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Description
My kitty does such interesting things. But that's why I love him.

The Story of Lynx - This kitten was doomed for death

Last summer, I was sitting in my room when I heard something in the backyard. I went into the backyard and I noticed this little kitty on my porch. Usually cats run away from people they don't know, but this one stayed around. So I got some milk for him and he was drinking it. I didn't want to let him wander away; he had no tags. I ended up keeping him in my room while I tried to figure out who his owner was. When the shelter opened on the Monday, I brought him in. They didn't find a microchip to identify him, but had a policy to keep him for 7 days to try to find the owner.

Around 4 days later, I got a call from the animal shelter. The kitty had gotten depressed and refused to eat, nor leave his litter box. So they offered to let me foster the kitty. They also told me that with the lack of his eating, and with the state of his liver (from starving for weeks before I found him), it was very unlikely that he would survive the rest of the week.

So I brought the kitty home and had to wash him. To put into perspective just how tiny and starved he was, I have a dog that weighs 12 pounds. The kitty was less than half of his weight. I had to wash him in the bath tub because of him smelling so bad (from not leaving the litter box). The realization that I had after looking at him when his fur was wet (thus not puffy) was really large. His body was the size of his spine. Literally. The width of his body was no larger than an inch. His stomach ended at his ribs. His liver was failing, he had really bad jaundice.

The solution, as the veterinarians told me, was to give him medication and force feed him. Now this was in a final attempt to save his life, for if he didn't eat, he would've died. The veterinarians at the shelter weren't very optimistic; they told me that the chances of survival were very slim. Either way, it was myself who spent HOURS of my day - every day - feeding him his medications (over 20 pills a day, that had to be shoved down his throat). Now the force feeding was even worse. I had to make food into a mush, really. Canned food mixed with water to be put into a syringe. I had to put the syringe in his mouth, towards the back of his throat, and basically get him to swallow (although it usually seemed like choke) the food. As you can imagine, this process wasn't very pleasant. I always told myself, though, that it was for his own good. No matter how many scratches I had all over my body.

The days of force feeding turned to weeks. But I kept to it. Every day, twice a day. Including the pills. Eventually the kitty started getting stronger from eating the food, and started fighting when I would force feed him. But I kept it up, the scratches on my body getting worse and worse.

Eventually, the jaundice started fading away. His liver was improving. The veterinarians at the animal shelter were absolutely shocked when I would send them pictures to show his progress. They couldn't believe it. Soon I was able to adopt him and keep him as my own. He started eating by himself, and chasing the dog around the house (yes, the kitty eventually gained about one extra pound over the dog's weight). So much for dogs chasing cats, eh?

The veterinarians were never able to determine what type of cat he is, or when he was born. All we knew was that he was abandoned as a small kitty. This Labour Day weekend marks a year from when I found him in my back yard. The veterinarians estimated his age at about 6 months back then, making him now around one and a half years old. I consider him to be a Maine Coon, because he has a bushy tail, similar to that of a fox's tail.

The kitty now, by the way, is perfectly healthy and quite happy. He's also very playful. I often catch him playing with plastic bags on the floor. As you can see from the picture above, he's quite the curious little thing. I'm just glad to be able to call myself his owner.

Description
My kitty does such interesting things. But that's why I love him.

The Story of Lynx - This kitten was doomed for death

Last summer, I was sitting in my room when I heard something in the backyard. I went into the backyard and I noticed this little kitty on my porch. Usually cats run away from people they don't know, but this one stayed around. So I got some milk for him and he was drinking it. I didn't want to let him wander away; he had no tags. I ended up keeping him in my room while I tried to figure out who his owner was. When the shelter opened on the Monday, I brought him in. They didn't find a microchip to identify him, but had a policy to keep him for 7 days to try to find the owner.

Around 4 days later, I got a call from the animal shelter. The kitty had gotten depressed and refused to eat, nor leave his litter box. So they offered to let me foster the kitty. They also told me that with the lack of his eating, and with the state of his liver (from starving for weeks before I found him), it was very unlikely that he would survive the rest of the week.

So I brought the kitty home and had to wash him. To put into perspective just how tiny and starved he was, I have a dog that weighs 12 pounds. The kitty was less than half of his weight. I had to wash him in the bath tub because of him smelling so bad (from not leaving the litter box). The realization that I had after looking at him when his fur was wet (thus not puffy) was really large. His body was the size of his spine. Literally. The width of his body was no larger than an inch. His stomach ended at his ribs. His liver was failing, he had really bad jaundice.

The solution, as the veterinarians told me, was to give him medication and force feed him. Now this was in a final attempt to save his life, for if he didn't eat, he would've died. The veterinarians at the shelter weren't very optimistic; they told me that the chances of survival were very slim. Either way, it was myself who spent HOURS of my day - every day - feeding him his medications (over 20 pills a day, that had to be shoved down his throat). Now the force feeding was even worse. I had to make food into a mush, really. Canned food mixed with water to be put into a syringe. I had to put the syringe in his mouth, towards the back of his throat, and basically get him to swallow (although it usually seemed like choke) the food. As you can imagine, this process wasn't very pleasant. I always told myself, though, that it was for his own good. No matter how many scratches I had all over my body.

The days of force feeding turned to weeks. But I kept to it. Every day, twice a day. Including the pills. Eventually the kitty started getting stronger from eating the food, and started fighting when I would force feed him. But I kept it up, the scratches on my body getting worse and worse.

Eventually, the jaundice started fading away. His liver was improving. The veterinarians at the animal shelter were absolutely shocked when I would send them pictures to show his progress. They couldn't believe it. Soon I was able to adopt him and keep him as my own. He started eating by himself, and chasing the dog around the house (yes, the kitty eventually gained about one extra pound over the dog's weight). So much for dogs chasing cats, eh?

The veterinarians were never able to determine what type of cat he is, or when he was born. All we knew was that he was abandoned as a small kitty. This Labour Day weekend marks a year from when I found him in my back yard. The veterinarians estimated his age at about 6 months back then, making him now around one and a half years old. I consider him to be a Maine Coon, because he has a bushy tail, similar to that of a fox's tail.

The kitty now, by the way, is perfectly healthy and quite happy. He's also very playful. I often catch him playing with plastic bags on the floor. As you can see from the picture above, he's quite the curious little thing. I'm just glad to be able to call myself his owner.