Kitty update!

The mummy cat which I brought home from the hospital along with her two kittens (the black and the orange one) has given birth last week!

Last Thursday morning, we were preparing for sahur and lo and behold mummy cat had already completed delivering her 4 kittens.

Two of the kittens had similar colourings as Bubu (the daddy cat; Bubu your absence is missed daily...), one is a tortie and the other completely black.


Takde kerja lain melainkan makan dan tido.



Ini anak kucing ke apa nie...?? Hahaha...


Wrong way little kitty!!


Bubu junior

Other than that, the little white kitten which was the sole survivor of the three siblings has also passed away a few days ago.


Sadly, I was not able to save any of them.

Everytime a kitten I rescue dies, I want to make myself promise to never bring anymore home. When they are too little when they are separated from mummy cat, their bodies lack the natural immunity that the mummy milk provides so most of the time, they usually don't survive if they get an infection while awaiting their 2 month old vaccination. I try my best, but I am racked with guilt every time a kitten dies; it's as if I have failed them.

The other kitten I took from the hospital's canteen - we are calling her 'kurap tinger' for the moment - is also doing well. We call her that because when I first found her, both of her ear flaps were covered by scaly 'kurap'. I first met her while doing rounds and my first attempt at bringing her home was foiled when she ran away. I kept looking for her and she even turned up in one of the wards while I was doing my on call, but it was only about 2 weeks later that I picked her up as she was begging for food at the canteen.


Ever so sweet and manja.

She is lovely now - not a hint of 'kurap' on her ears, thanks to a jab we got at the vet - but still needs some fattening up. She is half the weight of my other cats. At first, the other cats gave her a hard time and shunned her, being the newbie but she seems to be doing better now. She still can't give up her life as a stray though - most of my cats don't wander too far from home even after being let out of the cages - and often would explore the surrounding territories and spend the night outside.

How many now, do I hear you ask? Nineteen, the last time I counted.......okay, will definitely stop now.......

Each of my cat has a story...

and this is Jimi's.

Jimi is the only cat in my household that I didn't 'rescue'. The owner of the eating place that Abg frequents offered him to Abg. I still remember the day Abg brought Jimi home. Abg had just pulled into the parking area and I thought was taking a long time to come over. When I looked over, Abg beckoned at me excitedly and told me to look under the seat.



This fluffy ball of white fur was sitting there, so quietly and didn't make a sound as I pulled it out. I remember feeling so sorry for him, being taken away from his home and forced to live with strangers; instead of leaving him in the cage, I put him in a box in the room.

Imagine my surprise when in my sleep that night, I reached over in between my pillow and Abg's and felt something mushy. Safe to say, Jimi sleeps in the cage from that night onwards.



Jimi is the 'samseng' of the group; he is unafraid of anything. He would be the only one to nonchalantly walk out of the house compounds unto the road and once, jump unto the paddy field across the road. I still remember watching this white fur jumping in and out the green grass chasing grasshoppers.



I was in a cheery mood this morning as I walked into the vet. When the vet assistant told me the bad news, all I could focus on was seeing his unmoving body. He was already cold. I hope his passing was painless.

In a way, I could feel how ridiculous all this sounds, yet my furkids are like a part of the family. Each of my cats have their own personality and the loss of each one leaves a void that can never be replaced.

Rest in peace my little one. You will be missed.

Bubu Bubu Where Art Thou.....?

Bubu is missing.

Usually Bubu sleeps with us in the room, and yes, on the bed. He does though, have this annoying habit of waking up at in the wee hours of the morning, mewing to be let out. Since he is left to prowl outside, normally he would come home in the evenings for his dinner. I was on call on Wednesday and Abg hasn't seen him since.

BTW, the little orange kitty has died. Sedih.

It's now been two nights in a row that Bubu hasn't come home. Neighbours who recognise Bubu as our cat has not seen him either. Last night (I was conked out post call) Abg even went to look for him but nothing.

Sigh.

I hope he is okay. If he comes home, off he will go to the vet. Serious. I hope Bubu doesn't follow in the pawstep (paw, foot, geddit?) of Cumi who has gone off and not come home.

Nothing in particular

Poor Cumi has been having a bad cold for the past week. His eyes are all swollen and red and he's is sniffling all the time.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by the flu that is making the rounds amongst my cats. The three youngest who first caught it have yet to recover despite getting jabs and now three more cats have been infected.

