The Battle of Shiloh

Sometime early last week, in the midst of feeding "white kitty", I noticed a new patron of our cat cafe.  First she was "gray kitty" and then "kinda fluffy gray kitty" and, soon enough, "wonder if she's pregnant gray kitty".  She didn't honestly look all that pregnant but, after she decided I was worthy of her trust (and her company), I could feel tiny little kitty bodies in her belly.  She was incredibly active and liked to jump to the balcony from the ground (at least 3 times her length) so I figured we had a few weeks to either figure something out for what would happen or that whomever she belonged to would notice she was too far along to keep letting her roam free.

Sure enough, when I went to do my chef duties at the cafe earlier this week, I realized that I wasn't seeing her anymore.  The Awesome Boyfriend confirmed that he wasn't seeing her either.  Two days went by and no pregnant gray kitty appeared.  "Good", I said to myself, "she's being taken care of and soon will be a mother.  How sweet.  I'm glad I could help out while she was outside."

While I was getting routine errands done around town, I stumbled across a sale of small warm blankets and purchased two of them, figuring that at some point this winter, maybe a make-shift den would be appreciated at the cafe and I'd use these to soften it up and provide a little warmth.

On Friday, I was in the living room and glanced out the side window ... and there, very slowly and pretty unsteadily walking towards our home, was no-longer-pregnant gray kitty.

And so the battle began.

Since Shiloh, as we've decided to call her, found us once again, we've slowly (and very cautiously) started to become a family ... humans and cat.  We, of course, already have a terrific feline to attend to and, over time, it will be up to the primary cat if we extend our pet count to two.

What we do know is that Shiloh is horribly under weight, tremendously tolerant of humans, and a little overwhelmed by the amount of change she's experienced in the past 48 hours.  We managed to find someone to take care of her surviving kittens (which Shiloh was too malnourished to care for), and she's been to her first vet appointment so that we could get her fever under control and have her tested for any issues, which save for dehydration, seem to be few.  In the short time she's been allowing us to care for her, she's already showing dramatic improvement and we hope she continues to let her body recover.

So, to whomever is reading this, allow me the pleasure of introducing Shiloh.

She's still fighting her battle (so she's not looking all that happy here), but we're fighting right along side of her and doing all we can to give her what she needs to not just survive but to really recover.

We hope she does.