A Golden Nugget of Truth (about FIV & cats) A stray came through my yard as usual and he was starving and flea ridden, he was long and skinny and a bright orange male. He was fighting possums and another stray cat that came into my yard that was feral and very aggressive. At first I didnt know if he was friendly and it took him 3 weeks for me to be able to catch him. When he did he rolled at my feet and gave me the look that it was ok that I can touch him now. So I fed him that night and the next morning and I tested his trust by taking him to the vet. At this point he was so scratched up from all the cat fights and possums in the yard that my vet asked if she could sedate him if she needed to stitch him back up any where. She also asked me if she could shave him to see his wounds better and I agreed that would be a good idea. Luckily he didnt need stitches on his belly but he did come back testing positive for FIV = kitty aides. To say my world crashed in around me is an understatement. I cried like a baby thought what do people do in this circumstance? I asked my vet and they said they put them down. I asked my local rescues and they said the same thing. I called my vet back and said give me 24 hours and I will make a decision. I reached out to my facebook friends and one person came back with a local = 3 hours 1 way trip to a rescue facility that takes in all aides and lukemia kitties. I decided to take him there. I called my vet and said get him fixed and all shots except for the FIV shot and I will take him to a local rescue. And this was only the beginning of my story with Nugget, whom I called Corky in the beginning to honor a friend and still call him Corky Nugget. Seems fitting for his personality. There is a fine line in rescue and being smart about rescue. You should always know and consider everything with any animal. I knew that this animal wouldnt be adopted unless by himself with someone who wanted 1 cat. As the odds were not in his favor. Alot of rescue people will rescue everything only to save their life, I personally believed after being attacked by a dog for 30 days that I rescued that I wouldnt do that again and only be a smart rescue. Well here comes Nugget knocking at my door to teach me a lesson. Even tho I found him a sanctuary to live, something inside my heart was not happy about it all. He would be there inside a home with other cats of his kind and a human to only come in once a day to feed and clean. I also knew Nugget to be a friendly to human but aggressive to animals kind of cat and I was very torn at this point because I was afraid he would go in there and raise hell with the other cats. So here I am again at another cross road even though I found him a santuary to live out his full life and not be killed just because he has a disease and I am afraid he will not be happy. Three days later Corky Nugget comes home from the vets office, my face is swollen from crying for him for this time. The vet tells me they had to keep him in a kennel outside because he was 3-5 years old and when a male cat starts getting older their cheeks grow bigger because of all the testosterone in their body and he would take a few weeks to stop smelling like a fixed tom cat. He smelled up their whole entire office and it is a very huge building. I was quiet embarrassed that he did that considering I was the reason he was there but my vet knew I was only helping him so it relieved some of the embarrassment. I tell ya the drive home was like I had a skunk in the car. The pictures I posted of him before his neuter was a highly discussed topic on its on, hence why the name Nugget stuck with me so well considering he was golden in color helped. So I called him stinky all the way home, saying it will be ok stinky I have a home for you to go to. I had to keep him in the kennel crate until Friday and take him and it was only early in the week which I knew was going to be a very long week because he had a meow that you could hear from acres away and I only have 1 acre. There is a semi trailer that we keep things in and his crate would go in there. I brought him home and put him in the crate and I have a video of how he rebelled against this idea greatly. It is worth the watch if you are interested I put the link below. This was the day that broke my heart into a million pieces. He rolled upside down and all over with his paw sticking through the bars reaching for me crying and telling me please let him go. I had a decision to make didnt I? Here I am trying to be responsible and this cat is so friendly to me and is so aggressive to animals and I am stuck watching him beg me to let him go. He was protecting his yard, like all male tom cats do when they are not fixed. I went in and talked to my husband and his words were so smart that he said this and I quote, Well he can have a house with no people, or a yard with no house and people, Nicole it is your decision. So the decision was made and I went out to Stinky, Corky-Nugget and told him he was one lucky cat and he was being let back loose in my yard. I took a picture of me and Nugget on his freeing day and I think we both looked equally as happy and relieved as the other one. I love that photo and Oh the uproar I got from the responsible party section in the world. How dare I let a cat out who can give aides to other cats!!! Well, he never was mine to begin with, I knew him for 3 weeks, took care of his vet bills and I have 9 indoor cats and 1 outdoor cat and I am trying to balance what in the world to do with an FIV cat. This was no easier on me than anyone who was judging all of what I should do. As the odds were not in my favor any way, and I thought to myself, that is one lucky cat, he could have been put to sleep! Here he is roaming my yard, rubbing my leg and getting food all the while I am getting all sorts of hate mail. You got to understand, I wasnt the reason this cat was 3-5 years old, outdoors, un-fixed, un-vetted, and has aides! But yet I am holding the bag of what to dos. Day after day, I went out and there he was still there and I have a feral yard cat, she is not agressive and somehow Nugget knew to not attack her so this gave me a glimmer of hope that he would learn to calm down one day and especially when his testosterone cleared out of his body. The smell didnt go away for 3 months. I do wash my cats and even that didnt help his poor soul. He loved getting cheek massages tho and his cheeks did go down after getting him fixed but his belly filled out. When it was time to feed I gave Misty my outdoor cat her bowl and Nugget his bowl and he ate his and slapped her head and ate hers. So I had to obtain this ritual to sit outside between them until they both ate their breakfast and dinner. I also have a huge screened in back porch for my other 9 cats and Nugget would lay up against the screen beside them with his back to them. This is a HUGE trust thing and also a submissive thing. Because the other cat through the screen could attack at him and he was giving them permission to smell and get to know him and he was showing a NON-aggresive trait by allowing his back to be to them. I watched him growing and unfolding into his personality like a flower daily. But at the same time I watched him fight a huge