My human family’s story

My story wouldn’t be complete without my humans story. My humans have always loved and had pets, often requiring special care either through medical conditions or age. My new siblings have been telling me how lucky I am to have joined their family and telling me the history of my guardians furry family.

They started with adopting a friends two 4 year old cats Misty and Piper.

Little did my guardians know adopting these two would change their lives. After a while Piper started to demonstrate some difficulties jumping onto things and after many trips to the vet Piper was diagnosed with suspected Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy (cat mad cow disease) which meant my guardians having to care for him through this. Helping him use the litter tray, stopping his head from bobbing whilst eating and bathing him when when it al didn’t go quite right. They did so well caring for him that despite a poor prognosis of 6 months they enabled Piper to have another 6 years life with them before they had to let him go in 2005

When he was getting more poorly poor Misty didn’t really have anyone to play with and so another human friend said their cat had kittens and so they got Mia, she was only 5 weeks old at the time and needed lots of care but fitted in really well.

She provided companionship to Misty and enabled Piper to concentrate on enjoying life for as long as possible.

After Piper, with just Misty and Mia there was a gap left in the family and with Misty getting older Mia still had lots of energy to burn off as a young cat so along came Peppar.

Peppar came from a pet shop and was just such a nervous cat with so much anxiety and stress levels that went through the roof. He definitely had mental and emotional special needs. He was scared of everything and everyone. This was made worse by him having an eye ulcer when he was in the pet shop which needed treatment straight away and then when he had his follow up vaccinations he had a bad reaction to them and developed something that the vet called ‘brown eye’. Peppar told me it was really, really scary as a brown ‘film’ came up over both of his eyes. It was horrible and meant that he couldn’t see very well and he had to be given eye drops every few hours to help make his eyes less sore. All this happened when mummy and daddy were away for the weekend and one of their friends Isa was looking after all the feline family. He had to be taken to the vet by her and she had to give him his medication which she did very well and very gently and diligently but it wasn’t quite the same as being looked after by mummy and daddy. The medication and care given by Isa did the trick though and gradually the brown eye cleared up and everything was back to normal but it had a lasting effect on Peppar and made his confidence and anxiety even worse than before. With mummy and daddy’s love and patience though he is now a happy, reasonably chilled out cat, just getting nervous when there are loud unfamiliar noises or trips to the vet.

A couple of years before I came along Misty’s health started deteriorating because she was getting very old. Her arthritis and old age meant that changes needed to be made in the home to accommodate her needs. Often she couldn’t get to the litter tray quickly enough so my family bought mats to protect the sofa from accidents, they made a special low entrance, high sided litter tray for her out of a big storage container and had to give fluid therapy at home to combat kidney deterioration and keep her hydrated. She was happy but just old, she still had times when she would run around for a few minutes like a kitten!

Unfortunately in September 2017 after over 20 years being a big part of their family they had to say goodbye to her – she was 26. My new siblings said that Misty was the most kind and gentle cat, a proper old lady who wouldn’t hurt a fly or be anything other than a very proper cat. She left a huge hole in the family and mummy and daddy were very sad and missed her a lot as did Mia and Peppar.

For the first time no-one needed my guardians extra care they were used to giving. That’s when the search for someone special like me began and where they found Lynn at World Animal Friends.