It all started about a month ago when my son kept requesting a brother. The last time, he went through this phase, it appeased him when we adopted 2 identical Turkish Angora kittens.
We all know that when something works, we do it again right--Parenting 101-Gut Instinct.
Yesterday, our newest kitten was weaned from the mom cat and we set off on the 2 hour journey to pick him up. We assumed that we everything would be similar to our first experience, and boy were we WRONG!
Our first clue was that we arrived in a very sketchy area of a major city and the way you know is when your husband has to use the restroom and refuses to do so.
We held high hopes until we arrived at the apartment and the owner spoke to us from the screen door and would not let us inside. He went out the backdoor to bring the kitten to us. At first glimpse, the owner was FILTHY, unkempt is too gentle of a description. Believe me that going into any further detail would make your stomach churn.
The kitten just seemed so cute and adorable and we quickly left. My husband drove us home and this kitty just slept mostly in my arms. Upon further examination, we noticed how DIRTY our new baby kitten was and decided that we actually need to give him a bath.
As we continued our route, we noticed that inside his ears were filled with dirt, mucus coming from his eyes and nose. I could hear that he had a respiratory infection.
When we arrived home, we opted to keep him in the large bathroom. My husband introduced the litter box that I made for him and then set to wash him with baby shampoo that we bought along the way. The water was extremely DARK even while rinsing him. As we let him dry in a warm towel, my husband noticed a FLEA and he pulled it out. He went to the pet store to buy a flea shampoo and started another bath in the sink with the flea shampoo. After rinsing him again, I warmed a towel in the dryer and placed it on a heating pad and we towel dried him again.
I purchased some goat's milk, a couple of cans of wet kitten as well as dry kitten food. He immediately chowed down on the moist food and we had to slow him down. He refused the dry food, surprising, but also the goat's milk. He only seemed familiar with water.
My husband checked on him during the night and made sure to keep the heating pad on to provide our new kitten with warmth and comfort.
This morning, he still had mucus dripping from his nose and eyes and we greeted him with more moist food and he seemed to enjoy the warm goat's milk.
We also introduced play and he seemed fond of my pony tail holder.
We decided to keep him quarantined from our two other kitties for another few days until he feels better. Our kitties are super curious, but giving him space so I will let you know how the introductions go.
We are hoping that our new kitten will get well soon @senseicat