Hi, my name's Julia and my family and I have had our cat Pooh, or "Poo Poo," for over 6 years. We adopted him from my brother, who rescued him in the woods by his house when he was about 6 months old. When months went by and they never could find his owners, they decided they would keep him as a barn cat. One day, I came to their house and met Poo Poo out by the barn. He was so loving and friendly, I told them, "This isn’t a barn cat, it’s a house cat," and brought him home with me! The whole ride home, which is about 2 hours, he just laid in my lap and purred.

My son Jaxon is 8 years old now, so he was about 2 when we brought Poo Poo home. Once Poo Poo got comfortable with all of us, he chose Jax to be his person. Poo Poo would fall asleep every night with Jax, all cuddled up with him. Poo Poo never went outside; he was strictly an inside cat and never was really even interested in outside. Recently, he would maybe venture out to our back porch if our middle son Jameson would be out back playing and leave the door open, which he tried to keep closed.

On Feb 2nd, Jameson wasn’t really feeling good all day, and after he fell asleep that night, he ended up waking up and having a hard time breathing. So I took him to the hospital, and he ended up staying the next day until about 2 o’clock. When we got home a couple of hours later, I went to feed the cats, and Poo Poo never came over to eat. So I started to search for him and couldn’t find him. The only thing I can think of is that Jameson left the door open, and Poo Poo ventured out on the porch. Maybe our dog Rollo spooked him, and he ran out back and jumped the fence to the neighbor's backyard.

Six weeks went by, and Poo Poo was never found. We posted him everywhere and drove and walked all around our neighborhood, talking to a lot of people over those six weeks. Well, a few days ago, my neighbor left a note on my door saying she thought she saw Poo Poo in her backyard in the bushes behind her shed, but that he had crawled back far into them again and she couldn’t see him. But she managed to snap a picture of him, and when I saw it, it did look so much like him, just skinnier. So we went to see if we could see him, and there he was in the bushes behind the shed. He started meowing as soon as he saw and heard me and my son Jaxon. He stopped crawling further back and let me come and pick him up.

We were so happy we found him, but he looked so sick and skinny and was covered in bugs and moving really slowly. So we got in the car and immediately brought him to the animal hospital. We didn’t have the best experience there. Long story short, they basically told us it was going to be around $4000 just to start his treatment. When I told them I didn’t have $4000 and to just maybe give him fluids and some medicine to make him feel better and get rid of the bugs until I could get him to my regular vet, they told me I was making a risky move. They didn’t think I should do that and gave me an estimate on euthanizing him there.

We left there, and the next morning at 7 am, we brought him to our regular vet. We got somewhat better news there. He did have a fatty liver, but they think we could turn that around by getting him to start eating and drinking again. They think he basically was surviving on barely anything other than bugs and rainwater over those last six weeks and basically stayed in the same area the whole time because he was so scared. His red blood cell count was also very low; it was at 14 when at 12 they usually do a blood transfusion. They think his red blood cell count was so low because of the flea infestation. So they sent us home over the weekend to see how he would do with all his medicine they put him on and force-feeding him through a syringe.

Well, today came after the weekend, and we brought him back in for a recheck. They told us he is going to get a feeding tube to make it easier for him to eat and keep his food and medicine down but also that his red blood cells went down to 13. So, like I said, usually at 12 they do a blood transfusion. So she said she thinks it would be in his best interest to do the blood transfusion, but it’s up to us because it can be pretty expensive, around $1000. So far, altogether, we have already spent between the emergency vet and our regular vet about $1400.00. I know to some people that’s not a lot of money, but to our family, it is. But being that Poo Poo is part of our family, it was a necessary thing we do. Now, with that being said, we now have to spend around another thousand dollars on the blood transfusion for him. We are just asking if anyone would like to help us and donate anything you can to help save our Poo Poo. Thank you!