Scruffpuff 3

Scruffpuff. Maybe five months?

We took him in when he was about 6 weeks old. His previous human was this little girl who picked him up as a little stray, probably orphaned, as the little girl said he was wandering around alone during the rainy season.

She had to give him up as her mum objected - the mum's reason was that this kitten poo everywhere. We discovered that he was wrongfully maligned - he had no problem taking to the cat litter tray. He wasn't pooing, he was throwing-up!
Being a stray, sudden introduction to canned cat food was too much for him to handle - he gobbled and threw up as a result. And the tubes of undigested catfood looked a lot like poo. We had to "train" him to eat slowly by giving him small portions.

We suspected that the girl's mum must have whacked him for throwing-up because every time he did so, he would run to hide. And when we went to find him and approached him, he would cringe and shudder in fear. Broke our hearts every time. We are no animal psychologists, but we figured he needed to learn that throwing-up was not a crime, and that a human hand reaching for him can also mean love. So we persisted, crawling under beds and cabinets, stretching or contorting ourselves in weird positions, just to reach and stroke him, speaking gentle words. It took him several months to get over this fear.

The vet thought he may have been the runt of the litter because he was small, and he has mild bone deformity ... his sternum and last rib is not formed properly.


Another of his baby pic ...