Adoption Tails: Chessie, Cookie

 Chessie = Jessie

1 day: “We are already loving our new fur baby.” She is doing great in her safe room! Her owners are surprised at how fast she is warming up to them and feeling comfortable. She's playing with them, climbing on her poles, using the scratching post, purring and being so affectionate and gentle. She already has a cheeky personality coming through! She only hid and hissed once. She is eating, drinking and using the litter, but hasn’t gone poo yet. They’re thinking of renaming her Jessie and she’s already starting to respond to it.

 

2 days: Her owners accidentally left her safe room door open a little and she explored on her own. She explored the house a bit before returning to her safe room and wanting to play with her owners. Her owners will let her decide when she wants to explore more and see how she goes.

2 days

 

3 days: They noticed fleas jumping off Jessie and onto the carpet. They needed to clean her safe room and wash all of the towels and blankets.

 

1 week: She’s great now. She was angry at her owners for a few days after the flea issue and her owner thought she would never come around. Fortunately, she really came out of her shell again yesterday. “She's sleeping with us, playing heaps and exploring the whole house.”

 

1 month: “She has been amazing” and “has come around in every aspect”. She doesn’t hiss, run away or get scared. “She loves attention and is so affectionate”. Her favourite toy is an elastic band and she loves to play fight.

1 month

Cookie, now Umami

1 day: She has done well so far and has been renamed to Umami. The owner has only had her in the ensuite as it is the easiest place for Umami to be kept away from the other resident cats for the next few days. The owner thinks the small space has been quite a good adjustment place and might graduate her to the bedroom plus the ensuite later. There is a little woollen cat cubby in there that she is very partial to. Umami has been eating ravenously (biome kibble and some fresh cooked chicken) and using the litter with no hassles. She has not had any further diarrhoea since coming home. Umami is gaining confidence each day and is asking for pats whenever the owner goes in. "She's quite chatty and chirpy". The resident cats know she's in there and have been sniffing under the door but the owner has not allowed any introductions yet. 

1 week: Umami is doing really well, pretty confident. She was introduced to the other cats on Friday and they're all playing together now. She's enjoying roaming the house and learning how to activate her microchip feeder! The family is amazed that she's slotted straight in, not hiding away at all.

 

1 month: Socially, Umami has done so well. All the cats got on basically straightaway and she settled into the house as soon as the owner let her out of the ensuite - no hiding or shy behaviour at all. Quite amazing! The owners feel very lucky to have 4 cats that are all friends, since they know people that have 2 that hate each other! They continue to have ongoing issues with Umami's toileting. Firstly, she does get poo in her tail every few days and then it tracks around the house. They have got a fibre/probiotic product that the vet recommending which they hope might help with the consistency. They also need to find a way to train her to check her cleanliness more! The owner thinks Umami has just missed this skill due to her unfortunate life during the formative months. Secondly, Umami tries to use the houseplants as additional litter trays. The owner is confident that she can be trained out of this but it has been a bit of a teething issue and drives the husband wild. Hopefully, it does not take too much longer for her to change those habits. Umami is definitely very happy. She's super social and loves playing with her siblings and chilling with the owners on the couch in the evenings.

 

Lockdown

 I made a mistake on my last blog. Chanel didn't die. She is with the vet being treated for something, serious. But kittens in Incoming did die of parvovirus: the two smaller ones in the stand alone beside the Royal Canine stand alone and one of the ones with Venus in the stand alone across the room. It seems that parvovirus is running rampant in the western suburbs and goodness knows where these kittens came from. They may have brought separate bugs with them. The Royal Cannon stand alone was moved out of Incoming yesterday. But Roxy's kittens were not looking very energetic and not eating (!) this afternoon. So they were rolled back into Incoming. The cats, McGreggor and Donatella who were moved out of Incoming on Wednesday were moved back there. And it is a no-go zone for all but a few staff/vollies so that we can try to contain the source of infection. https://pets.webmd.com/cats/what-to-know-about-feline-parvovirus has lots of good information.

Tim has vaccinated all the cats that he can in the hope that we can stop cats getting very sick. Kittens are more vulnerable than adults. So there is to  be no more random cuddling of kittens and no cats are allowed out to run around to play. Phantom was not happy at being shut in this afternoon.

Phantom

And Opie complained loud and long.

Opie

Some cats couldn't give a . . . . . like Chessie: who would rather be alone. Perhaps we should have called her Greta.

Chessie

Demi and Winnie were not so upset by the lack of attention but the fact that they didn't cuddle together in one hammock. The tie of the upper hammock came undone and they were forced to find other places to sit.

Here in the process of getting back together after I tied the bow again.

And we have a new cat, Simba. Don't know where he came from and I couldn't give him a welcome cuddle because we are in lock down.

Simba

.