Our Foster Fur Kids Need Your Purrz

Hiya furry friends - Hope all in America had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend last month. 

Thank you all so much for you condolences for Jazzpurr. I lost direction for the blog after he passed. I apologize for the lengthy blog post. (And photo captions being hard to read. I tried to add captions underneath the photos, but the graphic user interface kept moving them.) Yet there are foster fur kids whose valuable lives are in need of sharing. Trying to take a break and finally tell why I have been so busy (and overwhelmed) ....


 

8 Foster Kittens!

Here are some photos taken in the second week of October when I first got the kittens. We had just gotten into the exam room at the vet for checkups: four tabby kittens in a grey carrier and four more kittens in an orange carrier. A friend of mine works with the only no-kill sanctuary in Sedgwick County. She was able to pull them from the city shelter before being euthanized and they had nowhere to go but my house. All 8 kittens were sick one way or the other. Six were showing signs of upper respiratory. Two were underweight and looked like they had rashes from fleas. The ages when taken into foster were between 6 to 12 weeks old.

FYI: The local shelter does not have a vet evaluate the animals coming in, because if they do and they are found to have treatable illnesses such as upper respiratory, ringworm, etc, Kansas Dept of Agriculture regulations now state they have to be put to sleep immediately. Out of protest the shelter reaches out to rescues to take them and get them to a vet.

Within two days of getting them, I took them to the vet for checkups and medication they might need. After the vet checked them out, six of them needed treated of upper respiratory and we discovered that the two with rashes and lost hair were actually infected with ringworm - one pretty bad - broken out all over yet purring all the time (Mickey the kitten up front in the orange carrier). All 8 kittens were given Clavamox, Griseofulvin for ringworm, antibiotic ointment for their eyes and Lysine gel. I was able to use my Care Credit that day, but now that card is maxed out.

Here we are over eight weeks later, after days of daily medicating kittens, sanitizing kitty kennels and quarantine room, and several more trips to the vet including additional medication (Micazole lotion and new eye medication). Some of the kittens had nasty cases of calicivirus. One of the boys now has scarring on the lenses of his eyes :-(. Some of the kids after getting over URI contracted ring worm but have recovered.
On top of that my adult foster Mindy Lou kept trying to come into the quarantine room and wound up with ringworm on her ear. At the first of December, when the vet told me they were out of Griseofulvin, I ordered a ringworm medication for cats on Amazon. This amazing product got rid of more ringworm infections than using Miconazole lotion for several days that the vet gave me.

Before sharing 8 kitten photos and details about their purr-sonalalties, please consider helping these precious fur kids. Not only are we still making monthly payments to Jazzpurr's hospital visit of $900 through Scratch Pay, no more care credit. Hundreds of dollars has been borrowed to save these sweethearts: food, vet bills, etc., because they have to have clean bills of health before going to the rescue and the next part of their journey to find forever homes. Our paypal is laugh_safely at yahoo dot com.

As you read about these sweethearts, you will find that two are special needs. There are four Girls and four Boys. The kittens are listed in room mate order. Since the kids had to be quarantined, they began staying in different kennel suites. All but 1 have had their first booster vaccination. All the kittens love the ball track toy. Other favorite toys are balls with bells, spoons and my socks! The photos shown were taken today or this past week. I apologize for not making their names larger in the photos. As of today, everyone is over ringworm, including Mindy Lou and the kittens are over URI, save for a few sneezes. Those kittens are getting lysine gel and eye meds.

Mickey, the youngest girl and Benny, the youngest boy came from the same house, although they are different ages. They both had ringworm and very underweight. Took over a month to show some fat on their little frames and look more like kittens. Mickey was not even a pound when she came and had skin bumps from ringworm from head to toe. She is barely 3 months old now, just under 3 pounds and a beautiful little girl. She tries to handle anything new by purring, but she gets scared easily of new surroundings

and needs someone or another kitty that she knows. She really needs a Mothering adult kitty to help her. Mickey's favorite food is Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Chicken hearts and Liver. She was the first to figure out the ball track toy! Benny is a grey and white lanky kitten and over 3 months old. He has bonded to Mickey and tries to protect her. He got mad the other day at the other girls for running past Mickey and knocking her down, even though they didn't mean to since they thought she could run as fast as they do. Benny likes dry food over canned. Mickey and Benny love playing and eating together. Mickey is starting to catch up to the other girls in playing, yet Benny thinks they are too rough with her and growls at them now.