The only consolation is that despite the runny nose and swollen eyes, all seem to be eating well and running all over the place. Except for Che'Mot whom I think must have some sort of liver disease by the way how distended his tummy is.



My new cage has arrived! I think I will draw a line and stop the madness here. No more stray cats and certainly no more cages. But at least they have more space to stretch out and lie down.



Ruru seems to be doing well. He seems pretty chummy with Che'Lan and spends a good time rolling around and pouncing on each other.

The mother of the three strays will be getting spayed tomorrow. We've been keeping them in the spare cage during the night as the last few days it has been raining in the evenings. Yesterday, silly mummy cat left with the two red/orange tabbies. She's been coming back for food but her two kittens are nowhere to be seen. At least the black one has had some sense to stay put. I hope the two kids are alright. Tried looking for them; they usually come running when I make the 'tsk tsk tsk' sound - but nothing.

Update!

I think I just can't be bothered with a separate blog for my furkids, so in the meantime my cat stories will be here.

BEFORE



AFTER







Anyhow, I am putting this family up for adoption. I found them at my hospital's casualty. Apparently they were found sleeping all over the place and one of the kittens died a few days ago. I can't keep them due to the lack of space and the fact that the four 'mousecateers' - Che'Mot, Che'Lan, Che'We and Ruru (though this one's already recovering) have the cat flu and have been sneezing all over the place - just shows me how badly I need more cages which I can't get at the moment.



I hope future mummy and/or daddy to the kittens would be able to adopt them together or better still the whole family. I'm hoping to spay the mother soon and maybe rereleasing her.



This one's got a light dusting of white fur on top of the black. Nice long perfect tail too. It would be interesting to see how kitty turns out.



This one's smaller than the black one. Both are still dependant on the mummy cat so adopters might have to wait for 2-3 weeks before they can be weaned off mummy. Of course, if you take the whole family, you'll be able to take them straight away!

The 13th Warrior?

Had a visit to the vet today. Vet wasn't in but was attended to by a student vet (assumption based on the UPM t shirt she was wearing) who impressed me.

Che'mot whom I found loitering at the labour room haven't been well. Despite being given the best food, he had never put on weight. But I was not worried before because he was still eating and playing as only Che'Mot would - Che'Mot is the moody and reclusive type, unlike my other baby Che'Lan who jumps all over the place like nobody's business - but the past week he began to look almost cachectic. I wanted to get him to the vet earlier but he improved slightly in the middle of the week.

The student vet suggested antibiotics and some vitamin paste which I've already started to give. As a last resort I bought a can of Prescription Diet which is supposed to promote healing and provide energy. He seemed to be receptive to it but he still looks very lethargic.

But anyway, as we were waiting for the student vet to finish up with Che'Mot, this little 'warrior' came scrambling out. Abg who thought it belonged to the store/animal hospital alerted the shop assistant but apparently little kitty was found abandoned there this morning.

As much as I detest people who throw away unwanted kittens (hel-lo? Haven't you heard of the concept of family planning?) at least I have to give the person some credit for letting lil kitten go at a place where it might be taken care of instead of being splashed with hot water or smacked with a broom.






Okay, she might not look much now but wait till the eye discharge and swelling resolves and the skin infection clears up.....she will be a beauty, I'm sure.

I said to Abg that this will be the last stray we rescue - there's just not enough space - but Abg just rolled his eyes in mock amusement.

What do you think?

I'd rather talk about my cats than work, thanks!

Work has been very ......puzzling.

Yes, it is an unusual word to use but I am finding the transition of HTM from a district hospital to a hospital with specialists very confusing.

Rather than go into details and run the risk of being interrogated by my bosses, I shall now begin by writing about Fizzy.

When we found Fizzy, we had just lost one of the small kittens left in a box in front of our house. Actually, a pair was left in the box, mewing their lungs out in the shrubbery. One of them survived to about 6 months of age before being knocked down by motorbike riding school kids. We then started to keep them in until after the morning rush has subsided.

