Moonshine's Story |
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Snugglebug's Moonshine
As told in the story of Willow's second letter, after three weeks all the kittens became infected by chlamydia and suffered a lot before we got the infection under control. Three of the kittens were worse affected than the other two. Cobweb had the worst of it followed by Moonshine and Quince. Cobweb was also the worst affected by a secondary herpes infection. The treatment was hard on the kittens as Tony had to give them medicine three times a day and at the same time clean their faces of the mucus and pus that affected their noses and eyes. The eyes needed the most attention as their eyelids stuck together and there was a buildup of mucus behind the lids which became pus if left for too long. The only way to clean them was to bathe the eyes after pulling apart their eyelids, followed by squeezing ointment in to combate the infection directly and keep their eyes open. Hard for me and even harder for them. We had to delay looking for homes for them so they were all still with us until January 2006. Moonshine and her brother Pyramus were adopted by Kaja and moved to her terraced house in Nyborg. They soon moved to a house on the end of the row that gave her a better garden with space for a cat run on the side of the house. Kaja asked Tony to build it for her and that was quickly done. As it was a rented house she could not have a cat door from the house into the run, but the small toilet window could be left open when necessary so the cats could get out. Neither of them had any real problems with their eyes, but in temperament they were very different. Moonshine was quite shy but Pyramus was too bold for his own good! He was not satisfied with the run so one night managed to force a window in another room and get into the garden. After a day he came back of his own accord, but had obviously been in a fight. The local free living cats were not very healthy and it quickly became apparent that he was badly infected as a result of which he died. Kaja decided that she could really not cope with looking after any more cats and her daughter Kathrine took Moonshine into her own home. Kathine's sons were very pleased to have a cat of their own and Moon decided she liked them in return. For over three years Tony would visit Moon to check on her and feed her during holidays and she gradually became comfortable with that. Unfortunately later on Moon's tendency to digestive problems meant that diarrhea left messes where the newest boy could crawl on to it. so through no fault of her own, she needed a home where there were no children. Kathrine asked us for help and we felt that the best solution was for Moon to come back to live with us. That worked out alright for some time but no treatment we tried cured her problem and after a while she became too sick to survive. She died in our Vormark house aged almost 9 years on the 3rd August 2014. By then the boys had visited her frequently and would also say hullo to Willow, her mother, and Quince, her brother. They accepted her death after seeing her grave for themselves. |
