Well, our little crazy-ass kitten is doing fine so far. Not that he is giving his hip any rest. This morning he escaped *again* from the bathroom to race around the house, something that has become almost a daily thing.
Yesterday I found him in the bath tub because my boyfriend forgot to put the little plastic tower-tray thing we have in the bath tub after showering. This way, he can use it to climb on, again something he aint allowed to do, and then jump, another no-no, into the tub. When I found him there, he looked at me like...ahh finally, someone who can get my out of this thing, *sigh*.

His leg seems to be healing find, and now that the hair is growing back, you can tell which color our kitten really is. To prep for surgery they have to shave the entrance spot, and this means that his kittenfluff has been removed. His real hair, hidden underneath, is now showing, since it is growing back, and our black kitten turns out to be stripey!

Seriously, right now, what is showing is a black background with silver, no less, stripes running through it. He has also lost some of his kittenfluff on his head and white hairs are showing through the black furr as well on that spot. It is kinda interesting to see. I've never seen a cat coat like that before. It will be interesting to see what he will look like when grown up :)

Well, today was the day. Today, Shadow got his operation. The doctors were nice enough to reduce the price a bit, since it was a small stray kitten. But boy,was it an ordeal, for all of us.

When I picked him up, I got the news, and it was shocking. This kitten was not only malnourished and covered in parasites with a limp leg when he came in....turns out he has a hipfracture in FIVE places. His entire pelvis is disfigured because of it. My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard. Yesterday, this same kitten was racing through my house like a madman, jumping on and off the bed like it was nothing. He must have been in excruciating pain. When I asked the vet why he was able to jump he said that the kitten must have had a high pain threshold. Hellooooooo, thats the understatement of the century!

Overall, his chances of recovery are, considering everything, pretty good. His hips will never be the way they were, but they will heal and cause him no further pain, or so the doctors think. The downside is that because of the way the hip was fractured, there is very little space for his intestines, which could cause rectum problems. It is possible that at some point in his life, his hips will obstruct his intestines, causing the cat to be unable to defecate. But as long as the owner knows, he can watch for signs that the cat doesn't feel ok, and it can be easily solved. So, overall, not too shabby.

When we got home, however, he didn't want to be alone. I put him in his basket ten times and everytime he crawled back onto my lap. He spent an hour on my lap in his room, struggling to find a way to be comfy since everything hurt. He did find a spot on my leg though and started purring like crazy.

Well, this morning we decided to introduce our little Shadow to his auntie Arwen. We closed the bedroom door so the other cats couldn't get in and let them get used to each other.

At first there was a lot of sniffing and running around, but eventually they started playing. And you can tell that Shadow is already picking up some cat-etiquette. He has learnt from our Prinny to be submissive when angering a larger cat, and now he is learning from Arwen not to be too forward, though it is hard on him. He is so enthoused to meet other kitties and play with them, that his enthousiasm is sometimes mistaken for rudeness and pushiness.

Arwen is a good teacher. Since she is so inoffensive herself and not at all dominant, she is a good sport about his bad manners. She takes his sniffing with a shocked look, and only paws his if he is like almost on top of her. She backs away if she can, when he comes too close, and shows him what postures to use to communicate with her as to what his intentions are. Whacking is done with the nails safely locked away, and severe whacking is only done to defend oneself in a playful attack (most of that pawing misses its target anyways due to the vigour it is done with ;)).

He has also learnt that when she's had enough for a bit, to back off. She'll lay down on the floor , taking a defensive pose with all fours up and aimed at him, and refuse to chase him around. He then takes it upon himself to investigate the room and give her some space. Which then in turn invokes her attention and entices her to check out what he's doing, which then ends up in a game of though and rumble. And so the cycle starts all over again.

We let in our Trini briefly as well, but she hisses still at him when he comes too close, and was clearly not happy, so we let her out of the room.

Well, yesterday we had a wonderful day of relaxing with Shadow in the couch. He had had his innoculations the day before and they made him very snoozy. He didn't appear to be sick though.

Today, however, we noticed how much those innoculations did for him yesterday. Here he is, sitting in the couch, going all balistic. Balls are flying, mice are getting kicked, and Prinnies, Lulus and Arwens are being slapped and attacked. One big ball of energy.

Just now he rushed of off the couch, before I could stop him, raced all the way to the back of the house (with a dislocated hip!), with an Arwen chasing right after him!. And ever since that little race, Arwen has been stuck like glue to the couch, where this little critter resides. She hops and lunges at him, and he returns the favor, leaving Arwen baffled at this little creature, not at all impressed by her size.

Meanwhile, nothing is safe: my boyfriends computer mouse has had some pawing already, the ball is kicked into oblivion, as is the toy mouse, computer lights and cursors are being stalked and toes under the blanket in the couch are being bitten, and hard! And Arwen is circling this couch like a shark would with a boat.

It will be good that those two finally get to play though.. Just another couple of days. But then the concern becomes: he is so tiny and injured...how do I keep her from accidentely really hurting him and maybe even seeing him as prey? Guess I will be chaperoning*sigh*

Lol, I really enjoyed this story.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/25/national/a14...

