Sanouk and Chico/Colby

It has been a year since Forest Gump died.  And in that year, much has happened.

Sanouk has turned 2 and is officially an adult cat.  He's a pudgy, darling of a cat.  Just as sweet as can be and is so friendly and involved in your life... that everyone wants to take him home.

For a long while, Sanouk moped around because he was missing Forest Gump.  He would open cupboards to try and find him.  And sleep where he used to sleep, whether it was a bin in a closet or a stack of towels that had just been folded and put away.

After awhile, I came realize that he needed a friend and that I needed another friend.  So, I met cats all over Maryland and Virginia and eventually brought one home.  He was a 3 month old flame point siamese with just the best personality.  Unfortunately, as much as Sanouk enjoyed having someone to play with, he got snooty about interacting with people and the new cat.  He disliked how the new cat liked all of his toys and that he now had to share everything.

Sanouk also disliked the kitten's litterbox habits.  The kitten had chronic urinary tract infections and needed to see a vet on a daily basis.  Being sick, myself. I could handle the amount of work he needed for getting well again.  I chose to return him to the rescue and after 2 months of daily special care, he was well enough to find another forever home.  It was a hard thing to do, but the right thing to do.

The past year.

I adopted Sanouk. a lilac point siamese kitten for Forrest in July 2010. Forest and I had moved to our very first home of our own. Without the rest of my family nearby, Forest was lonely and I thought our family needed to grow some more. He loved Sanouk very much and loved to learn from his actions and lick him all over. I've never met two cats that liked each other as much as they did. With Sanouk, Forest learned how to stop biting- that biting actually hurts.

The following spring, I went out to dinner with a friend, I was gone an hour and came back to a house that wasn't the same as it was before I left. Forest was crying, loudly, and he never cries, so I knew that something was very wrong. When I found him, he was laying behind the washing machine- trying to hard to get out and his eyes were glued to mine. It was immediately clear to me that he couldn't get out and the machine would need to be moved, my friend moved it, I squeezed into the space and he crawled into my lap... dragging his hindlegs behind him. He had peed on himself With me where he wanted me to be, Forest purred. Heartbreaking when your little boy is in such pain and all he wants is his mom and to feel better.

I told Forrest to the emergency vet hospital where they diagnosed him with massive heart failure and no pulse in his hind legs. There was nothing they could do... and I had to hold his paw, look into his eyes and help him make the journey across the rainbow bridge.

Forest is now buried next to Abby, my burmese baby girl, on my parent's property, under a beautiful great mertle that blooms all summer and fall while attracting lots of butterflies and birds. Other than staying in my arms, he's in the safest place he can be.

Being fluffy makes it easy to forgive Forest

Forest is many things, but one thing no one has ever not agreed with... is the fact that this cat is fluffy and when he walks, his tail fur plumes out behind him in such a manner that it is nearly impossible to resist petting him. This is a good thing for Forest, because it makes it easy to forgive him when he does things he shouldn't.

So, what does Forest do that requires forgiving? He has a tendency to give me black eyes in the morning when he jumps on my eyes to get me to wake up, feed him, and play with him. If jumping on my eyes isn't an option, he'll bite 'till I bleed- it's his way of getting what he wants RIGHT now. In recent weeks, he's figured out to get some of the things he wants... without my assistance. He now knows how to open drawers and tightly sealed containers to obtain all of his favorite things... such as bread, muffins, my watch, my hearing aid, and my glasses. Once something has been obtained, he hides each item in a separate spot. The food is just because he wants to eat it, my hearing aid, glasses, and watch... he takes and hides those because knows that those are 3 things I never leave my house without. So, if he's got them, he figures I'll have to stay home with him. There are other people in this house... but I am the only one that receives this treatment from Forest.

Yep, it sure is a good thing that this little cat is so fluffy and that when he's nice, I feel so loved that I tend to forget and forgive his transgressions on my body, possessions, and food. He knows he's my cat, and he's made sure that I know he's mine. :-) Forest... you just gotta love him.

