Friday, February 28, 2025

Petfinder Post: Always Something to Learn

I think my outdoor cat Serena is slowly recovering from the effects of poisoning. It's been an experience I hope everyone else can avoid, but it did prod me to update what I learned about cat diseases many years ago. (When our Founding Queen Black Magic came here I read everything I could get about the care and feeding of cats.)

The effects of poisoning didn't look like enteritis or like what we usually call distemper. I'll admit they did look like panleukopenia, but (1) Serena had enteritis as a kitten--not a bad case--so she was immunized to panleukopenia, and (2) Serena's grandkitten Drudge, who has never had enteritis and would logically have been the first to die if panleukopenia were going around, but who didn't cross the property line between mine and a nicer neighbor's woodlots, has never sniffled, while his mother died and his aunt and grandmother were so ill. Almost anything that goes badly wrong with a cat's body can look like panleukopenia, because "panleukopenia" means "all the white blood cells are damaged," so when a cat is diagnosed with that, everything is going wrong. But what damaged the neighborhood cats' blood cells was not the natural infection to which they were immune. 

We lost Serena's daughter Pastel. We lost Pastel's mate, a long-haired stray I called Borowiec after googling "male model with long red hair." We apparently lost the father of Serena's kittens, to whom I never gave a name, and Serena's other daughter Silver. We may have lost the two possums Silver proudly presented to me as her pets. (Social cats often do have pets--normal cats, or other animals.) If the poison has reactivated any virus we'll probably lose Drudge and the Manx tomcat I call Trumpkin, because they are social cats; you could set out more dishes than you had social cats, and social cats would still rotate around, each taking a sip or a nibble from every dish. Trumpkin and Silver have been sniffly when I've seen them. Serena was merely sniffly while Pastel was dying, and then her temperature went up and her symptoms looked just like Pastel's.

For about a week I was sure Serena was dying, she was wasted and feverish and glassy-eyed and generally a mess, but I gave her water with and without powdered food-grade charcoal in it. I had some of those cans of chicken from Wal-Mart that are advertised as "white meat...may contain dark meat"; she ate them, sometimes cooked with corn, rice, beans, and/or tomatoes, sometimes straight out of the tin. Cats who have panleukopenia usually die of dehydration so, although there is no cure, vets recommend giving them as much water as they can drink and a little chicken broth to maintain electrolyte balance. If the immune system was strong and the disease hasn't destroyed too many white blood cells, cats can recover from panleukopenia.

Food-grade charcoal is also sold at Wal-Mart--they put it in with the "nutritional supplements," though it is not nutritious, in fact it can block the absorption of nutrients, and CVS does better, displaying charcoal in with the over-the-counter digestive medications. The function of charcoal in the body is to soak up chemicals, including most poisons, some infectious diseases, some of the acid-alkaline reactions that cause flatulence, and also some vitamins and minerals, so it should be used only when the patient is sick. When the patient is sick charcoal seems to be safe and helpful for all species. It might not be recommended for panleukopenia, because before going down with that disease the cat would probably have been malnourished, and because the disease would be in the blood. It is recommended for poisoning. I could not have afforded a veterinary hospital, but instinct and intuition happened to guide me to do what a veterinary hospital would have done for Serena.

So Serena took some charcoal, reluctantly, and her nose cleared. She smelled food and ate and drank, greedily, trying to restore lost weight. Her temperature dropped. She got up and went outside--one cold night she left a puddle on the porch, but although she scurried back inside right away she went all the way to the sand pit most of the time. For about ten days she clung to me as if for moral support; then she seemed to feel more confident and curled up in warmer or cooler places. Day by day she slept less and moved around more. This week, we've had a real February Thaw after all, and she's seemed to want to spend some time outdoors, in the sun. She will not be spending time outdoors when I'm not at home, moving in and out, until the poisoner is in the sort of hospital where he belongs.

I know who it is...and if my cats hadn't been harmed, I would have been pleased to have such clear evidence. I have known who was trying to ruin the neighborhood for years now. The problem has been getting clear evidence. 

