Juliette

{4-15-17 : This campaign was originally created last summer for Juliette - We did not reach our goal, so we are trying again for Ashes}

This is Ashes. He is suffering from serious chronic diarrhea. This is why he was owner surrendered. His bottom continually drips and this messy situation required him to be in a kennel much of the time at the shelter. It was also necessary because it is suspected his condition is due to a dietary allergy.

The shelter has been desperately trying various diets for him but each one requires him to be on it for a couple of weeks and it's just seriously stressful on a little guy to have to stay in the kennel that whole time. If you try to let him out it is inevitable that he would find a different cat's food at the shelter and pig out - undoing all the work that had already been done - sending us back to day one on his diet restriction.

His situation was getting dire. He was depressed and exceptionally bored. With the help of the shelter staff, we devised a plan to let him roommate with Kyan (our Savannah Cat) in his beautiful outdoor enclosure for a bit. Why is this a perfect situation? Kyan is very picky about his food. He has never once eaten a dry kernel of cat food in his life. So he will never dip into the special diet food that Ashes requires. Kyan eats canned food and he gets his meals morning and night and he never shares. I have no concern at all that he won't finish it all and that Ashes will dip into it. Just not possible. And finally the outdoor enclosure has lots of wonderful cubbies and climbing structures for kitties. It has Sissel rope wrapped around the porch supports, it is fully enclosed with chain-link fence even for the roof, and it attaches to my covered front porch so there are plenty of places for complete cover in the event of bad weather. He can run and play and sun himself as much as he would like. His drippy bottom will not matter one little bit out here.

This will buy him the time that we need to try to work out what it is in his diet that he is allergic to so that we can get him to feeling better and get him healthy and into a home of his very own.

So. That being said, I have learned that there is a special blood test and a diarrhea panel that can be performed on cats that will be able to determine what the problem might be and whether or not an allergy to various foods might actually exist. This will allow us to faster get Ashes on the right track by not having to fix his problem through trial and error. This little guy has been miserable with his diarrhea and bright red bottom for more than a month.  I would like to try to raise the funds for him to have the tests and to get him put on the right track. Then I can diligently work on ensuring that he gets healthy, puts on the weight that he needs, and help him to find his very own forever home so that he can lay on someone's lap instead of being outdoors.