I would like to introduce you properly to Foggy, our beautiful Ragdoll cat.
Thinking of a companion for Sidney, our Cavalier we decided on a cat. But not just any cat, I wanted a Ragdoll. I had checked out the breeds and found this beautiful long haired cat that grew to huge proportions.
We looked for breeders and visited one in Norwich. She had 3 kittens, one that she had isolated as it had been ill. The alarm bells should have rung then, but I did not know at the time that you should not visit more than one cat breeder in a day due to cross infection.
In the afternoon of that day we visited a breeder in Cambridgeshire and found a litter of beautiful Chocolate seal point Ragdolls. I chose the one I wanted (very difficult they were virtually identical). We were to go back in a week when they were old enough to leave home.
It was a foggy morning when we tavelled to collect our kitten, hence his name. It was Christmas Eve and although they say you shouldn't get a pet for Christmas, we both wanted him and were not planning anything noisy or hectic over the holidays that may scare him.
He was a pretty little kitten, plain mink coloured with a little brown nose, ears and socks. The colouring of a Ragdoll does not show fully until they are 2-3 years old.
Within a day we knew that something was wrong as his tummy was very upset. We put it down to nervousness at coming to a new home, but over the Christmas holiday it got worse so we took him to the vet as soon as they were open.
Here started a long trail back and forth to the vets with little Foggy getting bigger and bigger, but thinner and thinner as he was not getting any nourishment. They were at a loss after trying everything to make him better and he was getting worse. He wasn't even interested in playing or climbing the curtains.
We talked about it and decided that he was not going to make it and would have to be put to sleep.
With heavy hearts we went back to Catherine, out vet expecting her to agree with us.
"We want to try one more thing" she said. "If we take him to our hospital a few miles away we can do further tests and hopefully find out the cause of Foggy's problems".
So off he went to the hospital and was there for 9 days. During this time the head vet, who had many years experience remembered reading about a rare parasite that was not normally seen in the UK and Foggy's symptoms were similar, so he tried the treatment. By this time Foggy was 12 weeks old and had been ill for a very long 5 weeks.
Great news! It worked and Foggy came home cured and able to eat and grow at last. He had lost a lot of his early growth so we were not expecting the normal huge cat that Ragdolls become.
The bill came to £900 and because he was ill as soon as we got him we had not had the chance to get him insured. (we soon put that right).
Reading in a book about kittens, I discovered that cross infection was easily caused by prospective owners visiting various breeders in the same day and remembered the poorly little kitten at Norwich. I felt guilt that it may have inadvertently been us that had caused Foggy's illness.
I contacted his breeders to warn them of the parasite in case any of the other kittens had caught it but they didn't seem to care.
I am so grateful to the vet that diagnosed the problem, and to Catherine for all her efforts to find a cure.
Foggy is now so beautiful (and huge at 6 kg) and probably thinks that he is a Cavalier. He is the top 'dog' and makes sure that he gets the best sleeping arangements.
To finish of this post here are some cat related items from the great Folksy site:-
“You don’t like orange?” queried the first bear. “What about blue then? And promptly changed colour to blue. “Or green?” said the second , turning a pretty shade of green. “Or I can do red” said the third.
Look at us now blue, red and pink,
I am hoping to get my book printed eventually, but it is a nightmare trying to find a publisher and I have no experience of this at all.
