Millie: My first foster cat

-

Millie was a ~6 month old kitten that I found at the university farm, on 24/03/2023.

Here she is at the clinic, those black spots of her top lip are actually big scabs
She had dirty ears and scabs on her face, but was so sweet and affectionate. I scooped her up and took her to the clinic, and then home. 
I didn't have a carrier to bring her back in, so I used a tote bag - she soon escaped this but was happy to sit on my lap

Millie had a ear yeast infection, secondary to an ear mite infestation - I was given some ear drops for her (Mitex) to give her 2x a day for 7 days. Once that was dealt with, I took her to get her vaccinations. She had a mild upper respiratory tract infection too, so she was given some eye drops (and some ear cleaner as her ears were still a bit dirty).

Her favourite toys are paper bags and tin foil balls.

Millie is so playful and affectionate, she was a real treat to look after

She settled in right away, and before long, she was adopted by a woman in Austria, to live with another cat. She left on Saturday 8th of April, 2023 (meaning I had her for 15 days!)

I realised afterwards, I'd actually met Millie before, at a different uni farm - I'd picked her up and wanted to take her, as it was October and starting to get really cold. The farmer said no, so I left her and her sister behind. I'm even holding her in a photo in this post!
Here she is as a little kitten!

Letting go of Millie was very difficult - I desperately wanted to keep her, but the logistics of getting her back to Cornwall were crazy, and I don't think it would be far on her to make her travel that far. Austria is far away, but a car is much less scary than a plane. 

Meeting her twice in two separate locations is a crazy coincidence, and it does feel like she was my cat - if she comes back a third time, then I'll know for sure. But I hope more than anything that she lives a happy, healthy life with her new family.

Comments

Post a Comment

Other posts you may like

Week 8 of 13

-
Image
Classic Monday - all online, not much to say about it! We had a small powercut in the morning so I missed maybe 10 minutes of a lecture, but nothing too awful.   Tuesday started at 0805 in the Food Inspection room. It's definitely not my favourite subject, but it's also not my least favourite subject. It's just an awful lot of words and definitions and legislature that all sounds pretty much the same. Nothing a few Anki cards can't fix though! Internal diseases was pretty interesting, we were talking about urinalysis and why it's so important. I know most of the stuff because my thesis is on Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD), but it's a good refresher. The vet told us a story of how she diagnosed a portosystemic shunt in a 3 month old Lab puppy just because he had ammonium biruate stones in his urine, and no other symptoms. He was able to have surgery and recover 100%, and never even showed signs of a problem just from one little microscope slide! Abso...
Read more

State 1 of 6: Contagious Diseases

-
Image
I had my first state exam today - Contagious Diseases. When I tell you I was dreading this, that does not even cover it.  I studied so much for this exam. I don't particularly like thinking about contagious diseases, as I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. I was doing minimum 6 hours a day reading, doing ankis, watching videos, talking about the diseases. Any possible way to study for this exam, I was doing it.  There are 39 questions about various bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases. Most of the questions are ok, diseases that I know about and don't mind. But there were a few questions that I really, really, really did not want. In particular the question about hemorrhagic fevers. Guess which question I pulled?  To make things worse, the professor on the panel studies hemorrhagic fevers, and is a bit of an expert in the area. I couldn't remember the big disease of veterinary importance (Rift Valley Fever), and could only remember some stuff about ebola and hanta fever. I...
Read more

From Passion to Completion: My Thesis Journey

-
In my first year, I emailed my year tutor asking about our thesis. I had only been studying veterinary medicine for 2 months at the time of emailing him, but I already had a question I wanted to investigate. He emailed back, suggesting a supervisor for me. I didn't get a response until my second year, but my idea was accepted, and I began to work on my thesis.  I wanted to investigate if there was a link between the colour of a cats' fur and the incidence of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disorders (FLUTD). This topic is of particular importance to me, as two of my cats have suffered from FLUTD.  I will be honest, I didn't work too much on my thesis for the first year. A little bit of literature review, a bit of thinking about how to design my study. I was very preoccupied at the time studying for the 3P's (Pharmacology, Propedeutics, and Parasitology).  When I started 5th year, I knew things had to get serious. I needed to start collecting my data, but my literature review...
Read more

Week 6 of 13

-
Image
This week was probably the busiest of the semester. Granted, I did make is busier for myself, and I got a little ill towards the end, but I really enjoyed it.  This was my timetable for this week, it's defintely the busiest week I've had so far! Monday was the classic all-online day. We had our first credit test of the semester, in Internal Diseases of Small Animals. This test was foccused on just dermatology, and was online so it wasn't too awful. Several of the questions were similar to past paper questions, which is always a bonus. Monday was also a half-day because they were electing a new Rector of the University. I think our exotics teacher missed the email, because we had that lecture anyway, but only about 10 people showed up! I already wrote about my Tuesday of this week in this blog post - so much happened, it would have made my weekly update gigantic! On Wednesday, I had my final Epizootology field trip. This time we went to the sheep farm to test for mastitis i...
Read more