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(Continued from page 2)
She was added to my twice daily antibiotic ritual. I shut the doggie door so she couldn't sneak out, although I doubted she was up to trying. She slept on my bed, too exhausted to do more than eat a little, drink a lot, and visit the litter box.
One afternoon, I walked into the bedroom and gasped. Curled up next to her flank were two kittens, their tiny paws resting on her legs. Had she noticed? She opened tired eyelids at my entrance. I could see her gaze slip to the kittens. Her eyes slid wearily shut. She was so sick she didn't care! Days passed in which the kittens continued to snuggle against her warm, still body.
Slowly, oh so slowly, they all improved. Even Elsa, my lioness-like feral mom, who thankfully hadn't gotten as sick as some of the others, improved without the antibiotic. She even became a bit friendlier. Not medicine-taking friendly, of course, but a bit more accepting of a human touch.
And Vichie stayed calm . . . and nice . . . and sweet . . . and tolerant. Now she lazily eyed the kittens. She roused herself enough sometimes to lean towards them and carefully sniff their little bodies. Soon her sandpaper tongue would come out to methodically clean the kittens' faces.
The test came when I picked up another foster kitten two weeks later, one Vichie would first meet when she was well. Would she, could she be nice? I placed the tiny body next to hers. Carefully, she sniffed the kitten. Then slowly, meticulously, she swept the small face with thorough strokes of her tongue before settling back and closing her eyes, the blissful kitten snuggled against her.
So it is possible for something good to come out of a bad case of upper respiratory when a defensive, high-strung cat can undergo a permanent personality change to become a tolerant and maternal feline.
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