Jack Tripper the Amazing Eyeless Kitty

Meow ^ | 12/2/2010 | Meow

[beaversmom]

When it rains it pours. I feel like I'm running a vet hospital. After dealing with the after effects of my little dog being sick with pancreatitis (she just got out Wednesday and is still pretty sick), my husband tells me on Thursday that he felt under the new kitty's chin and it was very swollen--like his lymph nodes were swollen.

My heart sank because I was already super bummed about our dog. I start imagining that he's got some horrible disease and will have to be put down. I get him to the vet that afternoon after the kids get out of school. The vet stuck a needle in it and pulled out infection. Thankfully only what appears to be an abscess. I'm not sure how he got it as he's been an indoor cat since we got him at the end of November from Bent's Old Fort--unless he and Alfie cat really got into and I just wasn't aware.

The vet put in a "drain" under his chin and he is on antibiotics. It looks pretty ugly, but he doesn't appear to be in pain and hopefully it will do the trick.

Also, he went into the vet with the name Teddy, but came out with the name Thea. I'm still not used to calling him a she. And now, tonight, the name has changed once again. My 2nd boy said he couldn't remember the name Thea and said he liked the name Cleo after a cat in the Tut Tut book we just read for his schoolwork. So Cleo it is. She's eating, drinking, purring well. She now has all her shots and will hopefully be a healthy kitty from here on out. Big knock on wood!

[Slings and Arrows]

More rescue kitteh story at post #41.

[Fred Nerks]

I’ve never heard a better kitteh story in my entire life, deserves to be published!

The Adventures Of a Ginger Cat with Three Names.

[beaversmom]

Thanks Fred Nerks—that’s very nice of you to say. Growing up in a pet friendly family we’ve had LOTS of animals over the years—strays, shelter animals, newspaper ad animals, neglected neighbor’s animals, box in front of the store animals, but this is about the craziest way I’ve ever acquired one.

[crazy aunt in the attic]

Thank you for your cat pings, I love them!

[Young Werther]

Garfield's girlfriend wearing her Christmas gift! I wonder what Jon is going to buy Liz?

[Slings and Arrows]

You’re very welcome.

[Young Werther]

Garfield's girlfriend wearing her Christmas gift! I wonder what Jon is going to buy Liz?

[Biggirl]

This is truly a Merry Christmas story! :)=^..^=

[Biggirl]

Ready for the Christmas party tonight! :)=^..^=

[Biggirl]

These solders, thank-you solders for your service, also does Lord’s work in animal resuce. :)=^..^=

[ninergold3]

Poor kitty looks uncomfortable with those things in her neck. However, she’s very lucky to have you. :)

[pbmaltzman]

Born without eyes, huh? Sounds like his mama was missing some nutrition in her diet. Poor little guy--but I'm glad he got a home.

I've read that among pigs, if they don't get enough vitamin A in their diet, they can have offspring with various eye anomalies, up to and including total absence of eyes.

Then, when those eyeless pigs were bred after being given a good diet including vitamin A, they had normal offspring.

[pbmaltzman]

Here's hoping your new kitty heals up okay. She's lucky to have you, and you to have her. I also like orange cats, but my favorites are tortoiseshell girls.

I had recently taken in a stray orange tabby, but he got sick and had to be euthanized.

[beaversmom]

Thanks both of you. I like the tortie's too pbmaltzman. My mom has a female. Are they normally females like Calicos? Something a friend and a vet tech both told me was that orange tabbies are 80% male. I hadn't known that. So we have the rare 20% female ;) Sorry about your orange tabby stray. My mom had been looking after a feral stray over the summer. We called him/her raggedy cat because it was in such pitiful condition. Still the cat ate well. A lady my son met in our neighbourhood came over and trapped the kitty to see if it could be treated. Unfortunately, it was very sick with some cat ailment(s) and had to be put to sleep.

[pbmaltzman]

Regarding genetics of various colors: I'm not an expert, but my understanding is this: You can't breed directly for a tortie or calico.

To get a tortie or calico, usually the kitten gets an orange gene from one parent and a black gene from the other. With calicos, the colors end up in relatively large patches of orange, brown, and black on white. With torties, you get swirled colors. I'm not sure what makes one patched and one swirled. Then there is a dilute gene, where you get the colors somewhat muted instead of bright (buff/cream, gray, etc.). Some torties have white feet or patches too. And then there are some cats who are not clearly either patched or swirled in their colors.

Orange cats... the color is sex-linked to males, and that is why it mostly occurs in males. But... if you breed an orange male cat to a female cat who is the offspring of an orange cat, then you can end up with dark-orange females. A long time ago, I had a pair of girl litter mates who were light apricot-colored. I bred them back to a nephew, and I got two litters of orange cats of all shades. Got some rather dark orange females and some light buff males.

I could be full of beans on this, but torties have always seemed to me be a little bit quirkier than other cats. I would also agree about the friendliness of orange tabbies.

The first tortie I had was a tiny kitten dumped in the alley behind my then apartment; supposedly the whole litter was dumped, but I only found her. I scooped her up just before one of the neighborhood tom cats pounced on her. She was a gobsmackingly beautiful, sweet cat... long black hair with the tortie swirls in it; she looked almost like someone had done paint spatters on black velvet, with green eyes. And she was a talker. She even liked cantaloupe. But she wouldn't stay a totally indoor cat, and that was her undoing. I've loved torties ever since.

And although torties are supposed to be a rare coat pattern in cats, where I live now (high desert, So. Cal.) I have seen more torties than any other place I've been. I had one tortie when I moved up here; I now have three of them, and I've seen lots of others, both in rescues and at the pound.

I really wanted to save the orange tabby stray and find him a home (after neutering), but he got sick really quickly and stopped eating. So at that point, the kindest thing to do was put him down. I also just didn't have the money to do all the work they were suggesting be done, and he still might have had something they couldn't fix. The cat had clearly been dumped in our neighborhood. He was really tame and friendly.

Apparently, although cats really, really like being outside and sniffing the breeze, they are unfortunately subject to catching several different cat ailments, besides being liable to be run over by a car and get injured in one way or another. I figured that the cat at least deserved a vet exam before I decided to end his life, so I had the vet look him over.

There were several things it could have been, one of which was feline leukemia. So I decided on euthanasia.

My own cats have been okay... they didn't catch anything, but one of my other cats came down with stomatitis (throat inflammation), so I'm working on her to get enough food into her, because when her throat hurts when she tries to eat, she seems to think that it was the food that did it, so she gets paranoid about eating. She's gradually getting better, but it's looking like she's going to need another vet visit.

[pbmaltzman]

Poor cat, she does look raggedy. May she RIP. At least she got some good food and kind treatment from your mom before she went.

[pbmaltzman]

Supposedly about 999/1,000 calicos and torties are female. And the rare male of those coat colors is usually sterile. Or so I've read.

One website that has an explanation of stuff like this is:

http://www.messybeast.com