It's Caturday so there's no excuse for me not to spam cute kitten pictures
Wookie has settled in incredibly well: he's still a little nervous when I come into the room for the first time but otherwise is cuddly and friendly and purring up a storm. His favourite thing is climbing a mattress I stored against the wall: a 2 m vertical climb, which he manages easily both up and down and then he perches up there and surveys the world. Otherwise, he runs all over my bed playing little hunting games.
He's growing by the day and I'm teaching him to get used to being brushed. Long-haired cats are usually well groomed but it's better to brush them regularly in spring when they are shedding, to reduce the huge hairballs that they can get. Brushing him also turned up a fairly common problem:
This massive amount of dandruff is caused by Cheyletiella, aka walking dandruff mites. These mites live in the hair and feed on dead skin, causing dandruff, but they don't burrow into the skin so they aren't itchy. They are fairly easy to get rid of: standard flea treatments will kill them and they are known to infest humans so I'm fairly keen to clear them out. They are highly contagious to other cats but my cats have all been flea-treated so it's only him and me to worry about. Today I went off to get Selamectin, which is effective and will also double as a dewormer. He arrived with bad breath and a distended belly and his poops are not solid. I give him probiotic powder in his food and his breath improved but his stools haven't firmed so perhaps he needs a second round of deworming. It's also possible that he's just eating too much although the bad breath he had suggests that there's a problem, I have been feeding the same food he got at the shelter so his digestion is not disturbed because the food has changed.
Other than that, Wookie is doing incredibly well and it's hard to believe this is the same terrified kitten of a week ago, or the little hissing bag of bones creature that I first saw 3 weeks ago. His fur is still quite red but I think this is mostly because he was in such poor condition. His undercoat is turning darker and I think he might be a little silver once he outgrows his scraggly fur
