| Too many pet pictures on these pages come from the end of a pet's life in my household. I am pleased to present to you pictures from the beginning of a pet's life. |
| Our family expanded over the weekend. We went to the dinky little town of Westport for our 21st wedding anniversary celebration. It's a town on the ocean (not the tame little ocean that we actually live near, but the big un farther west) for the touristy festival that they were throwing. Rusty Scupper Pirate Days. Costume contests. Lots of Jolly Roger flags. Lots of people walking around saying "Arrrrrrrrrr", and stuff like that. Kind of boring really. But we were walking towards the marina pier on the water side of town, following the breakwater jetty on that side, and we saw these footlocker sized boxes that had cat food and fresh water in them, set out by local volunteers for the semi feral cat population that inhabited the jetty. There were a couple of youngish teenagers holding a kitten in their lap, and when we talked to them, they asked us if the kitten was ours. Little did we know. The cat was too skittish to be held at all away from the rocks, so it ran away instead of allowing itself to be held where we were, so we walked on, not thinking anything about it. We saw a couple of other truly feral cats, grown up, skittish, and untouchable. As we were heading back towards town, we stopped near that first box of cat food, and commenced a search for the kitten that we'd seen. We managed to catch it, and we pleasured it greatly. Those rocks get kind of hard on the butt after a while. As friendly as it was, it was in kind of sad shape. It had been fed well enough by the volunteers, but it had both tape worms and heart worms, and a severe eye infection. A young female, its projected life was nasty, brutish, and short. We debated all night as to what to do. Cindy was concerned that Ginger would loose her little cat mind at the introduction of a new cat. We didn't know if the kitten had the FIV virus of the feline leukemia virus. Other debates as well. All for naught. We went back the next day, managed to catch the kitten again, and drove it home. We've kept her secluded in a bathroom at night, and dropped her off at the vet first thing Monday morning. The eye infection is herpes (!), but should be cleared up with anti-biotics. She doesn't have the leukemia virus, and she's all of 8-10 weeks old. We thought that she was older, but no. |
We need to keep her segregated from Ginger for a week to make sure that the older cat doesn't get the infection as well, but apparently there's a new member in the house. She's mostly white, with calico markings on her head and tail, with a big black patch on her belly. She knows that her new life is very different than her old, as she will purr up a storm without hesitation when any sort of attention is given to her. We're going to call her Jetty, from the place where she was found.
From the information provided to us by the vet, we've decided that her birthday shall be April 20. Now we can remember...
Copyright 2007 by Rich Webb, aka The Outsider.
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