house-training and socialising Cassie

As you know Cassie is rather shy but now that we have fewer foster cats to care for we have been spending more time with her.

We managed to coax her out of the kitten play to free-roam, eat at our cats' feeding station, encouraging her to roam the whole house. It took patience and lots of "Good girl Cassie" and strokes and cuddles, but she finally learned to eat from our cats' bowl of Taste of the Wild kibbles, and drink from our cats' water fountain.

When not horsing around with Dusky - which they do like crazy, where Dusky takes the lead on adventures around the house - Cassie will lounge around the living room.

She has become so much less shy now, she is an amazing girl. When we cuddle her, she purrs non-stop as if telling us, "Don't let me go... I need love."

Her health is now in great condition after her rehabilitation. Cassie needs an owner who is patient with her shyness - with patience and coaxing, she will grow up to be even more confident than she is now. She is a total lap-cat, can sit on our laps and loves hugs, cuddles and kisses a real lot, so an equally affectionate owner will be great for her. To adopt Cassie, do read right side bar for adoption information and contact details.

She is a 3 month old calico with a bob-tail (exactly like the Japanese bob-tail) and pink nose-leather.

IAMS dry cat food recall for salmonella contamination

If you are feeding IAMS to your cat, stop now.

P&G has recalled IAMS for suspected salmonella contamination last month. Salmonella poisoning is zoonotic, meaning it can also spread to humans. However, many pet stores are still selling it. Please do not feed IAMS during this recall. If you are already feeding IAMS, throw the remaining food away to avoid further poisoning your cat, and switch to a brand that has not been recalled.

IAMS has also previously been in the news for testing on lab animals instead of conducting voluntary trials as market research. They have since changed some of their lab testing procedures and have reduced usage laboratory kept cats as experiments, and changed their name from Eukanuba to IAMS to re-brand their image because of the outrage of animal welfare activists.

If your budget is in the price range of IAMS, here are some formulas you can switch to that will cost around the same:

• Solid Gold Katz & Flocken
• Wishbone - various flavours

If you can stretch your budget further for the health of your cats, opt for a grain-free dry food, such as Solid Gold Indigo Moon which we feed the foster cats with at Love Kuching, or Taste of the Wild which our own cats are eating. It costs around the same in the long run because these are high protein formulas, which means your cat needs to eat less in order to feel full, so kibble consumption in the household will be reduced.

Panda and Russ have been adopted by Wing and Gen from Boon Keng!

Russ and Panda were adopted today! Wing who is an expatriate in Singapore, is experienced with cat and kitten care, having owned cats back home, in both L.A. and Hong Kong. His schedule also permits regular fresh food feeding especially for Panda who is still learning to eat dry food on its own, and we have referred them back to Dr Dawn Chong at The Animal Clinic for his checkups and shots, since he was seen by Dr Chong when he fell ill one month ago.They also will be continuing the supplements of colostrum for Panda and probiotics for both of them.

Wing used to feed Wellness Core to his cats so they will be changing the kittens' diet to Wellness Core. We packed some of the kittens' current food for them to take back so they can make the change in diet for them over time. We also told them to feed Russ and Panda separately because Russ is one cat that refuses to share.

We are happy for Wing and Gen, and for the boys Panda and Russ! Looking forward to hearing their progress in their new home!

Patty has been adopted by Adelia

Today we had a visit from Adelia who wanted to visit Helga our sick foster cat. Adelia is a regular visitor and cuddle-provider to the cats at our foster home. Today she came with Pet Greens treats for the cats too, which Panda especially seemed to enjoy!

During our cat-cafe-style bonding with all the fosters - all the cats were running and romping around the lounge area - Adelia mentioned that she has actually been thinking for a while now to get a kitty companion for her current cat Manja.

Adelia lives on her own with Manja. Manja is 3 years of age, also a rescue. Manja is currently eating Wellness Core and has been with Adelia for since she was a kitten rescued from an MRT station near Adelia's home.

After much interaction and thinking, Adelia fell hard in love with Patty. So Patty is now at her new home with Manja as a big sister! We have actually been searching for an adopter that already has an older cat for Patty, as Patty is a follower and needs to learn much from older cats. Adelia also noticed that Patty was the kind to get 'bullied' by the other cats in their play and had a soft spot for the little girl. And Adelia's schedule permits regular canned food feeding for Patty, important since Patty is still not able to drink water or eat dry kibbles on her own yet.

Here is Patty during her time out of the pen today, she loves our couch furry cushion a lot -

And here is Adelia with Patty! -

We are so happy for Patty and for Adelia! We hope Manja approves of the little one too!

Appeal on behalf of Bobby, Gentle Paws shelter rescued dog

Dear all,

This is an appeal for contributions to help to pay for Bobby's medical bill of $2948 incurred so far. He is scheduled to go back for more injections and follow-ups at the vet.

