Kitten’s Story: Living With Feline Immunodeficiency Virus
How I met and fell in love with Kitten
In the beginning of 2011, an animal health technician I worked with at a research facility mentioned to me that she had a young cat hanging around her house in the winter. She had tried to find its home and contacted the local pounds and shelters to no avail. The cat was underweight, did not appear to be spayed and was hungry. Alas, her own cat – a huge white male with two differently colored eyes named Fletch – would not accept this newcomer into the home.
When I met Kitten, her affectionate behavior, the white smudge above her lip and her white throat “scarf” melted my heart. I brought her home to my group of misfits; we had several rescues at the time. Worried that she may be pregnant since there was no evidence of a spay, I took her to a veterinarian. She luckily was not pregnant. They also checked her for a tattoo and microchip and found none. She also had a broken canine, which was undoubtedly a remnant of rough adventures during her past life. We had her spayed and vaccinated and had the broken tooth removed. She was believed to be around 8 months old.
We called her Kitten because she was so small with short little legs. Over the years she has filled out and is no longer skinny but has kept her small stature, so the name Kitten stuck.
Kitten loves to drink from running water, the faucet of our bathroom being a favorite. She will demand the tap be turned on for her to drink from when we enter the bathroom. Too dignified to drink from a cat bowl, she will dip her paw into other water sources such as water bowls and lick the water off her paw.
Kitten is a favorite of our dog Cookie, a chihuahua pug cross. I think Kitten’s small size puts our little neurotic cross at ease, and she will readily approach her for a good sniff.
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