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CASPER WAS ADOPTED JANUARY 10, 2009!
Casper is a VERY friendly cat who loves human interaction, purrs loudly and demands to have her head scratched! She even likes to be vacuumed because, well, she is deaf and cannot hear the vacuum cleaner! But there is quite a bit to tell about Casper so let us begin...
Poor Casper recently had her world turned upside down. You see, she originally came into our foster home as a two-week-old kitten. She was bottle fed and raised along with another orphaned kitten and both were placed into a home together. Two years later, the people were getting divorced and moving to places that don't allow pets. Fortunately, the cats did not need to come back into foster care because we were able to rehome both together before they needed to get out of their original home. And we thought all would be well...
Turns out, Casper has a very hard time adjusting to change. We knew from the time she was a kitten that she was deaf. She is also blind in her blue eye. Add to that the fact that against our wishes the first adopters had the cats declawed, not due to destructiveness on their part, rather because the husband was diagnosed as diabetic and could not risk being scratched. With all of this combined, Casper was left with no coping skills whatsoever. Where she was happy, content and comfortable in the only home she ever knew, the move to a new home traumatized her and she was not adjusting. So she was returned to us while her buddy stayed in his new home. That actually worked out OK since they have each done well without the other.
When Casper returned to us, we put her in a condo (a large cat cage with shelves) to give her a private space to acclimate. Due to the stress she was experiencing, she did not eat, drink or use her litter box for a week. We could not stand to see her suffer like that and had made an appointment with our vet to have her euthanized. As much as it pained us to do that, making her live in sheer terror was inhumane. Miraculously, within hours after we made that appointment, Casper ate, drank and used her litter box! So the euthanasia appointment was cancelled.
In her foster home, there were several more factors that made her adjustment even more difficult - two other foster cats free roaming in the room her cage is in, dogs visible through the doorway, lots of activities that would rattle any cat adjusting to a new place. But she has adjusted and she now comes out of her cage and begs for interraction. Now that Casper has come around, we have a better handle on the type of home she should go to where adjusting won't be near as difficult for her. For one, we will send her cage with her. She should stay in that cage initially since it has become her "safety zone" and is familiar to her. The doors can be left open after the first few days and she should be allowed to come out when she is ready. She should be an only pet - no other cats or dogs. And as ironic as it sounds to say she should have a quiet home since she is deaf, by that we mean a low activity, adult only home. Not that it would matter in the longterm, but it is vital to her initial adjustment. With the right environment and someone who understands her need to acclimate at her own pace, we feel she can have a very successful readoption and love a new home as much as she loved her first home. One thing we absolutely are sure of is that she is the most loving mush of a kitty and she deserves a chance to call a place "home" again!
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