Promise not to wince ….
Yes, I know his eyes look painful. But other than those and a mild upper respiratory infection, he’s really quite happy. And no, he isn’t mine. I just participated in a rescue, and held him (in quarantine) in my house overnight Sunday …and smuggled him into my office Monday, until I could deliver him to a vet clinic Monday night, where his foster mother picked him up.
Dr. Eighteen Cats (she lost another, this time to cancer, two months back) called in a favor. One of her techs found a six week old kitten running around in a major intersection upstate on Saturday. The practice there doesn’t permit the techs to do free or low-cost rescue work – you bring it in, you pay full price for treatment. The tech couldn’t afford to pay much, so the kitten had a twenty-four hour deadline of get a home or go to a local animal shelter. The local no-kill shelter has had a very virulent pan-leuk outbreak, so the only option was the SPCA, which probably wouldn’t have held this guy for even a week to try and adopt him out.
The shelter I still volunteer for (just not as a member of the board) agreed to take this guy, even though we currently have over 60 kittens in the system, because Dr. Eighteen Cats helped us place an “unplaceable” cat last year. Since we didn’t have a foster available until Tuesday, I agreed to hold him overnight, and then take him to the vet clinic we use on Monday (they are closed Sundays). The clinic lets us board there on their third floor, which is devoted to our shelter’s cats that need medical treatment. Veterinary care costs us over $40,000/year, even with substantial discounts from this place, so we try not to over-use the clinic, but I really couldn’t keep Mr. Awful Eyes in our place for any longer than overnight. The Warrior Princess is fighting a medical battle of her own at the moment, and I didn’t want to risk our senior citizen any more than I had to. I also didn’t want to sentence this kitten to death by not taking him, though.
Since I ran the transport, and was his first foster (even though it was only for 24 hours), I got to name him. So, following are pictures of Douglas a.k.a. “Doogie”. I wanted to name him “Doogie” outright, but reconsidered when it occurred to me that no senior adult cat was going to like being called that. “Doogie” will be his nickname, and “Douglas” will be his real name. I figure that works.
He likes sleeping on his back. And I figured it was a good picture, since it showed him cute without showing his poor conjunctivitis eyes.
But there should be one face shot, so here it is. This is taken in my office, by the way, in case anybody wants to try for any clues as to who-where-what. When I had Doog in my office, I realized he wasn’t totally happy with the towels and handcloths I’d lined his cage with and made a little bed out of. I took the filters out of the Mr. Coffee Filter box I had, and gave him the box to curl up in and play with. This is exactly what he proceeded to do for the rest of the day.
Maybe I should have named him Joe DiMaggio.