Pessimisticat
Hakuna matata
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Kitten With Swimmers Legs
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#1
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Long story short, stray queen momma cat gave birth to four beautiful babies in my front yard.
One of them has Swimmers Syndrome.
This basically means her back legs are splayed out instead of being under her, so she can't walk on them properly, and instead scoots around on with her front legs.
Apparently it can be fix with a taping method and some physiotherapy.
This happens because, due to being the largest kitten in a very small momma, she didn't have enough room to stretch her tendons, ligaments, and muscles, so they just never developed properly.
Out of all four of them, she is the one we are keeping because she has the highest risk of being euthanized if brought to a rescue or a shelter, and honestly not many people are willing to put the time and effort into taking care of/rehabilitating a cat, with any condition. The other four are awesome, and I believe will have no problem finding forever homes (especially the orange male, since he is genetically bob-tailed just like our little girl with the wonky legs).
We also have two other cats already, so adding on this other one is already a lot. I wish I could keep them all, I really do. This has to be the hardest part of this situation for me.
We are moving away in two weeks, across the state, so the Tuesday before we move (which is a Friday) we are going to take the others to the rescue and hopefully they'll be able to adjust. It is a bit early to separate them from their mom (they will be around 6-7 weeks old at that point). If we don't, though, then no one will be able to take them and they will stay in our complex, wild, unfixed, and just making more babies and chaos. We've already quickened their weaning process by having them eat both dry food and wet food, and socializing them with us and our cats.
I am just concerned that it might be risky starting Legs' physiotherapy and taping at 6-7 weeks. I saw a video of a cat that was a few months old getting taped, but yeah, I am hoping it isn't too late. I don't want to start now because the physiotherapy needs to happen every two hours, and the tape needs to stay on her for about a week, which will be hard to do if she is outside in the leaves and grass, especially when its been raining every day. I can't take her inside because she is definitely too young to be taken from her mom, and would lose a lot of cat socialization if I did.
And I did take her to the vet. The vet was the one who diagnosed her, but literally only looking at her for 20 seconds. I knew what the condition was before, due to some googling, so I know it is what she has. The vet said there was nothing we could do but I disagree since I am finding a lot of stuff online about ways to help them and even fix their problem.
BLAH.
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Posted 06-17-2017, 11:36 PM
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