It’s been a long week for me. Last Friday, we brought home a new kitten with the intention of having a playmate for our younget kitty, a purebred Siamese we named Dargo. Dargo is very active and playful and has always terrorized our older two kitties. He’s a year and a half and still acts like a kitten. We tried contacting the breeder from whom we’d bought him, but she had to give up her business. Because we are such fans of the breed, we looked for another in the area and found a couple of young kittens in a small town. Within a few hours roundtrip, we had our new kitty home.
Since all our kitties are named from characters in shows we like, we had discussed possibilities for male and female names on the way to and from the place where we found the kitten. After some discussion, we came up with the name Azula, as in the lightning, blue-fire throwing evil sister of Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. She lives up to the name only in the fact that she’s ambitious. Otherwise, she is the sweetest kitten.
Our Azula has had a rough start since she was sick when we brought her home. Luckily, our other cats are kept up to date on all shots. I was able to get Azula into the vet, where they confirmed what I saw–that she was indeed a girl–and gave her the first set of shots and some medicine to help her immune system fight the infection. She had slightly goopy, weepy eyes and was sneezing. I’d seen it in barn cats so severe that they eventually died. Ick! Azula’s upper respiratory infection wasn’t so bad she wouldn’t eat, but we gave her some canned food because we didn’t have anything else appropriate.
The next day, I bought some kitten food, but she still wouldn’t eat, probably because she couldn’t smell with her nose stuffed. We put some canned food on top of the hard food, which seemed to encourage her to eat some of the hard food. Of course, she had to stay separate from the other kitties.
Sunday, we let her out of the bathroom into our bedroom and she played hard. She was using the litterbox and eating well. She gave us a pleasant surprise by demonstrating that she’s a snuggler. That night, she crawled under the covers with my husband and I. She’s done it every night since then.
Monday, I let her out into the main part of the house to meet the other cats and explore. She was all over the place! The other cats didn’t like the new intruder, but the older two didn’t mind. Only Dargo was wary and upset at the little intruder. It’s now Thursday and he’s coming around. He’s been watching her and following her when she plays and this morning actually started to play with her.
Back to her health, though. Azula’s eyes were sticking shut and actually seemed to be getting worse again. I called the vet and they prescribed Amoxycillin twice a day for two weeks. Less than half a day after the first dose, her eyes were clearer and brighter and her nose was cleaner. She’d been sleeping a lot and shivering, but after starting the antibiotic, that quit. She still sleeps a lot–she’s a kitten–but she plays much harder and longer. She’s drinking out of the big cat waterer and I think she’s using the big cat’s litterboxes downstairs.
Azula is going to fit in purrfectly! I think she’s going to be a great companion for us humans and a playmate for Dargo, which is all we wanted.
Snuggled next to me two days ago. She’ll claim my lap when she’s tired.
