R.I.P. Pretty Girl.

[rg_girlca]

Let me tell you a little story about Pretty Girl.

Her owner, an elderly lady, was taken by ambulance and Pretty girl and another cat was left in the house for about 2-3 weeks without any food. I don't know if the woman died or was put in a home, but her nephew came to her place and started to put her furniture out on the sidewalk for garbage. One neighbour asked him what he planned on doing with the cats and he said he was going to throw them out with the garbage. So the neighbour asked if he could get the cats and the nephew said sure. Now why the neighbour did this is beyond me, but he couldn't get a hold of the male and was able to get Pretty Girl, put her in like a duffle bag and put her at the end of the laneway in hopes that someone would take her. My friend down the street heard about this and went and got the cat and brought her to me. (I found out a few days later that a neighbour took in the male.)
When I picked her up, I couldn't believe how emaciated she was. I started to feed her 1/4 of a tin of kitten food every 2 hours for the first 2 days then every 3 hours after that. July 6th, brought her to my vets for a check up and was shocked to find out she was about a month pregnant. She was about 6-7 years old, weighed 5 lbs. and because of her condition it wasn't safe to put her under to abort the babies and spay her. She had also had her jaw broken at one point and was not treated for it, so her mouth wasn't aligned and her bottom fang stuck out.
She was doing okay up til about the end of July when she started to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze along with some coughing. The vet figured she had caught a cold. Then I noticed that she wasn't eating all that much so on Aug. 4th brought her back to the vets and we had a blood test done for Feline Aids/Leukemia. Got the devastating news that she had Feline Leukemia and from her symptoms, was nearing the late stages of it. So on Aug. 6th we had her PTS. Her babies were due the following week.
The saddest part is that we were going to keep her. I guess it wasn't meant to be. At least she had 5 good weeks of love and care. I also want to add that she did not come into contact with any of my crew at all and they were not allowed in my room til 2 days later after I totally disinfected it.

Here are a few pictures of Pretty Girl.



R.I.P. Pretty Girl. You were such a sweetheart. I'm sorry you and your babies had to leave us.