Bob and Kathy's Adventures with Ferals, Part IV
August 11, 1998
Hi Again Everyone,
Ready for another chapter of adventures with Kathy and Bob?
When we last visited the hapless Rude Ranch, the situation was:
Maggie, the first kitten we trapped this year, was settling into the lifestyle of a Rude Ranch Kitty. (insert "spoiled rotten" here). Tia, Billie Jo, Ashley and Ghost were a little annoyed with this development, after all now they had to split the treats five ways, instead of four.
Goldie and Grey, the first of Mama kitty's kittens were romping around the second bedroom.
Hissor and Hissetta had just been relocated to the powder room.
Hissor and Hissetta in the powder room
Brownie was still with Mama kitty in the third bedroom. Mama kitty was madder than ever, and even more determined to do the evil humans (Bob and I) in.
Here's what has transpired since then.
Maggie Mae has been officially adopted by the Rude Ranch. We bought her a collar and ordered her an ID tag. She also had her first visit with our regular vet. Thankfully she was somewhat timid at the vet's, we only had to chase her around the examining room once, and she never even tried to bite the vet. The final diagnosis: Healthy 3.5 month old kitten, has some worms and ear mites. So $96 later we are on our way with 2 syringes of worming stuff (yeah, the yellow goop) and instructions to clean out her ears everyday and ear mite medicine twice a day for the next two weeks.
As soon as we got home, we tried to give Maggie her worming medicine. Due to the fact that she was not entirely happy with us for taking her to the vet to begin with, lets just say she was less than receptive to the idea of taking the medicine. At least I think we got a little of it into her. We also found out that this stuff would make great mousse for both cat and human hair.
As for the ear mites, lets just say that cleaning out a kitten's ears is not a job for the squeamish. Giving ear mite medicine to a kitten isn't either. We started with me gently holding Maggie while Bob slowly put 2 drops of the medicine in each ear. On the next try, I held Maggie a little tighter. For the third try, we wrapped her in a towel. We finally settled on Maggie wrapped in a towel, scrunched between my knees, with Bob squirting some of the medicine at her and hoping it hit its mark. After that we only had 27 more doses to go.
