Quite a size!

Nine weeks IS a fast pregnancy - 63-65 days being the average from mating to delivery.....these little beings are formed, a skeleton, all organs, teeth, and all 4 limbs, each paw ending with these amazing claws which are astoundingly long at the time of their birth (Freddie Krueger eat your heart out). It fascinates and fills me with awe. 

Each mother cat who may have just one kitten, or several (8, 10 even!) has carried on living their life completely normally (apart from eating more) while inside her body this all takes place.

It’s a short time, but as I watch each day, it’s easy to forget - what did my cat look like before her tummy got to this size? 

The truth of this is that she is normally slim a trim 3.2 - 3.5kg. Now she weighs over a kilo more. Not much you might think, but it’s a ¼ of her body weight! 

She has a lot of milk ready - you can see a ridge where her breasts are taught. Her second row of nipples are even being drawn inward I have noticed today.

There’s been a LOT of grooming going on today... Noodle has been grooming Pru... I wonder if there are hormonal scent markers that cause this? But Pru has been grooming Noodle loads, her ears are the focus of much of this (why?). I keep trying to catch a snap as it looks like Pru is urgently whispering! Then the face and neck. There are little snaps when one will say “that’s enough, get off me” and I step in verbally to diffuse the tiff brewing. 

Despite her size she can still run and jump up and down -  not to the extent she normally would - they get into crazy chasing games at least once a day. Beware getting in their way! After Prune’s recent injury and the wearing of her splint and being kept inactive for the first almost 7 weeks of her first ever pregnancy I’m doing all I can to ensure that ‘dangerous’ activities are kept to a minimum.  

Is this day 64? Without having had a firm sighting of the first mating it’s hard to know. If she and Oz did mate on April 27th (the day she met him) then it is, but if she kept him at paw’s length for a night at least, it might only be day 63. Watch this space... there must be news soon!

Cat Nip Crazy

Noodle & Pune were treated to a newly handmade snuggly bed this week. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but, I know the lady who made it keeps dogs, since her business advertises beds for small Chihuahua dogs rather than cats, and as they did not dive right in as I expected them too I thought maybe there was a scent there that they were picking up. I decided that I didn’t want to wash it right away so I sprayed some cat nip spray inside.

Noodle was seriously affected by it - I’m fact she is the first cat I’ve had who reacts in any real way to cat nip. Admittedly I had never bought any cat nip sprays before keeping a Sphynx cat, however as seen in this video, her reaction is strong.

I so wish I’d videoed this from the start, but honestly, I didn't expect  quite such a reaction. Before filming started been going really mad for about a minute and a half so it was wearing off a bit by the time I’d got my phone and opened the camera app! 🐾🐾 😂🙃🤪🤣🐾🐾

With about 10 (ish) days to go Prune is making the most of it and sleeping alongside her ‘sister’ Noodle. It’s cute how they spend so much time sharing space and,  even if there is the odd spat, there is a symbiotic relationship of grooming each other.

Pru was so interested and nosey when Noodle’s last litter arrived, not sure at first what these noisy creatures were she would stand tall like a meerkat to see what was happening in the nursing box. She watched on for days gradually getting nearer and nearer until overcoming her fear she was sharing space and ‘helping’ Noodle with her mothering tasks.

By the time the remaining kitten was weaned she was happy to be the big sister and the relationship she had with that kitten was so close; where Nebula went so did Prune (and visa-versa). So, I wonder what will happen after next week when the roles are reversed and Noodle is the one watching on??

Since having kittens, a newborn kitten or even human baby cry will see her on full alert. Something in her is switched on to provide maternal care. It’s incredible to see and in fact those who’ve witnessed this happening,  particularly with a human baby, have been awed by her solicitous need to care.

Will she try to help Pru? Will Pru remember what she learned last year? I’m so excited to find out and see the new relationships develop over coming weeks and how changed Pru will be once she has become a mother. 🐾🐾❤️❤️🐾🐾 .

Look at the size of this tummy!

Prunella has just a little over two weeks left of her pregnancy.

This image proved rather difficult to take since she insisted on being right up in my face head butting and purring her love for me, and so I could not get her all in, but as you can see it clearly shows her expanding tummy which was the point of the image!

She is eating and drinking much more now as her developing babies make their demands on her and her body is preparing ahead for their births. It’s truly beautiful & an honour to be able to see this all happening at first hand. I am excited for the birthing - hoping fervently that she will do this without intervention - and to see her babies born and grow over the coming weeks 😁🐾🐾❤️❤️🐾🐾

Is she or isn’t she?

So, Prune is still spending all her hours caged up... by day 4 she had stopped trying to get out as soon as a door was opened (to scoop her litter, heat up her snuggle pet or to feed her)... each night I would get her out for a cuddle, wrapped in her blanket. She would purr away glad of the contact and company, content for ages just to head butt me and gaze at me. But, after an hour or so she would think to herself that she might like to explore or go to her favoured spots and at this point she had to be returned to her cage.