Anyway, I remember that it was the fasting month and it was drizzling. We had just visited Abg's uncle at HM and wanted to stop by at the Pasar Ramadhan. A silver Waja drove out of a space and Abg wanted to park there when I saw a ball of greyish fur huddled there. I quickly jumped (can you imagine me JUMPING? No? Then maybe jumping isn't the right word to use here, haha) out of the car and picked grey ball of fur up.

A shopkeeper was amused by my antics and I asked her if kitten belonged to her and she said no. We left grey kitten in the car while we went shopping and he has been living with us since.







Fizzy grew attached to another kitten we had who was about the same age - Fifi. They would go on walks together (berderat, as we say it here), eat together, play and sleep together. Alas, Fifi was knocked down a motorbike. Abg actually thought it was someone else's cat until he saw the red collar.



So nowadays, Fizzy is more or less a loner. Bubu gets into his mood swings more often nowadays but at least they can still sleep on the same bed. Fizzy sleeps with us too, by the way. There were times when we would find nice brown lumps, usually at the corner near the wardrobe, behind my printer but luckily findings like that have been almost non existant now.



Because Fizzy is younger than Bubu, occasionally he gets bullied by Bubu but actually Fizzy is more of the machoman compared to Bubu. He would catch mice and play with it to his heart's content. I find that the younger cats look up to Fizzy like the elder brother and just loves to follow him around.



Fizzy has a white spot on his back. I'd like to think it as his special thing. He has grown really heavy the past few weeks.







This is Fizzy's I-can't-believe-you-are-taking-my-pic-while-I'm-trapped-here face.



Sometimes, when Bubu isn't around or when he is nice enough to let someone share his perch on top of the wardrobe, Fizzy likes to climb up as well.

Tales of my cats...

Apparently some of my colleagues have gotten hold of my blog and are actually reading the nonsense I am writing.....hello you-know-who-you-people are!! Hahaha...

So, that means I can't write about my colleagues (tapi I tak pernah mengumpat korang okeyyy) and I certainly can't write (badly) about my boss (haha) and my patients (and their relatives) sometimes don't warrant my time tapping away on the keyboard with my crappy Slowmyx connection.

I have 12 cats to date - I know! How did they get to be so many?; if I were single, I'd probably be known as the crazy cat lady who ended up dead and her cats made a feast of her body. Urgh.

Bubu is my 'anak sulung'. It was last August when I found him loitering around the OPD, all thin and scruffy. Seriously, he was so 'comot'.



Didn't I say he was scruffy? He was very vocal back then - we wanted to train Bubu to do his business in the bathroom so at nights, we would lock him up. He would be mewing his lungs out till he fell asleep. It worked, though. Bubu sleeps with us on the bed and will always poo where he is supposed to.



Bubu has the nicest personality when he was growing up. Being the only cat in the house at that time, he was very attached to us yet he was equally welcoming to the other members of the family. People would carry him around, and he wouldn't mind. Kids could be yanking at his tail and he wouldn't care.



Bubu grew up (and out) wonderfully under our care. He lost his emaciated look and became a handsome cat indeed. His tail surprised us the most - we never thought it would become so fluffy!



Bubu is about a year old now. I am planning to neuter him soon but just couldn't find the time. Apparently cats get fatter and become healthier after 'snip snip' but currently he's still well behaved - none of that peeing on the wall business - but I HAVE seen him on 'dates' with the female cats around and he has been getting into fights with the other tom cats.



Bubu loves to sleep. All he does is sleep, eat, sleep some more, eat some more and sleep. He would go for his daily rounds outside at about 8 at night but would always come back in time for bedtime with us. Yes, Bubu sleeps with us on the bed, in the air conditioned room.



Occasionally when he gets tired of the bed, he would climb unto the wardrobe and sleep there.






This is Bubu's will-you-please-stop-taking-pictures-please face. and Yes, he was sleeping at that time. Hence the pissed off face.



I still can't get him to catch mice though. Despite his gentle nature, Bubu is a scaredy cat. In fact, I think the term 'scaredy cat' was probably created for Bubu. He's especially afraid of the vacuum cleaner, will run a mile once we switch it on.

The thing I look forward most at the end of a work day (apart from seeing Abg, of course) is to watch my cats. As most cat lovers will tell you, each one has a personality of their own. Just like kids and as long as I haven't got any and even after I have my own, my cats will be my kids.....

Next - Fizzy..