Bobby was diagnosed with heartworm, hospitalised and was scheduled to go for an operation. However the op was aborted shortly after it started. It was found that Bobby's valves were blocked to the extent that the vet's forceps could not be inserted to remove the heartworms as planned. Instead, the vet tapped Bobby's abdomen and drained over 10 litres of fluid from him. Bobby has to be on heartworm medicine for the rest of his life. He also has to undergo the draining process twice a week. His kidney was found to be weak and he will require kidney supplements.

Bobby's story can be found here and here.

We sincerely hope you can help with Bobby's medical bill as the dogs at the shelter depends solely on volunteers and contributions to fund the shelter.
Please transfer to POSB savings 126-840390 if you can and drop us an email at farmwaylove@gmail.com thereafter with the details of your transfer so that we can validate and take note. Any amount is greatly appreciated and no amount is ever too small for us. Please let us know if you wish to have a look at the bill for any clarification as well.

Bobby is 1 of the oldest boys who stayed at a shelter ever since he was a young dog for about coming to 10 years. During the first 8-9 years of his life as a shelter dog, he never got the chance to step out of shelter, never got to smell the earth & grass. Because little was known about him, he got very uptight when there were visits from unfamiliar faces especially those who wear spectacles. It was suspected that he could have been abused by his ex-owner who was bespectacled. However, as time went by, Bobby learned to trust humans again and even got the chance to step on the moist soil that he was so deprived of. I got the chance to bring him for his first walk ever out of shelter last year and it is very difficult till today to forget how he was so happy with simple and probably insignificant things to you & me like little wild flowers and the different types of grass by the roadside. His tail wagged so excitedly when he tried to play with the flowers, smelling and touching them with his paws. From then on, Bobby looks forward to walks whenever there are volunteers around. Sometimes he would quietly come up to volunteers and rub them with his head to ask for a pat.

This was Bobby last year.

Thanks once again for reading and please help us with this appeal.


Sincerely
Zan
On behalf of GentlePaws
gentlepaws2010.blogspot.com

Adopt - rescued cat by Philemon - Good Boy the abused tabby cat

Dear Elaine

Good Boy was found as a stray cat at Tampines St 21, now 5½ months old.

I found Good Boy covered with superglue on legs and underside of body about a month ago and he had extreme difficulty walking to even get food from me. He was brought home and my friend and I had the superglue removed from his body, only to discover his body was already with oozing with pus.

Good Boy was treated with antibiotics at the vet and nursed for till the full recovery. Good Boy is now sterilised. Since the time we had nursed him, we found Good Boy an extremely loving cat, can be carried and cuddled.

A few days ago we wanted to release him into the void deck of Tamp St 22 but he seemed extremely frightened, hesitant about being released and was shaking.

He is currently being boarded at my neighbour’s house and is in need of a good home. To arrange a visit to adopt Good Boy, please contact me, Philemon at Tel No: 9022 3363.

Regards Philemon

Philemon was the caregiver who had sought adopters for Kitty and Belle via our blog last month. Kitty and Belle have since been adopted.

Helga's vet visit today - no improvement - more meds prescribed

Helga is an abandoned tortoiseshell Persian cat diagnosed with chronic renal failure. Due to her condition she is not able to be re-homed, and is our long-term foster cat. Her treatment will continue as long as there are donated funds to support it, and we will foster her till she gets well or passes on. If you wish to donate to Helga's continued treatment for her renal failure, our POSB savings account number is 188-52652-7, SMS Elaine to indicate that your donation is for our veterinary fund.

Helga went for her check-up today at the vet, which is now bimonthly. The prognosis was not good, as her urea and creatinine levels have gone up -

- from her last pre-op blood test results which were 2.2 (creatinine/CRE) and 42 (urea/BUN). Dr Hsu says it is still manageable without daily sub-cutaneous injections, but he prescribed another medicine today for her, which was costly. It is a probiotics formulation specific for kidney function -

I also mentioned to Dr Hsu that Helga can go for one or two days refusing to eat, and that sometimes we have to give her regular canned food mixed with baby food to coat her renal kibbles or pouch food before she would eat. He says it is actually better for her to go without food for two days than to feed her non-renal-specific food even if the alternative is also low in phosphorus (so far we have tried baby food, Science Diet and Wellness formulas which have dry matter phosphorus below 1%). And also, to only feed her her Vitamin B supplements when she is not eating. Because Helga violently refuses to be pilled or syringed we got a pill-popper today for that purpose too; and on the days she refuses to eat, to pill-pop her with her meds which is normally mixed in the food.

