Hunched in the nest alongside mom Georgia Ann and sister Tamara, Alex continues to inhale and exhale. He isn't mouth-breathing, acting agitated, or wailing. But he's very weak, has lost a little weight, and is still unable to nurse.

After he declined dramatically overnight a few days ago, I thought his 4am meal on Monday morning might be his last. But I've fed him 22 times since then. Martha got home from Africa yesterday afternoon, so she's started to help. I wish I could say that Alex has stabilized and is likely to show forward progress soon. Instead I think he just refuses to capitulate against an enemy that is content to outwait him. Very slowly, he just seems to be melting away. My guess is that he'll concede before too much longer. We think every day about taking him in for EU, but don't want to take away whatever infinitesimal chance he might have.

Meanwhile Mom-cat Georgia Ann still isn't eating and needs to be hand-fed by syringe. That's a messy process, since she whips her head around when I shoot slurry into her mouth. And we're keeping an increasingly wary eye on Tamara. She seems great, but her weight was down today. Maybe GA's nipples aren't delivering the goods anymore. I gave her a supplemental bottle-session this afternoon. She's getting the same antibiotics we're giving Alex, just in case.

Rex is having his own health issues today. When I took him to the vet last week to have his eye examined, they found a tooth abscess that might have triggered his third eyelid. I took him in this morning for a dental cleaning and tooth extraction, and they found several abscesses and two loose canine teeth, as well as an eye ulcer.

So poor Rexy is spending his day at the dentist's office, and will come home with several fewer teeth. We hope this doesn't set back his appetite, and that having his oral issues cleaned up helps him resolve his eye problem. We'll be adding Rex to the list of medication recipients here at 50K.

That leaves those happy-go-lucky Knights, who have graduated from the daily weigh-in routine and now have to contend with a mild case of boredom.

After spending the weekend taking in all the sights and sounds at the PetMAC event, they're cooling their heels in the villa and racing around the first floor again, waiting for their forever homes to emerge.

Nothing seems imminent on that front, so they're going out for another meet-and-greet on Saturday.

As of now, Rex is signed up to go with them, but we'll have to see how our snowshoe buddy feels after his long day in the dentist's chair.

These awesome photos were shot at the PetMAC event last weekend by the husband of a Homeward Trails volunteer. Quite an upgrade from our usual 50K pix, eh?

filed by: TS

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