possum in my yard one day and this whole time I have been doctoring him up from wounds and now I know what it was from!! Nugget was full on fighting this possum 2 times his size and I had to get the hose to seperate them. I left the groceries in my car and got a bloody cat and brought him inside to my back office for more doctoring. When I say he had gashes, it was from his cheeks down to the front part of his knees under his belly that he was sliced up. I took 2 kitchen towels and hydrogen peroxide and wrapped his whole mid section up and he just layed there like thank you mommy. While I look at him like what is it going to take to make you stop fighting? As I worry about how he fights with outdoor cats and possums and all this in the back of my head of him spreading this aides disease to my indoor cats there is absolutely no right answer for me. I am an enemy to most at any given time. My own household for keeping him and any animal in my yard that comes through has the option of catching this disease through fighting contact with Nugget. To say I cried for him again, is an understatement. Now I have fallen inlove with him and I completely understand why people euthanize animals that are aggressive and have a disease like this. I have no idea what to do, and I am casting all my fears and anxiety to God and praying for an answer. I make Nugget a Facebook page to obtain animal lovers alike to help him find a perfect home and I gained an audience of 800 people and not one person would help me find him a home nor was interested in adopting him but I still was getting hate mail about how I was irresponsible. Still shaking my head I am in such a loss as I dont want to kill him as a majority of the population thinks I should do and considering all proof in circumstances honestly I understood them but my heart said NO@!!! and I listened. The other part a very small percentage of the population said he can live fine in a house of cats as long as he doesnt fight!!! Well hello!!! What did I just witness and seperate and doctor him for!!! Still at odds and no answers, I wait for God to help me, and I pray and try to release anxiety and fear. It was a total of 6 months I had this cat outdoors. He would look so longingly through the screen at me, like please let me in to see your wonderful back porch you built just for your cats, please let me in and I promise I will be good. It hurt my heart more than you will ever know to leave something like that outside when you love it so very much. He was so playful outside and so loving to me. He would let me roll him upside down and kiss his belly. I played in leaves with him and bought him toys and cat nip toys and he played like a 5 year old little boy with me. So one day I thought, bring in the crate to the back porch and put him in it there for a while and see how the cats all interact. Mind you, Nugget has always watched me like a hawk and he follows my feet and everything I do. So in the crate on the inside of the back porch he went for an hour or two in the morning and at night as I watched how every single one of my cats and he reacted to eachother. Mostly they walked right on by him and he stayed laying down like he did through the screen. I did this for approx 2 weeks I think more to build up my own trust because I knew what I was seeing but I couldnt believe my own eyes. Let me explain that the indoor cats I have are all vetted and no diseases and I also had a cat pass away many moons ago from the FELV and it is different from FIV but I thought it was the same transmission and it is not. The FELV = lukemia is transmitted as easy as drinking after another cat and also fighting but FIV = aides is transmitted via deep puncture bite wounds only. Which yes I have seen Nugget fight like this and yes my reservations to let him with my indoor cats were because of that. But considering him watching me and him knowing that I love all my cats he knew to not fight them. Though my indoor cats fight eachother once a blue moon over territory and I was and am still fearful of that today if they all get into an altercation what can I do? But Nugget having lived 6 months outdoors watching me and knowing all my no, dont do that he looks at me and is looking for approval. I kept him in the back office every 10 days to heal up from possum wounds and doctored him and Nugget and I bonded like no other cat, I heard someone say once that cat would walk through fire with you Nicole and I understand that is one huge level of trust. When I decided to let Nugget out in my home I thought following him around it would be smart to have his eye teeth pulled if he is a biter then he cant puncture skin and he still has his life and he isnt dying but yet is living in a home and I will feed him soft food morning and night. Well that was not an issue as Nugget has proven himself to be a very trustworthy cat and has not given me any reason to believe he will fight my cats but I have with my own eyes seen him walk away from fights. We take him with us on the weekends when we go to the lake for a few days as well and during this weekend stay he is such a lover we are both smiling every second he is around. Everything he does is silly and amazing, his time he has given me has been more of a blessing to me. Let me explain why. Going from everyone telling you to kill this disease to this being the best cat I ever owned in my life is all due to me praying and learning about FIV = how it is NOT SPREAD, to me releasing my fears and watching my cats reactions to eachother. You can divert attention and teach them to play good together. There are stories that I could write a book on about Nugget but I wanted his story to explain how FIV is not a death sentence and cats can peacefully live together. The whole entire equasion to this is that he needed to be fixed and that testosterone needed to have time to release from his body and he needed a good human to not forsake him by leaving him outside to get the disease through not being fixed. If he was not turned his back on by his first owners this would never have happened. He didnt deserve to die because of it, he didnt deserve to get the disease by mother nature because he was doing what a cat instinctually does when not fixed. He didnt deserve to be starving to death an flea ridden. Now my boy has a beautiful name, and he has a wonderful family who loves him dearly. We choose to make him the final cat we adopt because we are responsible pet owners and we cant take on more cats or diseases in my home and pay for them and watch them and help mingle more cats. We choose to make him our last cat, and I couldnt be more thankful and proud that we did. Nugget has taught me that no matter how broken you are, you still deserve to be loved greatly and that my friend is the best life lesson I think I have ever learned to this day. God blessed me with him and his story. I pray his story is shared and everyone can understand how that getting a cat fixed and vetted is normally the process to all answers. May many kitties be blessed by Nuggets story and have a long healthy life of many years with a family that deserves them.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:41:18 +0000
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