As for her refusal to eat, Dr Hsu says that as long as she is still energetic and remains unwilling to eat for only 2 days, it is okay, and only bring her back to see him if she becomes lacklustre and her fasting continues for 3-4 days. So we will just have to wait out each of her anorexic bouts which happen fairly often. To be honest this will be quite traumatic for us to bear out because she whines a lot when she doesn't want to eat, and watching her hungry but refusing her food for even one day is heart-breaking for us. But it looks like we have to bear it and watch her suffer for her health.

We also topped up her supply of Royal Canin Renal diet dry food today, which is often out of stock from the supplier, hence we bought in advance before it runs out. She still has her Fortekor medication, and we will replenish it whenever it runs out.

The total bill was $263.25, with no charge for consultation -

which will bring our veterinary fund to just over a hundred dollars, so we do need your continued financial support for our veterinary fund which is primarily for Helga since her treatment will be long-term. Do note that our veterinary fund is also for other foster cats when there are veterinary emergencies that cannot be home-remedied.

Apart from pharmaceuticals, Helga is also on herbal supplements (mixed in her second daily meal, spaced out at least after 3 hours of consuming her medicine) of nettle extract, alfalfa extract - both meant for reducing creatinine levels - and slippery elm bark as digestion aid, as digestive problems have co-morbidity with renal failure. I will be upping her nettle and alfalfa dosage from today onwards, and also replenished her nettle extract just now which just ran out.

We will be scheduling her next vet visit in 2 months' time.

While it was grim to see Helga's condition not improving and seeing how costly her treatment is and will continue to be, on the bright side Helga had an enjoyable time out and about today. I brought our cat leash so she could hang around on the clinic floor and outside Parkway (where I bought her nettle extract) instead of being in the carrier all the time. She talked to taxi-drivers to and from our foster home, and has earned a new nickname - Puteri (meaning princess) because she was utterly whining all the way in the cabs.

Adopt - Patty

Patty is ready for adoption!

Rescued by Patricia and Tyler, Patty has been dewormed, litter-trained and socialised. Patty is 5 weeks old, white with black with a mid-length black tail.

She gets along well with both kittens her age and older cats. Very easy-going, doesn't struggle when we give her a bath or feed medication. She has a super-cute 'blur' face that just begs to be loved.

To visit and adopt Patty, please see right side bar for contact details and adoption information.

How to age a kitten - visual guide

Apart from markers such as the growth of molars, the best way to age a kitten is by the posture and size, which is how we at Love Kuching age the kittens we rescue. This pictorial guide shown above is a good visual aid in aging a kitten, taken from the book Essential Cat by Caroline Davis.

A kitten will start to attain a more upright posture - both sitting and standing - only after 5 weeks of age. This means a kitten above the age of five weeks sits up straight like an adult cat. Kittens under and up to the age of 5 weeks old will have a kitten posture, a bit wobbly on the hindlegs, and round instead of upright and erect.

Kittens are best rescued for re-homing under and up to the age of 8 weeks old, maximum 12 weeks old - otherwise they become to accustomed to life on the street and may remain feral for the rest of its life, thus unsuitable for becoming a domestic pet.

So do take note of the age of the kittens that you see on the street - not all are young enough for rescue and re-homing.

Not sure if the kitten you saw needs rescue? Here is a simple check-list:

• Is the kitten under 4 weeks of age? If so, does it have a mother cat? If yes, do not remove the kittens from the mother until it reaches 3-5 weeks of age. 
• Kittens between 4 weeks to 8 weeks of age are ideal for rescue and re-homing.
• Is the kitten more than 12 weeks old? If so, allow the kitten to remain as a stray as it has very little chance of being domesticated and re-homed and may end up becoming a permanent shelter cat  or being re-released back on to the streets.
• If the cat is obviously a newly abandoned cat - just sighted, well groomed, pedigree, wearing a collar - and reporting it as lost has had no results of the cat being claimed by an owner, then this cat is suitable for re-homing despite of age. If the cat has been abandoned for a long time, it is already accustomed to stray life and will not be suitable for re-homing.

If you have found a stray kitten and wish us to help in fostering and re-homing it, do check this chart and check-list before assessing if it is indeed suitable for re-homing. And if still in doubt about its age, measure its length and communicate it to us, so you don't have to make a wasted trip to our foster home only to release it back to its stray territory because it is too old.

Russ, rescued from a bus-stop in Bukit Batok

Russ is a handsome 10-week-old black and white kitten. Wahida, one of our blog-readers, found Russ wandering around alone by himself and fostered him till she could bring him to us to re-home.

Russ is a confident boy who enjoys playing with other cats, loves to talk, and be cuddled. He has a beautiful black and white tail - think white impasto brush strokes on black canvas - and a cute face with pink nose leather.

We will be letting him free-roam our foster home once he has settled down, as he gets along well with adult cats.