Foster Love!

There's lots and yet not so much to update on Roz. Her eye is still showing the effects of the herpes virus. We were originally going to wait it out to see if the ulcer fell off and healed on its own. It's now getting a little worse and so we've added another prescription eye drop to her regimin. If that doens't work, then we'll try something else. She can still see out of the eye just fine, so there's no blindness there. But it does look less than stellar to anyone who doesn't know what's going on.

All things considered, Roz is handling life just peachey. She's a snuggler to be sure. Sometimes she absolutely monopolizes my lap. And to prove it, here's a selection of recent photos taken entirely from my lap.













Oh except for these ones, they were later. And they are gratuitous examples of those PINK TOES I tease her about.

Today I was lucky (hmmm, never thought I'd say this) enough to witness Roz poop. She has Finally gotten back to a firm consistency. I'm very proud of her. I tell ya, yogurt really does do the trick to put the digestive system back in order again after antibiotics.

I'm still working on getting her weight up. Now that she has firm regular poop, it should be easier. The next trick is to get her eye cleared up. It's still just a teensy bit weepey. However, that could possibly be because I'm having work done on my apt and she gets stressed out over being locked in my bathroom with the other 4 cats. She much prefers her space. I can't say that I blame her.

But hopefully I can get her on track to be ready for Adopt A Pets at PetSmart by either this week or next. I'm very excited.

It's been a while since I've updated on Roz. All in all, she's doing well. She finished her last bit of antibiotics last week, so I'm waiting on her stool to firm up again. She's also developed a bit of a weepy eye, so I've got to get some eye meds, but that's easily cleared up. And she's definately put on some weight, which is Awesome! In fact, if it wasn't for her loose stool and weepy eye, I would have ventured to take her to the Adopt A Pet yesterday. She's still skinny, but not alarmingly so anymore. She would have put the weight on faster if it wasn't for the loose stool from the antibiotics.

( Here's some progress pictures: )

Oh Roz. She's such a lover! She's been my shadow over the last couple of nights. And tonight she laid down on my stomach and rolled over so I could pet her tummy. And then she kneaded the bread and purrred and purrred and purrred.

I was hoping I would be able to show some progress pictures today. But other than her demeanor and trust, there's not been much progress on the weight gain. She is eating well. But she developed a respiratory infection from the stress of changing homes and her antibiotics gave her severe diarrhea. I have been christened a couple of times with the runny poo. But now I've got some meds to get her diarrhea under control and hopefully once that stops, the weight will start coming on. She feels really good, so that's at least some progress.

Today I learned a little bit about what kind of condition she was in once they were able to catch her in the shelter to get her to a foster. Once she got to the foster's home she would eat, but wasn't able to keep any food down. It took several weeks of syringe feeding to get her to where she was when I got her. A big thanks goes out to her previous foster for doing all the truely hard work and bringing her around from a truely terrible state. When people drop their cats off at a shelter, they just don't realize that in a matter of days their cat can go from healthy to near death simply from the stress of the abandonment and it takes longer to rehab the cat than it does for the cat to deteriorate.

Roz is settling in better and better every day. In fact, yesterday was the last day I'll be locking her in the bathroom with Toby at all. She and Taquita still have their hissy fits every so often, but she likes nibbling on dry food better than the wet food and since I can't leave dry food out with Toby and she's generally doing ok out on her own with my cats, there's no reasonto lock her up anymore.





She likes to sit on me at night when I'm on the couch. I'm working on getting her to let me cut her nails when she's sitting with me.

Roz can't seem to decide whether she wants to trust me or not. It's kind of funny. If I come to her, she freaks out and runs under the bed and we do this "catch me" dance for a while before I finally catch her and put her in the bathroom with Toby. But sometimes she remembers that if she lets me catch her, there's going to be lots of pettings and attention. And she LOVES that, so she'll come right to me.

Right now she's sitting behind me in the computer chair. Just chillin'. She's also eating ok as well. She seems to want to eat in small quantities throughout the day. And that's ok because she can have wet or dry food and my cats are free fed dry food all day and then I take it up at night so Toby can't get to it. During the day she and Toby are left with wet food and I think she rations that. I'm ok with that as well. I'm just glad that she IS eating consistantly. But since she eats so little at a time, I've begun adding canola oil to her breakfast to add calories and hopefully put some weight on her. Actually, Toby could use to gain some as well, so he get's the oil as well in his breakfast.

I've only had her for 3 nights now, so she's far from showing any weight gain. But her coat looks good and other than a respiratory infection which I'm sure is caused by the stress of changing locations again, she's bright eyed and bushy tailed. She was already getting some personal care at a foster home before I got her, so the Really hard part was already done, actually.

Awww, she's lovin'm me up right now. She is Such a sweetie! And Taquita is gradually coming around and slowing down the hissing. Maybe by next week they'll be completely ok with one another.

Today I brought home a new foster. She was brought to the shelter with her sister Daphne some time ago. They were being fostered by their original parents for a while, but eventually they couldn't stay at the home anymore. A family member apparently developed an allergy.

( Roz and Daphne were both pretty big girls when they came in. Not fat at all, just big girls. Here's some pictures for reference at the beginning. )