Butterscotch

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Last week after I posted, Butterscotch was hanging around the yard; she was even sleeping in the crate I left out for her.  So I "trapped" her and took her to the vet.  Turns out that she was quite sick, sick enough that the vet suspected that she wouldn't survive long enough outside much longer on her own.  Knowing that, I couldn't sit back and do nothing, and I had to try to make her better. Look at this sweet little face!

The vet said she is about 7 months old and was only 3.5 pounds. =( She was sick with tapeworms, round worms and hookworms. She had an upper respiratory infection and ear mites.  She is also pregnant! And sadly, she tested positive for exposure to feline leukemia.  The only thing she didn't have was fleas. The vet took more blood to see if the leukemia has gone from "exposure" to "disease" - there is a 33% chance that she is was just exposed and won't be sick.  But because of this, we couldn't turn her back outside because she could keep getting exposed to the leukemia. 

Butterscotch is going back to the vet tomorrow to get spayed and the vet will terminate the pregnancy.  She said she didn't think she'd even survive having kittens at the low weight she is, and with everything else going on. After a very expensive vet bill, I took her home to live in our basement.

She's been doing a lot better - the worms seem to be gone and she is eating non-stop and resting. We're giving her lots of snuggles, and she is a sweet cuddler cat.  We're keeping her in the basement because we can't expose Zoe to her and risk Zoe getting sick. So far, Zoe doesn't seem to care at all, which is shocking.  She can smell Butterscotch on my clothes and hands but doesn't even hiss (and if you know Zoe, that is kind of hard to believe!)  We're hoping that we can let Butterscotch up from the basement in a few weeks after we give Zoe a booster of the feline leukemia vaccine and Butterscotch is over her infection and ear mites. Cori is in love with her, and is mostly gentle with her aside from just wanting to pick her up all the time.  Even if it turns out that she isn't with us very long (the full blown leukemia could take her in weeks or years - no way to tell), I am glad I helped her and got to show Cori how important it is to take care of life around us!