I’m sure she must be thinking what the hell had she done to deserve this? Everything was fine until that day in April when I took her for her heart scan then abandoned her for several days in a strange place where she was ravaged by a keen boy and was somehow injured and hurt. Yes. I feel guilty but, this dislocation was a freak accident. We just do not know how it has occurred. One possibility is that her claw may have got caught and stuck in a rope wrapped cat post as she jumped down... there was nothing else in the “mating” room that could account for it.

On day 20 of her bed-rest Pru’s nipples gave me the first sign of her mating being a success.

YES! SHE IS!!!!!

Now all I had to worry about with regard to them was that the x-ray and anaesthetic had not damaged them.

We did of course consider her “possible” kittens when I first took her to the vet for help. However, my decision was to treat Pru as the priority since not only was she in great pain but at such an early stage I could not know for a fact if she had had success with the matings.

Bless her, she suffered from a bit of morning sickness too but otherwise, her nipples extended and became more prominent and her tummy began to grow week by week still caged up and re-splinted every Friday.  Pru also began in the last couple of weeks to increase her food needs significantly! She is after all eating for.... how many?

The treatment plan for her toe injury was to have the splint re-dressed every week until she had a new x-ray done 4-6 weeks from having it put back into place. It was booked ahead for June 7th, however, one week before this while at the re-dressing appointment we noted that a nasty open sore had developed on her hock. The vet decided then that the splint must now not be put back advising that another week with it on may lead to serious complications as a sore on such a bony area could get ugly very quickly with any infection quickly reaching and affecting the bone itself. Again that word amputation was used.

So it was that for the final week before her planned re-x-ray & still caged, Pru now was without her splint. The toe was looking really straight so I was more and more hopeful that the surgery and toe amputation may not be needed - despite the warning on each visit that this could still be the case. At the very least, even if she has no more dislocations she will suffer from arthritis in this spot early now.

The 7th June arrived and, duly starved, we arrived at the clinic. The vet then surprised me by telling me that they thought it best with the growing kittens now half way to gestation, not to X-ray. Pru was doing so very well and this I was informed was largely due to my compliance with the vets instructions - most failures I’m told are down to non compliance by pet owners!

At last she could come out of her cage and enjoy freedom for her last few weeks before motherhood claims her. The one proviso of this freedom was that I was to “hide” the exercise wheel she loves so much to ensure that she did not re-injure herself.

She will have another x-ray but not until her kittens have weaned..... some weeks from now.

what a palaver!

Poor Prune... she has had a tough time of it of late.

At the end of April we travelled to Chesterfield to the Hairless Hearts UK HCM scanning clinic in Chesterfield for Prunella’s first heart scan - which was A1 - and at the same time she had come into heat so I dropped her off for mating on route back.

All was going well until she arrived back to me lame on her left side back leg which she would not put down at all. There was no open wound but a toe was at a very odd angle indeed. We went to the vet and she was booked for x-ray which needed to be done under general anaesthetic the next day.

The news came while she was still under that her toe was dislocated and this brought with it several possible outcomes - which included surgery, pinning and even amputation of the toe. Mark, our vet had struggled to re-locate the toe while she was under and told me he was almost ready to stop trying and recommend the surgical route when he managed to feel it go back in place. Re-x-rayed the toe was almost perfectly in position. The splint option was now our method of choice, albeit this is not guaranteed to be a success and she will risk the toe coming back out again later as the ligaments may never re-grip the joint properly after so much damage.

The splint now meant her having weekly revisits for re-dressing and also enforced bed rest... for several weeks. Poor little girl. She had had so much trauma and this felt awful as I dislike caging my pets, but needs must.

On the Friday evening she came home and I duly popper her with heated snuggle pet into her cage, with food, blankets, water and litter tray. She was not happy and cried to come out, wriggled so much that her blanket was constantly in her water bowl. I placed in a snuggle sack to try to help her settle and stop the water logging issue. She was not happy to use the litter tray either with this bulky splint and dressing which encased her kneed to toes, crying for several minutes to no avail before urgency to go made her use the tray provided. She is quite the burier too and so for the next few weeks I was constantly sweeping up litter! However, what came late on Sunday night was sighting her in her litter tray  squatting to wee but now she was minus her splint!! 😲😲😲

Now, I had been given a “cone of shame” to use should she start to bite at the dressings but she had not done this at all that I’d seen so where was it?

In her blanket, looking like a miniature blue mummy was her miter dressing which had slipped off intact as she wriggled and wriggled around in her snuggle sack trying to get comfy.

Now what to do?  I had just spent over £450 in vets fees with £50 more to come each week and did not wish to see this wasted. Yes, she is insured and I would get much of this back, but I must pay up front and the claim will take several weeks to process. I unwrapped her dressings studying how each layer was put on, then, with Pru held against me, her head and body under my right elbow I had essentially headlocked her so I could re-splint her as best I could.

I then proceeded to worry ALL night in case I’d wrapped it too tightly and cut off circulation which would then mean she lost her WHOLE lower leg. The morning could not come soon enough and as soon as it dawned I was on the phone to the vet and back we went.

The toe still looked straight. Did it need a new x-ray,though? We decided not, and the vets resplinted her as I held her still and away we went back to her cage until Friday’s scheduled appointment.