Connections Reiki ~ My Fur-Kids: Sassafras

Sassafras

Sassy is an amazing girl. I distinctly remember the first moment I saw her: my mouth dropped open and I said the first thing that popped into my brain: "My God, she's gorgeous!" And indeed she is, don't you agree? She's small, but I believe there might be something like Maine Coon in her; those whiskers, the tufts in and on her ears, and that wonderful tail! And Oh My! What big eyes you have!

I was working a Saturday afternoon at the pet store in early June 2005. We had a demonstrator from the Nutro pet food company in that day, her shift ended about the time I came in. Before she left, she mentioned that there had been a stray hiding in her garage, but that she couldn't get near it. The cat was obviously pregnant, so she had been putting out food for her. That morning she had heard a kitty crying, and had seen the mom moving other babies. She hoped that the mom had returned.

About a half an hour later she came back. Mom hadn't returned for her last baby and it had been all day that the baby had been crying. She couldn't stand it any more and tracked the little one down. She bought a bottle and formula and went back home to try to feed the little one.

But again she came back to the pet store. She couldn't get the baby to take the bottle at all and was quite distraught. I told her to bring me the baby and I'd see what I could do about getting her to take the bottle.

It's not as easy as it sounds, nothing about it smells, feels or tastes right to a kitty. I'd had experience not only with bottle my bottle babies, but also with bottle feeding very young tiger cubs, who sometimes will wait days to take a bottle. In that time you must keep them hydrated, if it goes too long you have to tube feed them, which is not fun for either human or cub. There's a particular technique I use with the bottle, I have one bottle in particular that I like to use. See the essays page for more details.

She said that the baby was in the car and brought her right in. When I saw her it was love at first sight. After a couple of minutes I did get her to take a bottle, but I could tell she really didn't like the formula. It was a powdered formula, and it is really quite hard to get it to dissolve completely without using a kitchen blender.

That was the beginning of Sassy's eating troubles. I took her home with me that day and instead of using the powdered formula, I bought a few cans of ready-to-use. It's rich and creamy in a way that even well mixed reconstituted never is. I guessed her age to be almost 3 weeks. Her eyes were clean and blue, and she had lots of nubbin teeth, so I also purchased a few cans of pate kitten food.

She didn't want anything to do with the canned food. She took to the RTU formula like a champ, but within 2 days I had her at the vet, she had bad diarrhea. We tried 3 different commercial formulas, a veterinarian formula, and a couple of home made ones, but she just couldn't tolerate any of them, even the usually easy on the system goats milk based one that the tiger cubs do so well on. So I had to get her to eat the pate food right away. To keep her hydrated I cut the best of the formulas with water just to get some liquid in her.

Unfortunately her stomach still didn't settle right away, and she alternated between diareah and constipation. With all her long fur she was getting at least three or four half-baths a day just to clean her bottom off. This did help her pass waste when she was constipated though, I learned a great technique for pottying cubs that works on kitties too. See the essay page on bottle feeding/pottying for more details.

After some time of feeding her tiny bits at a time on a spoon, scrapped off behind her front teeth, she finally started to eat the pate food by herself, but she was still so little that the best she could do was push it around the plate and scoop up what ever happened to be in the way of her mouth. For a while we called her Dozer, as in bulldozer. She would come up from a plate of food and be completely covered in food from her bib to her ears. More baths. She still likes to play in the shower water, and occasionally hops in with me to play with the water going down the drain.

Eventually she learned to eat like a lady, except for the constant grumbling vocalizations. As soon as she was eating shredded canned food and premium kibble and drinking water for herself, her digestion problems disappeared completely.

I know she was taken off the bottle too soon, to this day she likes to sleep with me and sucks on my hand. Sometimes she just likes to cuddle on the lap and burrow into my palm.

It wasn't until she was at least 3 months old that she finally told me her name was Sassy, short for Sassafras (or Sassy-ass). Some names are just names, though I usually wait until they tell me their names. In this case, Sassy is *sassy*. She takes nothing from no one, cat, dog or human. She is quite an amazing puss, she has no idea she's a cat.

Sassy usually gets her Reiki while she's burrowing into my hands, sometimes it's as if she's looking for where it comes from. I have never had her walk away from it, she just sucks it up like a sponge.