We took in a "dumpster cat" from the neighborhood in September after she'd been harassed by some of the n'hood ne'er do-wells. She was just a baby (maybe 10 - 12 weeks old), she and her brother had been hanging around outside for about 2 weeks when he went missing after a thunderstorm. I put a box outside for her to sleep in instead of the cold concrete. She loved her box & her towels and I'd always fluff them for her before retiring myself.
One morning when I was leaving for work, I noticed she hadn't slept in her box. When I got home from work the towels were still untouched. The same thing happened the next morning. When I got home I went outside and called her name, and Jase did the same when he got home. Jase & I finally went looking for her that night before we went to sleep, because quite frankly I couldn't have went to sleep without try to find her harder than I had the night before. Jase thought he'd seen her near the road by the dumpster so that's where we headed. We got about 50 feet away as we were were calling her name and Jase said "There she is! That's where she was this morning!". She bounded towards us at full speed, leaping up a 5' wall and I snatched her up for loving.
She smelled like chlorine, which around here can only indicate that the neighborhood heathens have thrown you in the pool. There is literally no telling what torture that poor kitten had suffered over the last 2 days, not to mention during the day or when we weren't around. We brought her in that night, because we could NOT put her back out - and that was the night Sasha moved in for good.
She's a really sweet, very fluffy kitty. She's gray, but so shiny that she looks silver in the light. Her eyes were also gray when we first met her, but they are becoming more green now. Her brother, whom we named Simon, was very similar in appearance and they really enjoyed play fighting, snuggling and roaming about doing kitten things. He has since turned back up, and is about as fat as Sasha and living at the dumpster with the current horde of dumpster kitties.
In late September Chris moved back up here from Florida. With him he brought Lucky, who was an actual rescue from the dumpster about this same time two years earlier. The neighborhood heathens were walking across the parking lot one evening when I came home from work with something bundled inside one of their jackets. I knew by the way he was walking he was up to no good (basically because he was awake - yes, these kids really are that bad), so I approached him. He had a solid (as far as I could tell) black kitten about 6 - 8 weeks old, weak, nose & eyes all snotty, and completely unable to lift his head. The kitten had been laying out in the rain all day, so I grabbed him up, got Caiti & ran to the vet. Luckily our vet is less than 5 minutes away and closes at 6.
Keep in mind, I had just been there two weeks earlier, about the same time of day, with another kitten from this same litter with the same general problems. She was an even sadder case, namely because she had been laying in the middle of the road, meowing but too weak to move. I'd had to do a u-turn after barely missing her myself and she was just bones. The incredible staff at Dalton Animal Care North were wonderful, gave her fluids, tried to warm her body (her body temp didn't even register on the thermometer), tried to entice her with food and she would mew weakly. It was just the saddest thing, but I was grateful that I had gotten her instead of what could have happened if someone had ran her over. The doctor on duty said she'd lost so much weight and had been weak for so long, she'd probably been left by the rest of her litter and had been in the cold rain all day, there was just no way she'd make it. They euthanized her and remarkably didn't charge me anything for all the work they did.
Back to the main story, two weeks later here I come with a black kitten from the same litter with the same problems. I knew he had the same respiratory infection, which leads cats to not eat since they can't smell. They get weak and it's just a vicious circle. It was another cold, rainy day - October weather is often this way. This black kitten was so weak he couldn't hold his head up, it just lolled to the side, his breathing was very labored and the fleas were fleeing his body so it looked like he had black dandruff.
The vets apparently see a lot of this, although they don't often get people who bring in stray cats. I, however, just can't stand to know there is an animal in pain. After about an hour and half with the black kitten - giving him a flea shot to kill the rest of them, some antibiotics for his respiratory infection, fluids to warm him & hydrate him, Dr. Jimmy said it was up to me. Euthanize or try to pull him out of it. He said the only thing I could really do for him would be to take him home, confine him to a small space that I could heat up to at least 90 and provide with a small soft space to rest in.
Caiti & I stopped at the Dollar Store for a space heater and some canned cat food. We got him and while Caiti continued to hold him snuggled up in the towel, I made her bathroom into a kitty sauna. The space heater had a thermostat and timer, so I set it up to turn off at 95 and oscillate, just in case he managed to move to a corner. I used several towels to put inside the heater's box to make him a bed and lined a large area several towels deep in case he didn't confine himself to the box. We tried to feed him & give him dropper fulls of water again before getting him settled in.
Every hour or so (probably less), I'd go in to check on him, try to feed him some food & dropper him some water. He was coming around by about 11 that night. When I went in to check on him at 2 am, he actually meowed at me, and quite frankly scared me with his howl. I thought "Oh, no. He's scared or he's dying and a delusional." I cut the heat down, he was definitely perking up and his extremities had warmth to them. By the next morning he was the loving, thankful kitten we named Lucky. I continued to nurse him, and although he and Biscuit communicated through the door and tried to play handsie all the time, I kept him separated from the others just in case.
Luckily, our friend Chris, who had moved to Florida a few years before, wanted a cat. His had gotten a wild streak and took off. Lucky is a friendly fellow, and we spent a lot of hours sitting in the bathroom loving & playing with him between when we rescued him and Thanksgiving. I made him a travel litter box (an old pyrex dish with some litter) inside a rather large cat travel case padded with towels, in case he wanted to retreat during the usual 10 hour drive. Unfortunately we were stuck in some horrendous Turkey day travel near the Georgia/Florida line, but Lucky was a trooper and perfectly content to lay in my lap.
When Chris moved back up here in September we agreed to foster him. For some reason, Lucky didn't get along with Tweeter, and he and Biscuit had clashes as well. I'd hoped that Chris would get his own place for Lucky to stay with him, but his brother Brian offered to take Lucky, and wanted Sasha as well. He hopes to keep them inside (my caveat to anyone who got Sasha) and thought if Lucky had a friend to play with he wouldn't get stir crazy. Since they are best friends it was clearly in their best interest. They are always cuddled up either on the ottoman or at the foot of the bed or running the through the house at full speed jumping on each others backs playing.
Am I glad they've found a permanent home? Of course. But I won't lie. I cried. After 5 months or so of having that sweet fluffen-nutter that is Sasha or 3 months of precious, caring Lucky, it's hard to say good bye to them. Not to mention I have this whole guilt thing built in - I put them in their carriers. Will that be the last thing they remember of me? "I thought she was my friend? What did I do wrong for her to get rid of me?" I hope that's not the case. I do love them both, and if the need for a foster home comes up they are both welcome back. I don't have anything against a permanent non-foster home either, if not for Tweeter's spazziness. But that's a blog for another day.
Thu, February 4, 2010 at 8:40 
