one surface to another – he jumps from the table next to my recliner, to the back of my recliner – if they’re roughly the same height, but he just can’t jump UP.
This is not something that was going on when he was little – we would have noticed it. It’s something that has come on gradually as he’s grown. I took him to the vet. She looked him over, took some blood, and then took an x-ray.
Structurally, he’s okay. He’s got a perfect skeleton (and have you seen x-rays of cats? Aren’t they just the neatest things?). The vet called and told me that his blood looked okay, but he had an elevated level of… something (my notes on the topic are hiding in my desk somewhere and I don’t want to go looking for them) and long story short, we should try giving him Taurine and L-Carnitine to build up the muscles in his back end.
Then, of course, I went off and had surgery. About a week and a half later, I remembered about the Taurine and L-Carnitine and I went online and looked around to see what I could find for supplements. There are these treats that have the right amounts of Taurine and L-Carnitine in them, but we’d have to give four treats, twice a day, to Corbie and that seemed like an awful lot to get him to eat, especially considering that we didn’t know if he was going to like the taste. So we ordered L-Carnitine in powder form and Taurine in capsules, with the intention of sprinkling them atop a scoop of Gerber chicken baby food and letting Corbie eat it.
Well, the problem was that to make sure Corbie was the only one ingesting it, Fred had to take him into the guest bedroom. Being locked in the guest bedroom freaked Corbie out, and he wouldn’t touch the stuff. We dithered about what to do for a few days, and then finally Fred just tried mixing the powder with water and shooting it in the back of Corbie’s mouth.
Corbie’s not crazy about it, but he handles it just fine. So he’s been on Taurine and L-Carnitine for about a week, morning and evening. Fred doesn’t think there’s any difference in Corbie, and he’s probably right, but to ME (you know, the woman who stalks Corbie relentlessly), he looks a bit bigger. A bit more muscular.
We’ll keep going with the supplements and see how it goes. It’d be nice if this took care of the issue – though I need to check with the vet and see if this will be a lifelong thing or if we can discontinue the supplements after a while. Whatever the issue is, I can tell you that it hasn’t slowed Corbie down at all. He runs from one end of the house to the other just fine, he plays, he snuggles, he’s a happy boy.
He might have a skinny back end, but he’s perfect to me!
That’s what I was referring to in Friday’s entry – these days, we aren’t giving him the Taurine and L-Carnitine because it didn’t seem to make a difference, and it was getting to be a struggle (he was starting to run every time he saw Fred) and the stress to Corbie wasn’t worth it. He hasn’t improved, but he hasn’t gotten worse either, and whatever the issue is, it’s not interfering with his quality of life.
So that’s what that was about. 🙂
Want your own “I love cats, it’s people who annoy me” gear? Go get that stuff here. Everything’s marked up by $2, which will go to Challenger’s House. (I’ll put a link in the sidebar at some point.)
Don’t you just love Ciara’s dramatic eyeliner?
Giving me the crazy eyes.
“You keep on pettin’ ’til I say stop, lady.”
Coriander on the cat tree.
Clove’s orange patches are really starting to show.
I have been a horrible slacker regarding snapping pictures of the Crooked Acres Gang (permanent residents), so here’s the very first picture I posted of Spanky on Flickr, from way back in 2005.
He was only (doing the math….) a young and spry eight and a half back then, but if you showed me that picture and told me it was taken yesterday, I’m pretty sure I’d believe you. At almost fifteen, he’s in great shape for an old guy!
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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: “Yeah, I know. He KEEPS showing it to me. He thinks I WANT to see it. This is what I live with, day in and day out.”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
Spanky is lovely!
YAY for the adoptions!
Hugs to Corbie.
I’m so pleased that this was a good weekend for the Petsmart adoptions. Especially Maggie! It takes a special lady take to actively nurse and raise ten kittens.
Big YAY for Maggie! That is great news. 🙂 Someone got really lucky!
My Ollie was like your Corbie, he would become extremely annoyed if we locked him up and wouldn’t eat.
When he was diagnosed with vaccine associated sarcoma (VAS) the herbalist gave me some herbs for him. What I did was mixed them up with a teaspoon of baby food in a small bowl or plate and gave that to him while keeping the other cats away. The small amount ensured he wouldn’t take forever to eat it (usually just a few licks) and being able to eat in front of other cats who wanted what he had secured his Alpha position in the house which he greatly appreciated.
I know Taurine doesn’t have much taste, and I’m pretty sure L-Carnitine doesn’t either so you might be able to use my trick to help Corbie.
Yayyayayyayayaayyay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay for Maggie and Fergus Simon!! Oh wow!! That’s the best news!! Hooorahh!!!
Spanky is just perfect, the Spice Girls and Ciara are beautiful and Corbie – well- mega swoon – glad whatever is going on with his back end is not stopping him from being so movie-star handsome! 🙂
Take care
x
Yay for Maggie and Fergus Simon — but especially for Maggie, since I think many of us were afraid it would take a while for her to find a home.
And I’ve given my kitties meds by mixing it with just a spooful of chicken baby food, then feeding it to them directly from the spoon. It makes it a lot easier to control which cat is eating. Actually, Harley gets a spoonful of my breakfast yogurt most every morning, just so she doesn’t forget about eating from the spoon!