Welcome to the family

Originally posted March 27, 2012

This time last year I wrote about Nugget and how big an impact he made in the household in his short time with us, as today is his 2nd anniversary with us, I thought I’d talk about Jake & his thuggish ways.

After we lost Nugget it was quite upsetting to see Poof wandering round looking for him, expecting an ambush.  As he’d become a lot more outgoing and clearly enjoyed having a playmate, I thought in due course we’d get another cat.  Initially we’d decided to wait until after Ryan arrived, figuring we didn’t really want to break in a kitten & child at the same time.

But on the Saturday we went to Pet Smart, and I suggested we “have a look” at the cats, just to make us smile again.  When we saw a small little kitten, just 2 months old, we thought “Yeah, we could take this one home.....”, so we made enquiries, only to be told it’s health wasn’t good and it faced some further medical care to try and give it a chance to be adopted in the future.  Then we saw “Marcus”, he was 6 months old, fully treated, and when we took him out, he launched into our arms and began licking and purring.  This made Jessica fall in love, though not with his name..... amazingly Jessica came up with a random name beginning with J (how did we choose RYAN????) to go with Jessica, James, Jet & Jude - Poof’s official name in case you didn’t know - and now Jake.

That day & night, we spent most of our time with Jake hugging up to us, clearly a little overwhelmed by his new home & surroundings.  Jessica even had Jake refuse to leave her lap as she “did her business”......

Poof wasn’t bothered by the new arrival, Jet did her usual and hissed and was generally unwelcoming.  But over the next week they all got together & began to play.

Unfortunately it wasn’t all plain sailing, Jake had turned up with a cold, and when a cat gets a cold, they don’t eat or drink.  With a young kitten, that can be very serious.  After taking him back to the vets on the Monday, we got given some medication for a small skin issue, and told to see how he progressed with the cold. The medication wasn’t clear what to do, so it was given to Jake orally.... which made him vomit... spectacularly!

Turns out, it was to be applied..... and his vomit had dehydrated him further - not drinking due to the cold remember - back to the vets, and this time he needed to be sedated & go on a drip to stop any kidney damage.  It worked fortunately and we soon got a fully functioning kitten home.

Or so we thought!

A check up revealed he had ringworm.... and would have probably passed it onto our other cats.

The treatment for this was a lime bath..... which had drastic affects for Poof, being A> longer haired & B> mostly white.  This led to some comedy photos as a bedraggled Poof looked miserable & cold, as well as looking like a faded Simpson’s character!  Additionally he needed to be sedated, which when it occurs 8 times in 4 weeks, leaves you with a virtually dead cat (levels built up and by the 7th time he came home and promptly fell over for the next 6 hours.... not a fun time for us or him).

The expense, worry & issues were worth it though, as finally we had a team of happy & healthy cats. While Jake doesn’t have the personality of Nugget in that he isn’t quite so out-going, nor does he ambush and chase Poof as much, he often gives as good as he gets.  He loves to hide, often under Ryan’s rug,(see the pic at the top) or under the rocking chair.  He’s still quite timid though, when we moved he ran and hid behind the washing machine for 48 hours, even Poof came out before him.

He does like to be a thug as well though, attacking chairs, window blinds,  chewing on anything that is hanging in reach or generally plotting evil deeds it appears.

Oh, he has a great memory as well, he clearly dislikes Jessica now, must be related to the “remember the time you poisoned me you bitch? Yeah? So do I!”.

Glad we have you as part of our family Jakey, may you keep thugging for many more years!