Serena chose her name as a kitten. She should not in theory have been able to hear words when humans started thinking of names for her. She ignored other proposed names but squeaked as if answering to "Serenity," then accepted "Serena" as a short form. She did not embody serenity but her sturdy, tough body and rough, aggressive, yet affectionate and motherly personality reminded me of Serena Williams, so "Serena" was the name that stuck. Most people would probably not like her; she usually wants a good fast game, so, having matured and observed my behavior, she's gone from slapping and nipping to doing anything that I've been known to get up to stop her doing, just to have an excuse to run away, tail waving, enjoying being chased. I adore her. I chase her up and down the road about as often as she allows me to pet her, as a show of real affection.

The property is a Cat Sanctuary. The cats are never kept indoors or outdoors; the cellar is their part of the house; the resident cats come and go as they wish. There aren't a great number of homeless cats in the area, and sometimes I've arranged to keep a few and they've been adopted before they were delivered here, but there is a big roomy cage where cats who need to be confined can stretch and climb a bit. (I know people would expect the cage to contain at least one shelter foster cat at all times, but none of the humans in the house wants to have strangers coming up to meet the foster cats.) There are also a few little carrying cages, which the cats who listen to words know as boxes, for short-term confinement, and a few baskets and cartons for kittens, which the cats also hear being called boxes--one tends to simplify the language when talking to Listening Cats. While Pastel was dying she wanted to be in a warm place and was not inclined to move, so she lay in a carton lined with newspapers near the heat. 

When Serena became ill she also wanted to be in a warm place, but not in a carton like Pastel. (She was still hearing words, and showed an aversion to any suggestion that she was like Pastel.) I spend most of the winter in the warmest room in the house, which is the one with the Net-free computers in it. 

I sit on a low, wide bench. You may remember having been told that it was healthier to sit with your knees bent at a 90-degree angle, which means on a seat about as far off the floor as your knees are, and then noticing that your knees are 14 or 15 or 16 inches above the floor, while most chairs are 18 inches above the floor. You could buy one of those ugly chairs on wheels that don't fit into any part of the house, but if you have even minimal skills it's easier to make a nice little bench out of cheap, thick plywood. If you have any carpentry skills to speak of you can put storage drawers in it. If you don't you can get some  large sturdy stackable crates (heavy plastic or wood) with one side lower than the others, stack them in two columns, put a matching board across the top, and store things in your desk drawers. Guess which I did...desk drawers of course!

Anyway, the bench is wide enough that I usually just lean over and  sleep on it rather than go into an unheated bedroom. So it has blankets stacked at one end. While she was ill Serena lay on a folded-up blanket right beside me. As she grew stronger and sassier, when I lay down she'd curl up on top of me and my blanket. I think she went from twelve healthy pounds (she's a big-boned, broad-framed, British-type cat because one of her ancestors was Manx), to seven or eight emaciated dehydrated pounds, to ten skinny but well hydrated pounds, all in one week. 

Then the Big Freeze passed, and Serena, no longer feverish, no longer craved warmth. She started spending nights on a storage box, watching for mice and crickets. 

I woke up one morning this week. Serena had awakened me by knocking the cover off an unsealed storage box. For an encore she then climbed up on top of her water bottles.

Serena is a spokescat for Pure Life bottled water. One evening when Twitter was still Twitter I'd got into a discussion of brands. I had been selling books in an open-air market with bottled drinks "for a dollar or free with a purchase"; on hot days chilled drinks sold well, and enough people asked for chilled water that the cats and I had compared a few brands. I mentioned that Serena had grown up being offered the first spoonful or so from the bottle of water I opened on coming home from market, and become an adult cat who, if I didn't pour a little bottled water into her dish even on a cold wet day, would look at me as if to ask "What's wrong?" During the next week a lurker from a local store told me that the store had had a problem with the brand we liked best, but the store would supply our second choice, Pure Life, so that I could show affection to Serena every day. I've been doing so ever since. 

And Pure Life is a pretty good brand of bottled water if, for some reason, you distrust your regular water source, or don't have one. It's preserved with traces of magnesium chloride. I've felt less stiff, on the day after an unaccustomed exertion, since I started drinking it. People usually notice stiff muscles more as they grow older. I think it's possible that I'm actually getting some benefit from the magnesium. 

Anyway, the bottles were in the office so they wouldn't freeze during the Big Freeze; when Serena jumped onto the plastic wrapper that surrounded them, they all fell over sidewise. So I said, "Why, you've not gone out for six hours! You must want to go out right now!"

