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Thursday, September 22, 2016

Trauma Cats Need Experienced Adopters

Ten weeks ago I agreed to care for a rescued kitten that was near death; eyes had clouded over.  My friend had found the kitten in an abandoned field, she saw that the other littermates had been hit by cars and a few died of malnutrition and or dehydration.  She rescued the one remaining kitten and nursed it back to a stable condition, but could not keep it.  The kitten was surrendered to a senior citizen who loved cats, but the little trauma kitten was too much for the adopter.

The senior citizen was overwhelmed with caring for the trauma kitten. This kitten very small for its age and does not know when to go to their food bowl and needs help with the litter box. We suspect that when the eyes clouded over that perhaps oxygen was lacking in the brain, making this 10-week old kitten slower than most kittens at this age.   When there was no rescue to take the kitten, I took him in.

We named him Oliver and he is now 14 weeks old and is growing very slowly.  He weighs 3.75 pounds, does not know to go to his food bowl to eat when he is hungry and still needs help getting into his litter box.  Other than that he is a delicate little angel.

We had one cat adopter that had teenage boys and both parents worked long hours. The mother said the house was loud and doors were always being left open.  This home was not a good fit for delicate Oliver, as he needs people who will pay attention to him and are aware of his special needs.

Oliver is not a sickly cat, but that is not to say he does not get ill.  Last night   Oliver started vomiting.  It is normal for cats to vomit, but Oliver was throwing up all of his food and when I checked him I realized that he had a fever.  Oliver spent the next two hours on my lap and when my husband came home and examined him we both agreed that he was too small to have a fever and to be sick.

Even though Oliver was up to date with his booster shots, he had symptoms of a cat cold with a fever.  So he got an antibiotic shot and we were told to watch him  and if there were no signs of improvement we were to take him back to the veterinarian

Today I spoke to the rescue who had surrendered Oliver to me and we both agreed that whoever adopts Oliver, that they need to be experienced with handling trauma cats because Oliver is a cat that needs special loving care.

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