If you've got time, stay and listen to my story...

So it occurs to me that I haven't mentioned on my LJ the new addition to the household; my twelve week old kitten Matilda (Tilly), who joined us on July 8th and has been causing chaos around here ever since!

( The story so far! )

My neighbour knocked my door about half past nine this evening, with a black cat in her arms she'd found hanging around by the front door and mistaken for my Myfanwy.

We took it back upstairs to the ground floor, to see whether it would leave or try to stay - it was even more unwilling to go back outside than Myfi was! It's very friendly, with a lovely soft coat, and I think it's only about a year old. It is wearing a decorative collar, though, so it's evident it did at least have an owner at some point. No idea of the gender - either a girl or a neutered male - it's got the stinkiest backside I have ever known, so I haven't yet checked :-p

There was no way we could leave it in the hallways, nor were we prepared to forcibly move it outside, so I allowed it to come inside with me - for tonight at least. I've put food and fresh water down for it, and it's made use of the tray while it's been here.

The only real hurdle so far has been its reaction to Myfi. She came out into the hallway at one point to investigate what I was up to, and it made low growling noises on seeing her. This progressed to hissing - initially Myfi just stared, and came over to me for reassurance. Since it actually came indoors they've been carefully dancing around each other, and the hissing and growling has been mutual. Both have even hissed directly at me a couple of times - presumably I got in the way at a delicate moment! ;-)

There's been no outright fighting, however, simply "Oi! Eff off!" hissing from about a metre away. I'm planning to take Myfi in with me when I go to bed, and leave the visitor out here - we'll have to see how that goes. Then in the morning I'll open a door and see if it wants to go. It's quite a nice night out there tonight, so I don't imagine it's looking for shelter from the cold, like Myfi was.

If it decides to stick around, I'm gonna have to make a concerted effort to find the humans that put the collar on it... In the meantime, have a couple of pictures!
( Cut to spare the flist! )

So, we were expecting Myfi to have had some kittens around New Year, yet here we are in February and she's still a big furry lump.

I phoned the PDSA a fortnight ago, when I figured she must be a little past her due date, and they told me to wait and keep an eye on her since I had no way of knowing when the date of conception was. But then days passed and she hadn't even made any sign of wanting to nest. I was getting increasingly worried, as it's very dangerous to leave them go overdue.

Called the PDSA again Monday night and explained the situation again, and they finally agreed it would be a good idea for them to take a look at her. So an appointment was made for Wednesday night, and Rowan and I hauled her across town after I'd collected him from school. We were late arriving, despite giving ourselves an hour's travel time, as traffic was horrendous. This meant we had to see the nurse instead of the vet. At first she was a little bit condescending, all "Well, if she was pregnant she'd have either had them by now, or she and they would all be dead!" When I told her about how the locum vet had agreed with the diagnosis in mid-December, she admitted that it can be easy to mistake deposits in the colon for kittens! I pressed her for an explanation for Myfi's sharp weight gain and the way her abdomen is distended, but neither she nor the vet she asked to pop in for a moment could give me any answers. I was then asked to bring her back in on Friday morning.

This left me worrying somewhat for the next day or so, about what might be wrong that they weren't prepared to tell me that night. I was also rather frustrated as I had an assignment due Friday night, and I could have done with the library time, but what can you do?

Got up at the crack of dawn Friday morning to bundle her back into her box, and send Rowan off to Mam's so she could do the school run for me. We were still just a little bit late for our appointment, 'cause two buses didn't show, but we'd barely registered at reception when we were called in to the consulting room. The vet we saw this time was a woman who'd seen Myfanwy the first couple of times, for her initial health check and when she had a bit of a bad stomach. She's a little hard to understand, as her accent's a bit thick, but she's been helpful before. I recall she was rather unsure if Myfi was pregnant, back in November, but it was such early days anyway.

So, she has a look at her and her opinion was that she has merely filled out a fair bit. Apparently her weight has barely changed in the last couple of months (my Wii-Fit says she's gained two pounds, but obviously I'm more inclined to trust the vet's scales) and the vet couldn't feel anything in her abdomen other than fat! *eyeroll* Why couldn't they have told me this Wednesday night??

So there we are! Obviously I'm disappointed that the kittens I was eagerly awaiting will never materialise, and I'm very irritated at the wasted time Friday morning, but the important thing is that she's apparently okay otherwise. I was frightened that it was something serious, like a tumour or a tapeworm.

Last night was the first in weeks that she's not slept on my bed; I was letting her stay in with me as additional comfort, but if all she is is fat then I don't need to. I wasn't sleeping completely well with her on the bed with me. She did give a couple of little cries, finding the door too tightly closed for her to push it open, but they were only really token protests thankfully! She's quite a chilled out cat, on the whole.

Take a look at this little video, guys - would you agree with me that my houseguest has been a naughty girl? ;-)

Looks like she's decided we're worth giving a trial run to!



( I can haz kitteh? )