Serena refused to go out. Instead she curled up on the floor as if she wanted to take a nap.

I looked at her incredulously. She really did go to sleep--as deep a sleep as cats seem to achieve. Some say they never do sleep as deeply as humans, but Serena stayed on one spot, barely moving, for more than three hours.

I understood her to "say," nonverbally but clearly: "I watched over you while you slept. Now it's your turn to watch while I sleep. Then I'll want to go out to the sand pit."

For a "cat lady" I've not shared sleeping spaces with a lot of cats in my life. When I have, they've usually been sick kittens--heat-seeking Velcro. 

Or Buster, a friend's cat, who let me know that the guest bed was his because he escorted his humans' guests toward it and stayed on top of the quilt while they slept in it. shws 

Or Murphy, the old boardinghouse cat who liked to dump his seventeen years and almost as many pounds on top of soft sensitive parts of people until they made their feelings clear. Throwing Murphy across the room was not enough. He had to be kicked, harder than a decent human wants to kick a cat, to receive the hint. I was actually fond of Murphy, a dignified and sensible old soul, but, to be able to sleep in peace, I had to convince him that I hated him. In order to avoid rearing any cats like Murphy I've generally led kitttens, after they got big enough to leave their mother's nest, into the big roomy cage for the night. 

But it seems entirely congruent with Serena's life and behavior that she would think of sleeping indoors with a human as watching over her human at night. She still has symptoms of illness, but she feels better and thinks she's running the whole house.

She has been invited to sit on my lap and participate in selecting the cutest adoptable cat and dog pictures in the urban hubs of the Eastern States. So far she's not doing it, despite a background-sound video featuring live chickens and a few wild songbirds in the trees around the cameraperson's chicken yard. Well, she's old enough to know that any bird a cat can catch is unlikely to be fit to eat. She also completely ignored a Kiffness video where the man improvised a song around a video of an e-friend's cat meowing. She did, however, tell me to be quiet and not sing along with Danit's "Cuatro Vientos" earlier in the evening. I'm not sure whether that meant she thought Danit's voice should be savored and not interfered with by singing along, or she didn't like the song and wanted it to be over.

The only benefit Serena and I get from this photo contest is that, if you share a photo with people near where an adoptable animal is, the animal might find a good home. Please share! (We're hoping, though, that since Petfinder is sponsored by Purina and Serena's always liked Purina Kitten Chow, we might qualify for some sort of deal on kibble.) Each week we try to pick different types of pets; this week's picks have thick, dark coats in common.

Zipcode 10101: Topaz and Tourmaline from NYC 



Two web pages tell one story. Topaz is the darker sister. These two June kittens are looking for a home together. They like to snuggle and play together. (Why is a "wand toy" preferred? Probably because a human has to bring it to "life" for cats to chase. Cats' interest in objects lying on the floor is limited but their interest in things humans move about usually lasts well into middle age.) They've been in a shelter long enough to be accustomed to other cats and dogs. 

Zipcode 20202: Goody from DC 


Goody is a small cat with a large coat. Her actual weight is seven pounds, and that's probably close to as much as it should ever be. I'm not sure whether it's possible for a cat to be a goody-goody, but presumably they mean that she's a good cat. She is available as a foster pet so you can find out for yourself. 

Zipcode 30303: Mirabel and Bruno from Atlanta



"Mirabel or Bruno?" I wondered, looking at their photos side by side on the index page. "They're both appealing but I think I've picked a picture like his before." When I read Mirabel's web page I thought it couldn't have been the same cat, because this brother and sister are available for adoption together. Their story is the old shelter cat cliche. Spring kittens, growing past peak cuteness in the shelter, born to someone who didn't want kittens and didn't make the time to prevent kittens. 

("Should we use the Nag photo, Serena?" I thought at her, considering her behavior as conversation.

"Whatever that is."

"A Nag is an old, tired horse, or an old, tired reminder for someone to do something. Like prevent kittens."

"Why ever would anyone want to prevent kittens?"

"Maybe they live in town and their street is full of cats with nothing to hunt."

