Blog – Page 2 – Mandarin’s Retreat

Ginger Cat Appreciation Day

These are the Ginger kitties currently in residence at Mandarin’s Retreat.

Glen with a smileOur newest ginger kitten who is all purrs and meows. He is a very chatty kitten!

HerculesHercules is one of our older cats at the Retreat. He is shy and often lurks in dark spaces.

Kit KatKit Kat was a "temporary" foster from a family who lost there home. We provide updates and pictures to his family but they have not returned to pick him and his sister up. Kit is very affectionate and loves to rub your legs.

MarmaladeMarmalade is wearing her "Lion cut" trim. She had very matted fur which made her cranky. Now she is cooler and more comfortable, her charming disposition has returned.

OatmealOatmeal came to us as a lost kitten who a nice lady found. He was a little sickly but has recovered nicely. He is a bouncy trouble seeking kitten who likes to sleep on our bed.

ToffeeToffee was on of four kittens from Miss Tabz. He was born in our backyard and deposited on our front porch with his brother and sisters. He is thriving among the kittens at the Retreat but like all ginger kitties, he has but one brain cell.

Winston & Jeremiah

Jeremiah was a street cat and a victim of a dog fighting cabal who found his way to our driveway. He was so territorial that we had to limit his space within the Retreat to Mr. H’s office. He resided there, mostly alone for a couple of years.

Winston was a lost kitten placed with us by our vet and one day he ran through the open door of the office to bump noses with Jeremiah. From almost that time on, the two were best buds. They traveled together to the Vet ER when Jeremiah’s congenital heart disorder reared its ugly head, surprising us all and had their last kitty hug when he walked over the Rainbow Bridge on 5 Sept 2022. Winston was heart broken and kept wandering the house looking for his friend; we think he had never recovered from his loss and followed Jeremiah over the bridge on April 29, 2024, having lost his fight to total bone marrow failure. They are now forever together.

Cat Pictures

Much Going On

Before getting into the meat of my blog, I would like to give a big shout out to Steve for his donation to our “Keeping Promises” campaign to cover the vet bills of our cats. Steve found us via Reddit, which is a first for us. We had a nice exchange of emails and I hope he will follow us in the future.

I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks, the first reason is I couldn’t come to terms with the loss of Penelope and Buddy. Penelope was a 4.5 month old baby of Ms Tabz and she was as sweet a kitten you would ever want. Penelope’s sudden death by what our vet suspects to have been a viral illness happened only two days after another loss. Our old warrior Buddy’s body was shutting down due to old age and several chronic illnesses and we helped him over the Rainbow Bridge to join his friends already there. When you lose two cats almost at once, its just tough to sit down and write about anything, never even mind about what hurts so much and how.

Since these two deaths, we’ve been continuing our efforts to get donations and to apply for grants to help us with our vet bills. I was reminded by our vet that a large number of our cats have auto-immune disorders. Auto-immune disorder don’t necessary bring death quickly to a cat but they require constant medication and scheduled trips to the vet and sometimes a detour to the vet emergency room. Auto-immune diseases raise our costs significantly, but we’re a cat hospice so what do we do? We take care of cats.

There was some good news during this dreary period. We were notified on Friday 23 Aug, that we had been granted a Google Ad Grant. There are some hoops to jump through and we have to get a certain percentage of “clicks” on the ads in order to keep the grant. One rescue told me on Maddie’s Pet Forum that the amount of work it takes to keep up with the Google Ad Grant requirements almost makes it not worth the trouble. They mentioned that they have received almost no donations through the ads but lots of requests to drop off pets. We’ll have to see what happens.

Now, for cat news. There is a power struggle of sorts in the office where I watch TV in the evenings. Elderly cat Linus does not take kindly to little Ms Stella hogging my lap. Linus is normally the first one there when I sit down. However, the moment Linus goes to the water or food bowl, Stella takes his place. Linus generally comes over and glares at the both of us. Though, on occasion, he has given Stella a gentle paw to the head. A strategic retreat by her creates space for Linus, but as soon as he vacates the spot, Stella returns. Sigh.

Good News about Stella

Last week I mentioned that Stella was a very sick kitty who everyone thought had one or two types of cancer. She didn’t have a very good prognosis. Her little nose was swollen, inflamed and was missing fur across the bridge. She had a tumor in her left ear which indicated a very complicated and expensive surgery to remove.

Stella came home post-op filled to her little eyeballs with meds, treats and other tricks. As the week wore on, we noticed that she started perking up and became very chatty. As you can see in the photo above, the stitch in her nose gives her the look of a boxer who lost her fight. We kept Stella in semi-isolation in her kennel in my office/TV room with only a couple of older cats – Cookie and Linus to keep company. After a couple of days, we opened the kennel and allowed her a “walk-about” in the room. There was very little hissing and lots of sniffing. I think her earlier “bad behavior” with other cats was more caused by the pain in her ear than her normal cattitude.

We got the results of her histopathology late Friday and learned that her cancer was limited to the polyp in her ear and not complicated by a cancerous nose. As far as her ear cancer is concerned, out vets suggested a wait and see approach as all of the cancerous mass had been excised and with the type of the cancer, there is little reason to believe that it metastasized. Everyone at the Retreat, to include Stella, breathed a sigh of relief. Day-by-day, her inflamed nose improves and she gets a bit more sass in her demeanor. Stella is still very thin and her shaved back makes her look emaciated, but she’s eating well and doing all the healthy cats things of eating, drinking, pooping, and sleeping. We’ll watch her closely but we’ve every reason to believe she’s turned the corner and is heading out of the woods.

For those who would like to help us pay Stella’s 4-figure vet bill, we set up a special donation account for her on Givebutter. Should you prefer to provide general items for the Retreat, our Amazon Wish List can be found here.