In my experience, cats come and check up on you when you are not feeling well, so I am not at all surprised by this behaviour. Of course, the heat blanket might help ;)

Well, yesterday we went to the vet to check out the progress on Shadow and to get him vaccinated. After two weeks, he is shaping up quite nicely (pics will follow soon ;)). He has been deflead, overfed, dewormed, de-earmited, and generally given a chance to recuperate, which he definitely did. But...he is still limping, though that too, has improved.

At the vets, I introduced the doctor to my new arrival, and had her take a look. The good news is that he is developing his muscles quite well, which allows him to walk without a limp for a while, till he runs faster and cannot compensate any longer. Then the limp shows again. Ultimate verdict: he has a dislocated hip. The only way to fix that is an operation which costs about 250 euro.

The vet suggested letting him live with it, since he didn't really have that big of a problem with it, but I refused, since I know he does suffer from it. If you touch his hip and he hasn't had his meds, he growls and bites. That means that it hurts, period. And that to me means he has to be operated. He is far too young to be suffering from this, and has his whole life ahead still.

I had the vet give him his shots, so he could run around with the rest of my colony soon, and meanwhile look for a solution on the operation. Maybe I can get a cat rescue to help me out. The vet was going to ask her collegues if they could help me out. We' ll see, but in any case, he is going to get the help he needs. Arwen has cost me a lot more last year and I am not about to refuse Shadow what I offered Arwen.

For now though, he can relax still and enjoy his little space. On Monday, he can join the rest of the colony...which will cause him and them a lot of stress. Once he has had the surgery though, he will probably go in isolation again for a while, till he has recovered.

Well, yesterday we had an interesting development. I came home from work and took Shadow with me to sit in the living room on a blanket. He loves just sitting on a blanket with me. Mostly though, it is our Prinny that does that. After a couple of hours, she was tired of waiting her turn I guess, and decided to check out that little fuzzball lying on her spot.

She sniffed him, ever so carefully, while he was in awe of that big thing sniffing him, jumped off the couch and revisited us to do the same five minutes afterwards again. She even licked him a little, to get a taste of what she had running around in her house, I'd imagine. No hisses though, no growls, nothing..I was astonished. I kept her a bit at bay, not because I didn't trust her, but because of contamination. Shadow has parasites and Prinny carries the remnants of Feline Influenza, so I kept the contact to a minimum.

Later on, Falkie and Trini decided to follow suit and sniffed the kitten. Falkie panicked and ran, Trini was ok with him as well. I'm sure though that when and if he gets the run of the house at some point, they will hiss at him ,since he is then really invading their turf. But that's still a while off. Right now, he seems to be very happy in his little room with his toys, basket, and food, thank God. He is curious about the outside world, and does enjoy his little trips to the living room, but does not seem unhappy or scratch the door or meow when he is confined, which is most of the day really.

Every morning I hear him playing with his ball that has a bell inside, and yesterday I saw him hunting a little pompom, one of the three toys I gave him. It's kinda cute to see this mini ball of furr attacking a toy big enough to inimidate full grown cats with such enthousiasm. It shows he is male: though constantly up to no good, he is a pretty easy-going kitten, ready for anything you toss his way.

So today I heard from my collegues at the clinic. Two of them have a potential new owner for my lost little kitten, who btw is very fond of his ball with a bell in and is eating more than his own body weight I'd bet.

So but hopefully we will be able to find him a good home soon. It certainly looks promising right now. First things first though. Although he is recovering marvelously from being neglected, his leg is another matter. He is still dragging it. I know, it hasn't been that long, but unfortunately it could affect his adoption chances as well. If he does need an x-ray and surgery, no one will want to adopt him. Who wants a kitten which will cost you a gigantic sum of money to begin with?

We will give him the time to heal though, and see from there. He will be very much back on his feet in about two weeks, I'd bet, the way he is eating and playing. Hopefully his leg will join in with the rest of his body. If not, I will probably make a deal with the doctors at the clinic and pay for it myself. This way, his future is ensured.

I must say it brought tears to my eyes to see how much faith he had in me when he was feeling so miserable. And even now he is not that needy anymore, he is still equally happy to see me, yet perfectly at peace in his little enclosure, sleeping, playing or eating. It is so easy to make a kitty happy with so little... Yesterday I had him with me in the couch with Arwen at the other end and I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. It's been a year since Arwen was that size, but it seems like it was just yesterday. I cannot believe she has become that big. She has always been my baby, and I've never really stopped looking at her that way. But boy is she big in comparison to Shadow.

Summer rears its ugly head. I helped out at the clinic today and ended home with a present, which my boyfriend did not appreciate.

Halfway during the day I got a phonecall: someone had found a neglected 6-week old kitten, covered in fleas, filled with worms, infected with earmite. I gave them the number of several shelters, but knew they had no shot in hell. It is summer and they are completely up to their eyeballs in kittens as it is. They had a cat of 10 years old who wasn't happy with the little camper, and the family was soon leaving on holidays.. I cracked and told them that if they didn't find a suitable place for him, they could drop him off.

Later that day, they did drop him off, with some food they had bought him. I gave them my number and told them that if they wanted to adopt him after their holiday or knew someone for him, they should give me a call. They were also to hang out a notice at the clinic to find him a home.

I had him checked by the vets, and they discovered he had a bad hip. Apparently he cannot stand very well on his legg. We re going to give him some painmeds for a week and keep him in a small space so he lets that leg rest a bit. And hopefully, it will heal on its own. If it doesn't he'll need X-rays and surgery.....joy!