New foster kitten - Mr Orange

Dorian Grunge is reborn! He passed away a few weeks ago and now I've got Mr Orange, a 3 week old male kitten I found in the parking lot of Hartamas Shopping Center in Plaza Damas. Mr O looks just like Dorian! Its spooky but nice to feel like I might have a shot at making things right and good with this one.

I found Mr O on Sunday night after dinner with my cousin ML and my parents. We were driving out of the parking lot when a little flash of color caught my eye. I turned to look and there was this tiny baby kitten sitting all alone in an empty parking space looking lost and terrified. I think I yelled something like "STOP STOP STOP!!!" at my dad. He stopped the car and I dashed out and picked up the little shit. He was soggy, filthy, wet and smelly but oh wow he was still so darn cute. Mr O hissed at me all the way home. You know the way baby kittens hiss, there isn't even any sound, just an opening of the mouth. So cute when they're pissed off. I love being threatened by something that fits in the palm of my hand :)

I set Mr O up in the guest bathroom. In the shower stall to be exact. He's so young and so small I don't want him wandering around and getting squished. Tried to feed him some canned cat food but he wasn't particularly interested. It occured to me that he might not really be weaned yet even though he's got little nubs of teeth coming in.. Tried to syringe-feed him KMR formula. He wasn't interested in that either. Eventually I stuffed food directly into his mouth thinking that he might not know how to eat real food yet. I've seen kittens go crazy after the first time they taste real food and look around eagerly for more. Mr O is not one of those kittens. He spat out the food.

The next morning I brought Mr O to the vet. He was dewormed and Dr L prescribed a course of antibiotics for an eye infection. There isn't any discharge coming from his eyes but his eyelids are very red and swollen. I told Dr L that I was having trouble getting Mr O to eat. She opened him a can of Hill's Prescription A/D. You know, the really freakin expensive shit. 8 bucks a can!!! And yeah he started chomping away. Thanks for your expensive taste Mr O! HMPF!!! But who can stay at mad at him? He's so cute he makes my eyes hurt. Last night he was sleeping in his box on an old t-shirt. He burrowed his face under and all I could see what his tail. When I woke him up for his dinner he looked up at me bleary-eyed and annoyed and then hid his face in the t-shirt again as if to say "go away! can't you see i'm sleeping?". When he finally did wobble out of his box, he gorged himself on his insanely expensive food, then tottered on shaky, babycat legs back in to sleep. It's sooooooo cute when kittens are still wobbly on their legs. They think they're all grown up and shit :) Too cute too cute!!!

Mr Orange will be available for adoption in about a month's time. As usual neutering and vaccinations are mandatory. Adoption procedure is outlined on the right sidebar.

Don't dump your pets!

The email below is actually AC's response to my 'RIP Dorian Grunge' post which I also sent to her as a personal email. She left it as a comment but I decided it deserved its own post because everything AC says is very meaningful and rings true for every animal that has been dumped, and also is a message for anyone that has ever or wants to dump their pet in the streets. Please read on below.

Dear L,

I still believe that Dorian was someone's pet at one time. He was not a feral cat. I don't know if someone dumped him at the pasar pagi, or whether he escaped from a home, but he clearly could not manage as a stray cat.

I would like to ask all those people who dump cats in markets and food stalls to take a good, long look at Dorian with his scars and scabs from fights, his emaciated little body, and the infections that were wringing the very life out of him. And I would like them to know that he rubbed his face on everyone and purred right to the very end. Please, people, don't dump your cats in alleys and figure they'll manage just fine. They won't.

I'm still crying for Dorian, but I know that the tears are really for every stray that's suffering as he did. I doubt I could be so affectionate to humans if I were in his condition. And aren't we blessed to have our healthy, sassy furkids to console us?

Me? I hope Dorian will come back in his next incarnation as a fat-cat UMNO politician with a will to pass some animal rights legislation with real TEETH!

Hugs to you, AC

RIP Dorian Grunge

Hi AC,

When I woke up this morning, I almost went into the guest bathroom to feed Dorian. I keep forgetting he's not in there anymore. Even during the night, there were times I woke up thinking I'd heard him meow. I had a good cry when I got home from your place. Haven't cleared up his bowls and litterbox yet. I'm just not ready to go in there and remove the last traces of him. His fur is still all over the cuffs of two pairs of jeans from his affectionate headbutting. I really shouldn't get so attached to these animals that pass through my life. It's not healthy. I must be nuts. Dorian was only with me a few weeks but I miss him! Why did the sweetest cat in the world have to have such bad luck? I really hope he could feel that he was cared for even though it was just for a little while and that I am thinking of him now.

