Little Miss SassyPants!

Our latest rescue is Sassy, a ~5 week old calico with a giant-sized personality!

Sassy was found in a rural area by a stream and rescued by a giant, friendly canine. She arrived at our door mildly hypothermic and with some residual doggo drool on her…a little thin, with goopy eyes and an upper respiratory infection, but we didn’t feel like it was anything we couldn’t handle.

Here is Sassy on the evening we got her:

Her time with us began in a soft kitty bed lined with a warming blanket. Very quickly, Sassy informed us that this was incorrect, and what she WANTED…what she insisted on was that the warming blanket only occupy half of the bed so she could lay beside it and toast her toe beans, crawl under it for the full body treatment, or lounge on top of it, depending on her preferences of the moment.

She also informed me that her litter box (which she already knew how to use!) was too close to her bed…she let me know this by trotting to a far corner and leaving a little liquid present for me. I cleaned it up and placed the litter box where she directed, and there hasn’t been an issue since.

Here’s a shot of the offending litter box, much too close to her bed:

As a calico, Sassy has plenty of “cattitude.” As you can see here, she has strong opinions about her meds, me, and the horse I rode in on.

After an exhausting first day of teaching us dumb humans how she preferred her little world set up, Miss Sassy ate a huge dinner, then treated me to some world class litter box stink before crawling under her warming blanket for a well deserved rest.

By day two, the Terramycin eyeball treatments were beginning to have an effect. She can fully open her eyes now, though there’s still some discharge, so the problem isn’t gone yet. I’ll keep applying the eye meds twice daily till she’s completely cleared up.

Progress on the upper respiratory infection as well. She’s no longer blowing snot bubbles, but you can hear the fluid in her lungs when she draws breath, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

And by the end of her first full day with us, she really seems to be coming into her own. She’s feeling better, appetite is good, and our other cats have been coming around to say hi. She is proving to be a sweet, but sassy girl who I believe will utterly dominate any house that takes her in, so if you have other pets, she’s likely to be the Alpha. If you don’t, then expect her Diva traits to shine all the more strongly. She will tell YOU how she wants things. If you listen, you’ll have a much easier time with this spicy girl.

Also note, her “signature move” is the baby skunk charge. If you’re not sure what that is, youtube it, but basically, baby skunks charge up to bigger creatures and then kinda “hop,” slamming their front feet down together – I think it is meant to intimidate. So far, she has used that trick to chase two of our full grown cats away (one from a toy and another from her dinner plate). While she’s not food aggressive (you can pet her while she is eating), if someone tries to take her food, she will respond!

Update: Back from the vet! She was treated for ear mites, fleas, and was dewormed. The vet wants me to continue her Terramycin (eye) treatment for another 3-5 days, twice a day, and she gave us better, more specific kitten antibiotics to knock out that upper respiratory infection.

I would estimate that in about a week, she’ll be ready for adoption!