Moving towards normal

After Forest was neutered at nearly 7 months old, many things changed overnight. All of which, I'd consider major, simply because of how dramatic each change was.

When he was neutered, he was just over 3 pounds and his growth rate was averaging a quarter of a pound a month.

When the vet technician brought him out and talked with me about how to take care of him and what to expect in the future since his body chemistry was now permanently altered, she told me that he wasn't going to grow anymore and that he needed to go off of kitten food so he wouldn't become highly overweight.

I, of course, did not do the diet change. I had spent so many months just getting him to eat and get to his current fat (but really pathetically skinny) weight, that weight gain would be welcome. There was no way I was going to tamper with Forest's slow upward climb away from constant uncertainty of his staying alive. And since Forest has always confounded doctors and people who have raised an extraordinary number of cats, sometimes it is best to just go with your gut.

So what happened? The plain and simple answer is, Forest started growing. Today, at a year and 2 weeks old, Forest now weighs 7.3 pounds.

And after much trial and error, I've found an adult cat food that agrees with him. Purina Indoor Cat is one that he'll eat and where I can definitely see an improvement in his mental and physical health. Interestingly, when I first started bringing home lots of bags of cat food, I let him smell the bags and would open the one that he paid attention to the most. In the end, the bag that he ultimately showed the most interest in, was Purina Indoor Cat. It makes me wonder how many bags I would have gone through if I had simply bought them all at once and kept only the one he showed the most interest in.

Before I move away from talking about food, I'd like to mention that Forest continues to go crazy over potato bread and he still occasionally gets home cooked food like turkey bits and juice, and cooked salmon.

Several other things changed after Forest went under his little snip-snip procedure. Forest stopped meowing and learned how to bite. And when I say he learned how to bite, I mean BITE with capital letters, because he would bite so hard that he'd end up drawing blood. My hands, arms, and feet are covered in healed, or still healing battle wounds. Why did this start? I was given doses of painkillers to give Forest at set time intervals and the biting always increased the closer time would tick towards his next dose. I am sure he was in pain and wanted to tell me that so that I'd fix it.

After he healed, the biting didn't go away, my family and I tried so many techniques, but nothing worked. It basically became one of those things you learn to live with. It was something I was sure would go away over time, perhaps after I got my own place and could get a little friend for Forest.

Anyway, I took him to the vet on Saturday because his ears were red, hot, and had black stuff in them. I had been trying to resolve it by cleaning his ears often. But since my efforts had no lasting effect, after two weeks, I decided that he needed a trained professional's assistance. Two weeks was way long enough. The vet, diagnosed him with ear infections. His ears were deeply cleaned, and so very gently- I was impressed. I left with a special solution to clean his ears with, medicine drops to put in them, and an oral antibiotic. The result has been nearly instantaneous. His ears are no longer pink, they are clean, and he seems so much happier.

The most amazing change has been the fact that since his vet visit, he has not bitten me or anyone else. Normally, every day, I'd get roughly 170 bites. Waking up to a purring cat is much much better. The vet visit and drugs cost me close to $300, but it was worth it. This just makes me wonder if he's had these ear infections for much longer than I was aware of a problem with his ears. I try hard to listen and pay attention to Forest, but there are some days that I wish that he was really able to communicate.

Speaking of communication, Forest may not meow any longer, but he has learned how to get my attention and tell me what he wants when he wants something. When he wants bread, and I've got a kitchen drawer open, he'll jump up on it and walk around and around the edge of the drawer. Or if he wants to be held, he'll stand up on his hind legs and stretch his paws up my leg and kneed until I pick him up. He now even brings me some of his toys so that I'll use them to play with him.

My mom says that there was a reason Forest came into my life, I needed to be needed, and to have a challenge, and Forest needed massive amounts of TLC fine tuned just for him.

I'll be posting photos of this very fine boy, very soon.