I'd love to stop by your place for more chats and please come over and meet my cats. They're adorable! I think they knew I was upset yesterday and all crowded around me in my bed the whole night.. Or at least I was something warm for them to cuddle up to :) I'll take what I can get from the little shits.

Have a great week! Shower your furkids with love! They are so blessed.

L

Dorian Grunge - Glamour Shots

He might not be the prettiest cat but he definitely is the sweetest most affectionate one ever. Won't you give him a home?

Dorian Grunge

What are a grungy adult kitty's chances of getting adopted if he might have an incurable, eventually terminal illness? Does a bushy tail help? And the sweetest personality ever packaged into a tough little gangsta body with a rough piratey thug face? Surely there is someone out there that would love to care for this cat with his heart of pure melted chocolatey sweetness. Wouldn't you want to be the one to give him his happily ever after? Years of being a stray struggling in the streets and, upon rescue the discovery of horrendous blood test results pointing towards FIV or FELV. Some animals just can't get a break. How wonderful it would be if all rescues turned out perfectly.

My friend AC, fellow animal rescuer, fosterer, and welfare advocate, found Dorian Grunge by the roadside outside her home. He was going through the garbage looking for things to eat. He was painfully thin, filthy, and looked terribly ill. AC rushed back into her home for some cat food and her carrier. She placed the cat food inside the carrier and Dorian calmly walked in for his meal. AC brought him to the vet for treatment and boarding. Blood test results showed dismal platelet levels and elevated white blood cell count. Dorian seemed to be fighting some sort of infection and also appeared to have feline aids or leukemia. Booooooooo!!! The tests that specifically look for FIV and FELV are very expensive here.. Not something that we can afford at this point.. So Dorian is on a course of antibiotics to fight whatever infection it is he has and then the plan was to test his blood again a week later.

AC had to go out of town for a while so I agreed to take over Dorian's care for a while. He has been with me for about 10 days now and he is the sweetest, most affectionate cat i have EVER met in my life. He reminds me of Holly Golightly's cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Since Dorian is ill and possibly FIV or FELV positive I have been keeping him in my guest bathroom. The poor guy is pretty bored and lonely though because I can't spend all my time in there with him. Whenever I check on him he is thrilled to see me and immediately flops over on my feet, stretching and rubbing his face on me affectionately. He rubs so hard that sometimes he flips over or falls down but that doesn't stop him from purring like mad and continuing where he left off. Dorian is such a sweetheart. He also uses the litter box like a champ and hasn't messed up a single thing in the bathroom. Nothing is ever out of place when I go in there. While he keeps his environment neat, his personal hygiene leaves much to be desired. He's had baths before but he is so so so dirty. I don't think he ever grooms himself. Everytime i see him he is smudged and sticky and grey. He always has streaks of dirt on his face and body. All four paws are always dark with grime. I don't know how he gets that way though... There is nothing for him to get so messed up on in the bathroom. I am always wiping him with damp towels but within hours he is always filthy again. Very mysterious how this happens..

The first night I had Dorian, I tried to give him his antibiotics by stuffing it down his throat, which is what I do with my own cats and other fosters with no problem. But Dorian wasn't having that with me, he was pissed off and I failed several times to get him to swallow that yucky pill. When I finally did succeed, he had bitten me soooooo hard my right index finger was punctured and dripping blood. Yikes. By the way folks, NO you can't get FIV from a cat and FIV does not turn into HIV and kill you. If that were the case, rescuers and fosterers would be dropping like flies. Anyways I didn't want to get bitten anymore so after that I made wet foot meat balls and stuffed the pills into them. Soooo much better for both of us. I brought Dorian for his follow-up blood test a few days ago and while his white blood cells level is still very elevated, indicating he still has some sort of infection, his platelet level has improved. Honestly we weren't expecting that. Could AC and I be the goddesses of doom of gloom? Hahahaa just kidding AC.

So, what's going to happen to Dorian Grunge? I don't know... Can we find him a home with a loving owner that already has another FIV or FELV positive kitty? Or perhaps he could be adopted by a cat lover that has no cats right now.. but seriously what are the odds of that? People who love cats would normally already have a few of them. AC and I both have kitties of our own so we can't permanently adopt Dorian. If he lived with either of us he'd have to be isolated from all the rest all the time. Poor guy can't just spend the rest of his life alone in my guest bathroom. That would be cruel and drive him mad. This cat needs to be loved. Another option is, dare i say it, euthanasia.. but Dorian is so happy and affectionate right now and his appetite still rocks. Dorian's rescuer AC will be back in town soon and then I think it will be time to make some decisions about Dorian's future.

Any advice from fellow rescuers and fosterers? What would you do?