Persephone Needs Ear Surgery

About four months ago, I went to pick up a horse in Ocala, Florida for my training
business, Avalo farm. Emily, one of my working students, came along for the ride to
keep me company. We stayed at an RV park which housed far too many
feral (and population growing) felines. 

None I could handle except one very frail and weak female who was very friendly
and probably far too sick to run off even if she wanted to. Every time she got up to
move around a small section of the stairs she almost fell over. She must have
weighed 3 lbs and was pregnant. She also had an upper respiratory infection and
a horrific ear infection with a dime sized, angry looking, puralent,
cancerous tumour in her left ear. We named her Persephone and packed
her up in a box and brought her home to SC.

Persephone with her newborn kittens 

 Since then her URI has cleared up, she had her kittens and they have been weaned. 

With regular good food she now weighs about 5 lbs. She is happy and loves other 

cats and our dogs too! It's now time for her to be spayed now that she's healthier 

and to have her tumour removed (which is now the size of a grape)! See picture 

below of the tumour after a good cleaning and ointment applied to her cheek.

   

Please, if you are able to help, we have created a 'chipin' fund to help us with Persephone's 

ear surgery. We are working on our 501c3 but right now everything is out of 

our own pockets here at the farm. Any support is greatly appreciated!

You can also see more pictures of Persephone at our Facebook site: 

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150322123329456.366027.339054144455&type=3

Tertius - one of Persephone's kids

Many thanks for being friends 
of Avalo Cat Sanctuary.
Please follow us on facebook!

www.avalocatsanctuary.com 

Monkey's Blog

"Eyes blue and not near mild,

Markings extravagant and wild.

A sweetheart she shall be,

Little claws crawling but messy.

She likes it when people come to stay,

So she can have a new buddy for some play.

And when one person leaves one day,

She'll beg for someone to come and stay."

Monkey is a beautiful female Bengal who came to Avalo Cat Sanctuary through through Bengal Rescue in the Philly area last year. Monkey is a total love bug by the way. She has her own room here at Avalo. Our guests come to stay and Monkey go around under the covers, sleep on thighs, and talk very loudly to anyone who will listen. Her claws are also quite sharp and pointy. She especially loves it when Emily (author of the above poem) comes to visit and meows extra loudly in excitement!

Monkey had an IBD diagnosis prior to arriving and was on a special holistic food. After checking several poop samples (also for tri-trich) and switching to a variety of good, different foods it just wasn't getting any better. Her stools were always very soft and sometimes runny. She even often appeared 'hunchy' like and sore in her stomach.

I've been wanting to try raw diet for the cats forever, but due to time and $ contrainsts, and procrastination, never made the leap. She loves to eat raw chicken but needed a more complete diet. I wanted to take her off her hard food and the canned food (which she had been quite enjoying). So, we started on Instinct Rabbit Raw diet (rabbit is a cooling meat which helps to offset inflammation). I am thrilled to report that this week Monkey has had 3 days of normal BM's as well as looking far more comfortable in her abdomen. See picture below (which only a cat person can love!)

Monkey's normal poop!

I now am trialing 4 cats on this diet - Nala a Female Bengal with bladder stones; Roo a very active Female Bengal; Chasity, and older Female Bengal with Coccidia quite some time ago and a very sensitive stomach with soft stools consistently (fecal check all good).

I am delighted to say that Nala is in and out of the box less, Chasity has normal BM's and a less red bum, and Roo enjoys the diet a lot. Monkey, a week later, still has normal poop and no hunchy look to her! She's a lot more vocal and active too! This week we tried chicken which wasn't as much as a hit. Although they all are eating the chicken they don't fancy it as much as the rabbit. We have beef but haven't opened it yet. Last week we tried lamb and it was not a success. None of them cared for it, the smell turned them off even! It even caused two of them to vomit after eating only a taste. They turned their finicky cat noses up at this choice. So, off to Aiken again on Friday to pick up more rabbit :)