Mini Update

One of these days I'll find time to do a real update, but this little bitty bit will have to be enough for now.

Forest is still with me. He's very fluffy, does a good job cleaning himself now. He's also eating dry food and these days it is only on an occasional basis where he gets spoiled with potato bread and cooked meats. He's a nice hefty 7 pounds now and he's still growing. He may just be the world's slowest growing cat. :-)

In less than a month, Forest and his siblings will be a year old. It feels like just yesterday that I was bottle feeding them, teaching them how to eat real food and to use the litter-box.

Little Forest and I are on the road most weekends to visit people up and down the east coast. He's a fabulous traveller and loves meeting resident cats to play with.

When I eventually buy a place of my own, Forest will very likely obtain a foster friend. In my present living arrangements, I'm not currently allowed to have more cats than Forest.

Tricking a Picky Eater

Forest is a picky eater, he always has been- even when he was nursing from the bottle.  To get this little boy to get enough calories in him, I had to feed more often and supplement his diet with Nutri-Cal for a long time.

I've heard people say that it is harder to get a cat to lose weight than it is to get them to gain.  I disagree with this vehemently. When you have a picky eater, or a kitty that is not well, they lose weight, and fast.  And the amount of time you have to fix whatever is wrong, shrinks with every ounce lost. I'd much rather have a fat cat than a skinny one.

For months, Forest was on wet Prescription A/D.  It was the only food he could keep down fairly well (threw up once a day, rather than after every meal) and which he'd eat.  I tried many, many different types of foods, warming it, chilling it, watering it down, and etc.  It was so very frustrating have a little kitten that just wouldn't grow or get fat at all.  When you think of a kitten, the image of one where you can feel each and every bone in his or her body and your own fingers through their gut is not one that comes readily to mind.  

For the most part, Forest's diet is called, "If he'll eat it, he can have it."  As with anything, Forest is not allowed to eat just anything at all, not everything is good for a cat to eat, and many can actually be detrimental to their health.

I've had experience with picky eaters and low weight cats, but I can honestly say that the support I've gotten from other volunteers at Fancy Cats greatly helped me with Forest.  They've given me many techniques and names of foods to try, and sometimes even food.  Having people I can call with any questions I might have, whether it is food related or not, has been a great benefit of being part of this rescue group.  My stress on whether I'm doing things right is much lower than it otherwise would be.

Little Forest is quite spoiled and well loved in my family.  He eats multiple little meals throughout the day.  My mother makes turkeys just for him and will save a little portion of meats she makes for the rest of the family for him (his portion never contains spices of any kind).  

Forest loves my mom's turkey and will cry and cry for some more of it, but I really don't want him to eat turkey and human food as a regular part of his diet.  I really want him to get onto a normal cat diet.

Thus, with Forest's addiction for turkey and my own determination and creativity, a means of giving both of us what we want has been devised.

With this handy product, which is SODIUM FREE, all I have to do is add water and Forest gets the flavor he wants, and I get to get him to eat cat food.  When I first started adding this flavored water to Forest's food, I had to drench the food in it, but over time I've been decreasing how much I put in.  Now I've gotten to the point where he'll look at me and I'll just have to spray the food I want him to eat (with a water bottle filled with the chicken flavored water) and the initial flavor will be enough to get him moving along with eating the cat food.  As far as cat food, he currently only eats Baby Cat, which has tiny kibble.  This is the only brand of cat food he is willing to eat right now.

Hat Gear

Hat gear for Forest.  He didn't fit in this at Halloween, so now that his head is the right size, he's making up for lost time.

I rather like the horns and was amazed at how fine he was about something being strapped to his head.  You can see from the chin strap that even though the hat fits, it is still a tad large for him, but that's okay since it gives his ears more room to twirl about.

Sometimes you just can't pass up things in the dollar bin at Target.  Forest in his little horn covered hat sure made me smile.  Especially when he was playing with it on and "rushing" towards a toy like a little rhino.