Rowan's Story |
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My Boy Rowan
Rowan was a black silver spotted with white Devon Rex. He was born on the 15th of July 2004 in Willow's first litter and his father was Narnia's Pinoccio. They all developed well and seemed very healthy so we were able to look for new owners for them all. We had taken the precaution of checking Willow's blood group before she was mated and that showed that she was blood type B which will be fatal to kittens if the father is not the same. The owners of Pinoccio checked him and found he was also type B and the result was a litter without problems. Sadly, what we did not know was that Willow had a very high 'viral burden' of a common virus in cats called coronavirus. Probably about 80% of all domestic cats are infected with this virus but at a low level and it rarely causes problems at any age. However what can happen is that if the infection is very high, although that does not bother a cat or even a kitten, there is a greater chance of some of the individual viruses mutating into a much more dangerous form. The result is an infection called FIP which is untreatable and 100% fatal. Sadly at 14 weeks old, two of his bothers died of FIP. By then Rowan was ready for a new home, but with the loss of Holly, who was due to go to his new home, we could not bear to part with him. He grew into a rather fluffy (for a Devon!) cat and became a happy part of our growing family with his mother making sure he behaved himself! In 2014 one afternoon after jumping down from a worktop, he seemed to stumble and fell onto his side where he started to convulse. I picked him up and checked him on my lap, but he hardly seemed conscious. For the rest of the evening we put him into a cat bed and kept an eye on him but he did not recover consciousness. Early in the morning, shortly after I got up, he died without regaining consciousness. He must have had a stroke. His full story is yet to be written in a later Chapter of our History (link under menu, Text). He was 10 when he died on 17th August 2014. |
