So
I picked him up one Saturday and he was a mess. Dirty,
had fleas, was underfed.......you know the routine.
Now the boy is overweight and spoiled rotten. But he's
a good boy and has allowed another kitty to be brought
into his home, a German Shepherd and 3 Chinese
Cresteds. He just goes with the flow. And don't
you worry about him being declawed; the dogs have never
tried to hurt him, even when Dixie
takes his head into her mouth. LOL Okay, so I started
out with Shane, added Sebastian, and then came Coleman............below.
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Coleman
Coleman
is a 9 year old orange tabby cat. I got him as a kitten
after getting Sebastian, as I thought Sebastian would
like a kitty friend. Driving down the road one day I
saw a sign on a house that said "free kittens."
Well, at the time I wanted everything black and white
and thought I'd get a black kitty to go along with my
bright white Sebastian. But the only kitten left was
this orange and white tabby who was a scared little
kitty and who had been kept out on a cold closed-in
porch because his mommy didn't want to nurse him any
longer. Well,
I sat and talked to the owners of the house for a couple
hours (whose last name was Coleman - and I adored them
so I named Coleman after them) and took a very upset
Coleman home with me.
I
hadn't had a kitten in years and forgot about all of
those cute little holes their little nails make in furniture
and in skin. Well, Sebastian was declawed and wasn't
thrilled with Coleman's killer claws so I had Coleman
declawed when I had him neutered. I cried for a week
and begged him for forgiveness as I felt just awful
doing that to him. But to be quite honest, I don't think
it ever bothered him. He used the kitty box with no
problems, scraping away at the litter and he was just
a strong willed, good little kitty. Oh, yeah, and he
loved to climb up the back of my legs and stand on my
back when I brushed my teeth - pre and post declawing.
It
amazed me how Shane (big bad agressive mean Shane) got
along with the cats. And Coleman seemed to especially
love Shane. Well, about 6 years ago I noticed Coleman
was coughing a lot (gagging actually) and I thought
he had hair balls so I bought some goopy stuff he use
to lick off my finger which was suppose to help loosen
the hair balls and bring them up. That
wasn't the case though, and I found out that Coleman
has asthma. I
use to have a wood stove in the house and I use to smoke
and use to smoke in the house (BLECH)......one day,
Coleman was panting heavily and he kind of passed out
for a second -- of course this was on a Sunday -- so
I called my vet who met me at the office and said it
was asthma.
My
poor little Coleman was off and on steroids, he lost
a ton of weight and I thought he was dying for a while.
Once a month he would go into an asthmatic fit (always
late at night) and I'd run him to the emergency vet
(we won't even talk about how much those bills were),
where they would put him in an oxygen tank and give
him a shot to control his breathing. Finally, one day
a vet at the emergency hospital asked if I thought about
using an inhaler on Coleman. So longer story short,
Coleman gets a puff on an inhaler twice a day and because
of the steroids he was on, he ended up with diabetes,
and now gets a shot twice a day. Never in my life did
I think I could ever stick a needle into my cat or hold
a mask on his face, but when you know it's saving their
life and giving them quality of life, you just do it.
I
guess what I am trying to say is this....I'm so happy
we can give back quality of life to our Coleman who
has always been a cherished kitten and now a cherished
full grown cat. No, I never thought I'd be giving shots
to a cat, but it sure is a heck of a lot easier than
giving a pill to a cat! Ha! And I know you cat lovers
can understand that.
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Sebastian is a 10 year old medium hair domestic cat. He weighs 24 pounds, and believe me, it's not all fur! Ha! Sebastian lived on the farm that Shane use to live on. Small world huh? I was told that Sebastian was declawed but the owner kept throwing him outside because they were sick of him tracking in cow manure all through the house (no, those owners were not Shane's owners). Well, I had every intention of stealing Sebastian away, but the owners agreed that I could have him.