Penny, Emily and Regina hang out together in the same kennel suite. They are all close to 4 months old now. They love chasing each other around the room. Penny is a brown tabby with a cute orange mark on her forehead and a little white toe on her back leg. She is a little bigger than her room mates. She did get swollen eyes with calicivirus but got over it much quicker than the tabby boys who may be her litter mates. Regina aka Gina is an orange tabby and still needs her first booster vaccination since she wasn't over URI yet when the others got their first shots last month. Gina had a really hard time getting over URI and had to have two different antibiotics. She is a pretty orange girl who is the first to eat at food time and loves to eat grilled canned food. Emily is a little younger and part Persian with brown tabby fur (mix a long hair Persian with short hair - you get short hair with Persian body style) She is so cute and smart - was the first to figure out where the bedroom door was and run out to discover the world!! Emmy's hair is so thick and soft. Emmy is still taking Lysine and eye meds, yet having less runny eyes.

Judah and Jonah, aka Leo and Johnny are brothers. Johnny is bigger than Leo and the alpha of the two. Leo is partially blind due to having the worst time with the Calicivirus. His eyes were swollen shut, whereas Johnny only had one swollen eye. I had to treat them both 2 to three times a day for several weeks, always worried that Leo would lose his eyes. When Leo finally opened his eyes I felt like a miracle had occurred, yet he had scarring on both pupils. Still Leo was so delighted to have any sight back at all that he worked hard at trying to see and learn eye-paw coordination again. His left eye appears to have the scarring right over the pupil. He still needs Johnny or a kitty he knows to follow first. They love chasing each other around the room, but sometimes Leo runs into something. Johnny loves picking up my socks and running off with them! Johnny is still doing some sneezing so he is taking Lysine. Johnny and Leo both love dry food and canned.

Hoppy, our other specially challenged boy, was about 3 months old when he was pulled from the city shelter. He is now about 5 months old and has trouble using any one leg by itself. He uses his back legs together and his front legs together and essentially "hops." Our vet believes that he has an unknown neurological condition, although he seems to have trouble balancing and moves his front legs in a criss-cross manner when he turns. He looks as if he is double-jointed. He needs an x-ray to check his legs and spine, which would be over hundred dollars. He is slowly figuring out how to balance on three legs while moving one leg. He has started trying to bat the ball on the track with one paw. I think he might do well with one of those box toys with holes in them to help him learn to coordinate. When working with his hind legs to help him stretch today, his back popped. He seemed to be able to walk better after that today. He really needs your help to get his x-rays.

To help keep up with KFM between blog posts, I created a private Facebook group to see more photos of the 8 kittens and other kitties at KFM. Please join Friends of Katiez Furry Mewz on Facebook, to find updates on how Katie and all the foster Katz are doing in between blog posts. You can share how you and your furbabies are doing too. Let's stay in touch and support each other. If you are not on Facebook we can send news post by email or if you have other ideas of keeping in touch, please let me know. I am working on a private Flickr account for anyone who might bet there.

These precious fur babies need your help - they will soon be going to rescue to find forever homes, the first to go will be the three oldest boys. I will be working on a funding site and will have that info in the next blog post and at the Friends of KFM Facebook group. For these precious babies, please help them find forever homes fur the New Year... especially Hoppy who needs x-rays and Regina who needs her first booster shot. Please paypal friends to laugh_safely at yahoo dot com.

Purrz and Paddy Pawz,
Katie and the Katz of Katiez Furry Mewz.
We are joining Thankful Thursday Blog Hop cause we are so thankful to be safe and loved. -Hoppy and the Foster Kittenz