Tag Archives: kittens

August 17th is National Black Cat Appreciation Day. This is a much-needed holiday as black cats have been unfairly maligned since the Middle Ages. In a Papal Bull issued in 1232, Pope Gregory IX damned black cats as the incarnation of Satan. Several centuries later, another Pope, Innocent VIII, linked cats, the devil and witches by writing, “The cat is the devil’s favorite animal and idol of all witches.” At the time of the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts, witches were thought to transform into black cats who could roam the countryside and cause mischief.  These superstitions have led to “black cat bias,” a term applied to the negative feelings people have about black cats, compared to cats with other coat colors. Black cat bias may also lead to longer shelter stays for black cats relinquished to an animal shelter. Today’s blogpost will focus on one of these unfortunate black cats, a five-week-old, flea-infested black kitten, brought to AMC by a Good Samaritan. This little waif was covered with so many fleas, she had become anemic. The photo accompanying the blogpost shows her in her ICU incubator with an IV catheter in her arm for her blood transfusion.

July 12th marks Julius Caesar’s 2124th birthday. Medically, this date is important because a common surgery, the Caesarean section, is named in Mr. Caesar’s honor, even though there’s no proof he was delivered through this surgery. Often referred to as a C-section, this surgery is performed when offspring are delivered through an abdominal incision rather than through the birth canal. The word “offspring” is a calculated decision on my part. C-sections are common in human medicine, but veterinarians will also deliver puppies, kittens, calves, lambs and the occasional bird or turtle via a C-section. C-section surgery is as important to animal health as it is to human health.

Regular readers of my blog will know that my family and I have raised numerous foster kittens over the years. We have had queens and kittens, kittens without moms and infant kittens with their umbilical cords still attached. Raising kittens by hand is a lot of work but rewarding and heartwarming to see them learn to “spiderman” up the side of the sofa and crawl into your lap. Despite fostering over 100 kittens, Saturday night was a new experience for me. Acorn and Cashew, two little boy orange kittens about four weeks old, had been doing brilliantly. They were eating, starting to use the litterbox and developing individual personalities. However, when the 8pm feeding rolled around, Cashew had a bit of white glop on his face, and I wasn’t sure what it was. He refused the bottle and proceeded to have a giant amount of diarrhea. I got him cleaned up and, when I put him in the kitten pen, noticed more white glop, which I then realized was kitten vomit. Next, Cashew draped himself over the edge of the litterbox like a towel over the bar in the bathroom. He was weak and wobbly. I panicked and called the foster kitten emergency number, and off we went to the animal ER at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center.

The veterinary profession is all over the news lately. Thanks to the pandemic, the pet industry is booming, with household pet ownership increasing from 67 to 70 percent, and consumer

Since the pandemic started, there have been multiple news articles about pandemic puppies, increases in pets in foster care, and pandemic puppy scams. But how much of this is true and how