Sanju's arrival

After Sanju was evacuated from vegancat's workplace, I offered to foster him as he sounded like a 'guai' cat. Sanju first came to my home on 4 Feb in the early evening. The earlier events happened like this (my email to vegancat, as posted on vegancat's blog):

Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:38 PM
Subject: Report on Sanju

I believe you've received the link to sanju's photos that I'd sent. Here's a report/observation of what happened at home. :)

Sat arrival: Sanju arrived at abt 6pm+. Vincent said that he's poo-ed in the pet taxi and smell bad. We bathed sanju with very warm water, brushed and fed him wet food. He stopped eating when full and did not finish everything in the bowl. He seems to like to drink water which is a good thing.

Toilet refresher course:The peeing part was a bit intriguing at first. I showed him the litter bin (filled with fresh pine pellets) in the 'cat room' and put Sanju into it. Later, Sanju knew where to pee and poo - he had watery poo at abt 10pm, perhaps due to stress during transportation.

Perhaps I then made the mistake of shifting the poo bin a few feet away (so that the wind won't blow the aroma towards the bed where sanju is), sanju had a couple of peeing accidents.

slideshow

Sat night at almost 12am: just before retiring to bed, I went to check on him; realised the small piece of paper which I'd placed under the dry food bowl is wet with urine (he'd almost pee-ed into his dry food). Cleaned-up and disinfected. Put a small piece of tissue (soaked with his urine) into the litter box and shifted the box back to the earlier position.

Left him in the room and closed the door. He meowed loudly for a short while, waking uncle S from sleep.

Sunday morning: went to check on Sanju. He slept soundly and did not wake up when I entered. When he woke, he meowed but seemed to have trouble opening his eyes. I think he eyes were kind of shut by the dried up eye discharge. Cleaned his eyes gently (with tissue dabbed with water). Discovered that he had pee-ed beside the litter box, onto the newspapers which I'd put underneath. Cleaned-up and disinfected. Decided to put an additional bin lined with newspapers beside the litter box to observe further. I stopped putting newspapers under the litter box.



Mid-morning: Sanju pee-ed into the correct litter box, ignoring the new paper bin.

Afternoon: Sanju pee-ed in the paper-lined bin (inconsistent habit?).

Decided once and for all to get rid of the paper habit (too troublesome to maintain 2 types of litter boxes). Removed the paper bin and left the one filled with pine pellets. We left him in the room to go out for an hour or so. Before we could leave, we heard commotion in the litter box - sanju had poo-ed soft stools, an improvement over the night before.

Mon morning: Sanju no longer pee on paper....coz there's no more paper in the room for him to do so!

Health: Both eyes still have lots of discharge and the 3rd eyelid at the inner corner of eyes are slightly red. Also sneezed a few times (once into my face) with bits of pale green snot flying out. Noticed Sanju has a slight watery nose. I weighed him (by carrying him and stepping onto the scale) on Sunday night - his weight is about 2.2 kg, and we are expecting him to put on weight in no time. He has good appetite. ;)

Behaviour and adaptation: Sanju is a darling to care for (when compared to the hyperactive cat we'd last fostered!). He is slowly getting to know us and loves to stick around (literally!) with/to us, although he still meows very loudly from room to room, as if looking for his cat friends and the people who previously took care of him.

I think he's still a bit disoriented and finding his way around. He's also learnt to race uncle S from the kitchen to see who's the first to reach the bed in the cat room.

That's all for now. Any feedback or suggestions are welcome.
Regards P