Boogie Knights |
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Wednesday |
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When it comes to staging a flying circus, the Knights are picking up where the Nuns left off. No surface in the villa is beyond reach, as was evident when we found the weigh-in tray that we keep on top of the dresser on the floor after their first night with us.
Lancelot is easily the biggest and strongest of the Knights, and he's a reliable instigator of chasing and wrestling games.
Percy is the smallest, yet he'll mix it up with Lance or anyone else. Small tabby, big attitude – even though he still has prominent abdominal stitches from what looks like a hernia repair. They must have discovered a hernia when he was neutered last week.
Guinevere and Nee have shaved bellies and noticeable stitches too, but they seem completely recovered from spay surgery. They certainly know how to boogie at full speed.
While they don't generally come to greet us when we sit down in the villa, none of the Knights are timid. It's easy to pick them up for weigh-in, and they're comfortable being held. If we sit beside them on the futon, they'll purr softly when stroked – for a minute or two anyway, before they zap back into play mode.
And that generally leaves us alone on the futon with Rex, who has yet to display any interest in playing with his "siblings". His paperwork lists him as a stray brought to the Greeneville, SC shelter in mid-February. We've decided that the "Rex and his siblings" tag must be facetious. Maybe they arrived at the shelter simultaneously or something. There's nothing about Rex that resembles the Knights, and vice versa.
Who Rex does remind me of, a little, is Taj. Taj was a gentle cat who had to navigate life outside on his own in a tough neighborhood. His FIV exposure, eye trauma, and torn ear suggested that he endured some rough days.
Rex seems like a one-year-old Taj. He's a gorgeous cat (blue eyes!) with an emerging sweet personality, and we're really happy that someone rescued him from life on the streets. He still shrinks a little and occasionally retreats if you raise a hand to pet him (which he likes) or give him a syringe of Viralys (which he hates), but he's gradually learning that we're his friends. If we hang out with him for more than five minutes, he'll purr softly and start head-butting us. Today he climbed onto the futon back-rest and nuzzled my neck repeatedly.
Right now Rex's biggest health challenges are his nasal congestion/sneeziness and the vision-obscuring "third eyelid" on his right eye. He's eating well and (we think) filling out a little. While not very active, he does groom himself, and his poop looks normal. From what we've read online, his third eyelid should naturally recede over time… which could mean either weeks or months. Syringe-feeding him lysine supplements or antibiotics probably won't accelerate his recovery.
Like Taj, Rex probably won't be with us very long (he'll either be adopted or find a quieter and more spacious foster home), but I'm pretty sure he'll be one of our more memorable fosterlings.
filed by: TS
