Meet Charlie and Tina. (day one)

Cato died on Tuesday the 22^nd of May and on the Saturday after, my girlfriend and I went to the Limerick Animal Welfare Sanctuary to bring them cat food and toys as I had already intended to do before Cato’s death. It got us out of the house and we also needed some feline therapy so we went into the cat section to meet the cats. It was there we met Charlie and Tina who were sharing a unit. Charlie is a red tabby and white tomcat and Tina is a female tortie. We already kind of decided that we were going to adopt the two but we needed more time. Last Sunday, the 3^rd of June, we were helping out in the sanctuary and met all the cats again. It was then we decided that it was definitely going to be Charlie and Tina. We decided to pick them up on the Tuesday so we could get a few things sorted.

I bought a second litter box and more canned cat food at Maxi Zoo. I was also waiting for the arrival of two cat trees and Applaws dry food without grain fillers from zooplus.ie, which was delivered on Tuesday morning. I quickly put together the cat trees and then we went out to get the two. As soon as we got them, we continued on to visit the vet and get them micro chipped. Not a bother. They were very calm.

The vet said that Charlie might have had the cat flu as a kitten and both of them had thin hair over their eyes which could indicate ringworm. Because of a recent infection in part of the sanctuary, she advised me to give them both the treatment.

When we got home they started exploring their new home. It turned out that both Tina and Charlie had the runs. Probably stress. Tina was quite nervous and would run every time Orla or I would come into the kitchen. She tried to hide constantly. Charlie was more relaxed but a bit nervous all the same. The plan was to keep them contained to the kitchen and the hall for as long as the treatment would last (5 weeks) so if they had it, the spores wouldn’t get all over the house. But then I realised that it would be impossible to contain as we had already walked through the house covered in hairs. After previous contact with the two we also had walked into all the rooms covered in their hairs.

It’s not even sure if they have it so we’re just going to wait and see and treat the thin hair spots with vinegar (recommended by a vet on youtube)

After a few hours in the house, Tina relaxed a bit too and allowed us to pet her but would still run and hide when we walked into the room where she was.