Fur Baby Friday!

Now that I'm back from Hawaii, it's back to my regularly scheduled blog posts. Which really may not be that many, because work is busy, and I honestly have no ideas right now. I will put together a few posts with pictures from Hawaii though! Soon.

Anyway, when Mrs. Monologues posted about her puggle with a chronic condition, I thought it was sweet, and wanted to post about how our Clarabelle came into our lives!

I had been volunteering with Purrfect Pals for a few months when Clarabelle came to the store I volunteer at. She was 6 at the time, and her family was losing their home, so they surrendered her. She had a flea allergy and was, literally, half bald. From the middle of her stomach down she had very little fur. It was slowly growing back, but living at the store is really stressful, so she wasn't getting the love and cuddles that would encourage it to go along faster.

You can kind of see her sad baldness in this picture, but it was coming in quickly by then.

So here she is, half bald, skinny, and older, in the middle of kitten season. {Everyone wants a kitten, and very often the "older" cats, from about 5 and up, are overlooked. This is especially sad because cats live to be 20+ so really, 5 isn't that old}
I had absolutely no intention of getting another cat. Though Hermione flourishes with the attention of another cat, I didn't realize she needed a companion, plus I was not working at the time, so it just didn't cross our minds. Then, a little cold went around, and turned into an upper respiratory infection in Clarabelle and another cat.
Both kitties were taken to the shelter for meds, and the other one, whose name I don't remember, was so sick that one of the staff brought him home that night. He didn't make it through the night. He was 2. Later, after an autopsy, they discovered he had what is like walking pneumonia in humans. Since cats hide their pain, there was no way of knowing.

Clarabelle needed some place to stay for 2 weeks while she was on the antibiotics and recovered. Since the other kitty had just died, I felt terrible, and offered to bring her home. After assuring my husband that it would only be for 2 weeks, I took her home.
She was so sick that she didn't eat at first, she was constantly coughing and sneezing, and was downright miserable. I was so afraid she would die on us. When she finally felt better she insisted on leaving the bathroom she was staying in, and would plop herself right down in the sun, and sleep there for hours. Her fur started coming in, and it turned out she is what we call a violent cuddler (she will actually try to bite you when you take her off your lap!)

When we had an open cage at the store, I told Geoff I would bring her back, if he wanted. Though I wanted to keep her, I knew the decision had to be made by him. Thankfully, he relented, and we've had our sweet kitty for about a year and a half. I love to tell the story and say, she was only supposed to be with us 2 weeks. That was in July 2010.

The funny thing is, despite the fact that Geoff was resistent to her at first, she has turned into a total daddy's girl, and he adores her.

So that's how our sweet Clarabelle came into our lives...and we wouldn't have it any other way.