"Well, I want more kittens, actually. That's why I'm taking my main nap in the office now. I'm avoiding Trumpkin and hoping a real kitten-daddy will come here tomorrow." 

"Well, there you are, then. You hated Trumpkin with a passion until he'd been neutered. Maybe other cats show the strong form of a lethal gene, and other cats of the opposite sex hate those cats, and, being very social, those cats won't be happy until they've been fixed so that they can't produce kittens. In any case, if people don't want kittens, they need to get those cats in for surgery now."

"Some cats may have started kittens last week! Some of us start kittens in the February or even the January Thaw. But it's not too late for male cats.")

Anyway, Mirabel and Bruno will not be producing kittens, separately or together, and their adoption fee includes a substantial vet bill. 

DOGS

Zipcode 10101: Effie from Texas by way of NYC 


I don't like the tone of her web page at all, but for the dog's sake I'll overlook it. Effie is a young poodle who's done well in her "rescue" environment and is expected to become a good pet. 

Zipcode 20202: Axel and Canada from Texas by way of DC 


Their story does raise some red flags. These dogs were "rescued from a backyard breeder"? Are we sure that this doesn't mean "stolen from their owners"? Local people usually have the information to know the difference, but when "rescued" animals are advertised far away from where they live, it's important to get both sides of the story. "Rescuing" does unfortunately have a certain built-in appeal to control freaks. Animals are not usually the ones who object to their being allowed to reproduce. When control freaks are told to go home and mind their own business, the world becomes a better place.

But when we know the facts, sometimes it is possible to adopt an "out-of-town pet" with a clear conscience. For example, huskies and malamutes tend to do better in cooler climates than Texas--or for that matter DC. When the "rescuer," now the dogs' "foster mom," says she'll deliver the dogs to other States or Canada, she may well be remembering them panting on the ground beside empty water dishes in last summer's heat. "Canada" is the black dog's name, but we associate sled dogs with a snowy country for valid reasons. 

There are other special considerations for adopting two untrained sled dogs. They weigh fifty and sixty pounds. Do you have experience wrangling large dogs who pull on leashes and don't want to visit vets? Axel, the white one, will lean his considerable weight against your feet and legs when he wants to be petted. Will that be fun for you, or painful, or even dangerous? They're strong, fast, and excitable--they need a strong, high fence around a yard big enough for them to race through. Do you have such a yard and fence? If you don't, their web page says, don't even ask. These dogs are not for anyone who once read Silver Chief or White Fang. They're expensive to adopt and will be expensive to keep. 

If you're accustomed to living with large dogs, and have the kind of time, space, and energy they need, please consider adopting them. Whatever they "have gone through" with the "backyard breeder," they're described as friendly, affectionate dogs with a lot to give the person who can meet their special needs.

Zipcode 30303: Kirby from Atlanta 

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(If you don't see a photo, just click on the link. Chrome is msibehaving.)


He's one of a litter of Australian-Shepherd-mix puppies. All are cute babies, likely to become handsome dogs. They need someone who is patient and firm with puppies. "Aussies" are neither from Australia nor ideal sheep herding dogs; the breed was developed in the US by someone who fantasized about raising sheep in Australia. They're pretty, they often but not always have a distinctively mottled coat that is produced by an undesirable gene, and they tend to have lots of energy. Purebred Australian Shepherds are big enough to need strong, fit humans to run with, but this litter's ancestors had been crossbred down for smaller size and Kirby's healthy adult weight is expected to be under twenty pounds. His plain black and white coat should be taken as a good sign--he's likely to run up lower vet bills than the glamorously mottled Aussies. And will he "herd" people to the door when it's time for his trot around the block? Remains to be seen. But consider Barb Taub's Oh My Dog and how much fun she had being herded by her Peri.

The dog seems like a keeper. I wish I could say as much for the shelter. Both the price and the demands they want to make are ridiculous. They want, among other things, to be assured that this little dog will be kept indoors. Well, he's just a baby; how well he'll be able to control his body remains to be learned. You might try haggling.

Then again, you might decide that the thick dark coat theme of the week means nothing to you, and adopt a short-haired dog, and live happily ever after. It's always possible that visiting a shelter, in real life or on Petfinder, will bring to your attention an animal you consider even more adorable than the one whose photo I picked. All to the good.
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