Taking in yet another kitty

We've had an absolutely beautiful blue brittish shorthair tom cat living in our laundry room (there's a doggy door) since December. Now he's pretty much at our house 24/7 and he's really wormed his way into our hearts and we've pretty much decided to keep him (which will bring our total up to 5 cats :shock: )

We really don't think he has an owner because he's always at our house and he was losing weight until we started putting food out for him. Plus we took him to the vet today and had him scanned but he doesn't have a microchip (no big suprise). We've also been keeping an eye out for missing cat posters/ads and haven't seen anything.

Originally we were just going to get his vaccinations so he wouldn't pass anything to our cats through the screen door, but he's such a lovely cat that we figured if we're going to be spending the money to feed him & keep him up to date on his shots, we might as well just keep him.

We're still leaving him outside for now but we have an apointment for Emily & Ten to get their shots next month so we'll thake him in too. After that we'll quarantine him for a few weeks to make sure he doesn't introduce anything (Ten is FeLV+), to give us time to get him his 2 FeLV shots, and to get him neutered.

As far as exposure to FeLV is concerned, mom has done tons & tons of research and found that unvaccinated cats over 14 months old only have a very slim chance of getting FeLV. Vaccinating reduces that chance to almost 0%. And of the ones that do get it, most are able to fight it off. So we're really not too worried about it (we already have 2 negative cats and one that was positive, but is now negative).

Anyway, here's a pic:


We've named him Ghost Kitty because for the first few weeks, my dad never saw him and he thought mom & I were just seeing things.

-Chelle

 

He's beautiful! He must have known you guys were s_ckers for cats when he moved himself in.

 

Wow. He is stunning! He looks like my Chieve on steroids. LOL.
Good luck with everything.

 

OOOH! I like him, he's gorgeous! He looks like the cat "Church" from Pet Semetary

 

How pretty! I love that coloring! Nern, I thought he looked like a puffed up Chieve too!

 

wow he is beautiful...what a big boy...congrats

 

chelle, he's a cutie! Does he let you pet him? Is he friendly? Or does he hiss and shy away?

 

He really is pretty. His fur is really dense and has pretty silver highlights, especially around his face. He is pretty big too. He's lost some weight since he first showed up, but he's starting to put it back on. The first time I picked him up, I'd say he weighted at least 13lbs (and he's not fat). We tried to get his weight today when we got him scanned for a microchip. He woudn't really hold still, but he's probably around 11lbs now. And his front paws are around 1 3/4" across.

He started off a little skittish (never any hissing or or any kind of aggression, just leariness & running away), but after a few weeks if we sat down & were really still he'd come up and roll all over while being petted. Now when we go out he runs right to us.

I can tell he & Ten want to play with eachother so bad, but they have to wait a while. We are a tiny bit worried because Romeo is a declawed male (we didn't declaw him), but both are pretty mellow & easy going, so I don't think there's going to be a big problem. Romeo tends to take his cues from Ten so if she accepts Ghost Kitty, he probably will too.

-Chelle

 

He is gorgeous! He looks bigger than he actually is. Ghost Kitty reminds me a lot of Garfield, lol. I'm glad he's settling in nicely!

 

He's inside now.



We were going to wait until Friday when we'll get him his shots, but it's supposed to be very cold with freezing rain/snow for the next couple of days so we went ahead and brought him in tonight. He got a flea bath (why he's wet in the pic) and I didn't see any fleas so that's good. He'll stay quarantined until we get all his shots and probably until he's neutered.

-Chelle

 

Best of luck with him!

 

He looks much, much smaller without his fluffy fur! :mrgreen: He is so cute! :y_the_best:

 

LOL. He's still pretty stocky. His head is about the size of a softball.

-Chelle

 

Yes, absolutely. He's a real hunk! I don't think even Milo would dare to mess with him, lol.

 

Well, now I know why we were destined to take in Ghost Kitty. We took him to the vet yesterday to get shots & tested for FeLV/FIV. Turns out he's FIV+. But the good news is it was just a really, really slight positive. So there's a good chance either someone messed up with the test or he was vaccinated for FIV previously and that's causing a false positive (the FIV vaccine is pretty new and not really common, but it is a possibility that he's had it and it does cause false positives). We're going to get him re-tested next month when we take him to get his 2nd FeLV shot. Even if it's a true positive, FIV isn't nearly as contageous as FeLV (basically just if he bites one of the other cats, which isn't likely given his temperment). So we're not too worried about it. And we're already giving a bunch of immune system boosters to Ten (FeLV+) so we'll start giving them to him too.

Most other people and most shelters would euthanize a positive cat even if they were otherwise healthy so us taking him in was just meant to be.

The funny thing is before, in the back of our minds, we were thinking that knowing our luck with cats he'll have some health problem. We're already dealing with FeLV so he'd probably end up FIV to give us something new to deal with and darn if that didn't happen. :lol: We just can't have normal cats. :roll: We already had 1 FeLV+, 1 with bad allergies (he also had aggression issues when we got him), 1 that's bi-polar, and one that was FeLV+ but is now testing negative and is skittish yet aggressive. So an FIV cat thrown into the mix isn't really a big deal to us.

Oh, and we found out he's aready neutered. I looked before and it looked like he was all there, but I didn't actually feel. Our vet says he's definitely missing the equipment though, so that will save us a little money and him the stress of a surgery.

-Chelle

 

He is such a gorgeous cat! I wish you the best of luck with him!!

How did you find out one of your cats is bi-polar?

 

LOL. Well, she hasn't actually been diagnosed or anything like that, but she has some really crazy mood swings (worse than any other cat we've ever had).

-Chelle