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Reintroduction - Our Precious Donald

Rachlp

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Sep 5, 2021
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Hi everyone,

We first posted in the forums many months ago after introducing our Donskoy from Russia baby boy Donald Wrinklebum.

For all who remember we were experiencing some health issues with Donald such as an eye ulcer, snotty nose, leaky eyes and terrible diarrhoea and a UTI.

We got a lot of great advice from the forums and to be honest found some advice a little full on and a little much to deal with when already trying to do your very best so took a little break from the forums and posting and after going to the vet every week for around 2 months and then routinely for the last month, we finally are so thrilled to say Donald is a healthy thriving kitten who has transformed (will attach pictures).

I’m not going to lie, it was an extremely stressful, scary and worrying time trying to administer at one point three different eye medications and four different paste/tablets several times daily and being your kitten hate and run from you constantly just bought tears to my eyes.

As many may know we currently reside in an RV and are touring the world but are spending time in Mexico for around another 6 months and are so grateful to our vet who has put up with my tears and emails and constant poop and pew samples.

So the diagnosis was that doesn’t had some sort of a upper respiratory tract infection, an eye ulceration to his cornea (a slight scar and leaky eye as permanent damage), giardia and another rare internal parasite and all of the medication resulted in a urinary tract infection.

The two internal parasites were ruthless to say the least, we were disinfecting, medicating, washing, spraying, bathing, vacuuming and to this day we still wash our feet before coming into the RV, we kept going back and it would go only to be back a week later and hence why it’s been around 3 months. But we worked with our vet to get the best outcomes with vaccinations against parasites given we are travelling and are happy with results - despite many of you thinking vaccinations can sometimes not be the best option.

Donald has now reached 3.8 kilos which the vet said is great, he went in at 2.1 kilos and runs 1 in April.

We now just want to get out there and tell Donald’s story and that it can be scary when not buying from a reputable breeder and bringing home a sick kitten and will be creating an Instagram and age for Donald over the coming weeks so are hoping you can follow and support us and I just want to take some rest time to recoup and enjoy Donald and do some hobbies again - like reading pedigrees so if you want your pedigree looked at to make sure of you kittens colour, please message me, I will gladly look at it (I miss the days of being a registrar for a cat association in AUS).

We are teaching Donald new tricks, he now plays fetch, finally does nose kisses, and his newest trick is he rings a bell when he is told and then when he feels like a treat lol but we are having trouble with him being stubborn playing dead, so if you have any tricks please do let me know, I would be ever so grateful.

I would like to thank my rock @yasmine1997 and baby Casper my online bestie has been my strength throughout our journey and is my friend for life, we have been through so much together! Thank you!!

Here are some before pics of our sick little man.

1642908519615.jpeg


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Our healthy growing baby boy today

1642908610464.jpeg


Relaxing by the pool
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pussiette

Gold Lairian
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I’m very happy to see you here again and I’m so pleased to hear that your perseverance has paid off and your boy looks absolutely healthy and well and very content. He has the most stunning blue eyes and it’s wonderful to see that he is nice and big now. You did so well you are the best mum.
 

Natalie Murphy

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What a beauty I love his kick ass long whiskers. How old is Donald now? Have you trained him to walk on a leash. It is pretty easy. My vet gets a thrill when I tell my boy “In your bed” and he jumps off the table straight into his backpack and waits for me to zip him up. I love the bell trick which bell do you use. The old fashioned hotel one or a push button styled one
 

Toa and Ross

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Welcome back! What a stressfull time you had. Glad that Donald is in such good hands with you. He hqs stunning blue eyes!
 

Cleopatra Beers

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Donald is beautiful, and I also love his whiskers. Congratulations to you for your perseverance, because many people who are faced with the issues you had, would have given up. But now you have your beautiful boy, and I wish you many more years of good health with him.
 

Yoda mom

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@Rachlp , thank you for sharing the wonderful update... welcome back !

oh my heart... tears of joy reading the amazing dedication and the wonderful handsome transformation to a now healthy thriving adorable Donald. a true inspiration to all... be proud Team Donald! you did it! your experience and perseverance is truly an inspiration to all of us and will be helpful to the lair family members.

love the tricks you have taught Donald... the bell trick , etc is soo cute! such an amazing bond of love, team work.
surely members will chime in with trick ideas!

safe miles n smiles Team Donald.

don't hesitate to drop in with updates and pics on your adventures!

happy hugs n head smooches!!! {=
 

Rachlp

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Sep 5, 2021
Messages
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Hey @Natalie Murphy

Isn’t It great when they learn a new trick. He is very stubborn so I’m struggling keeping him interested in treats lol, uumm he much prefers human treats ha ha but am going to try the lay down trick starting again today and see if we can make progress, we are behind as we limited training when he was I’ll but the bell trick only took us a few days, I’m not sure if can upload videos but I can show him pressing the bell.

The bell we went for was this bell

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We too tell Donald bag and he gets in his carrier, currently we do his carrier up whilst walking but we go to the pool and let him out and yesterday he came to get my daughter a haircut, out on New Year’s Eve, to the petrified waterfalls, cafes etc and he is just a dream, everyone asks to takes pictures with him so we will start an Instagram page as I would love to get Donald’s story out there from having to syringe feed him water and we’ll now he demands to be spoon fed every meal ha ha.

I am in Mexico - looking forward to travelling to a bigger part of Mexico in about 2 months. Does anyone have great ideas for safe human treats that can readily bought or homemade treats that don’t go yukky after a few days?

Given Donald is turning 1 in April and when he had intensional bleeding we were worried he will be getting a big training mat and taught to stay on that, he already sits and waits for his food etc, doesn’t jump on counters etc so that should be easy. I just need some enticing to help teach him to lay and roll over, as you know they are so strong willed when they want to be.

Thank you everyone for your kind words! I truly am proud of our little man and am hopefully vet free for 6 months until we repeat vaccinations :)
 

Natalie Murphy

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Have you tried Stella and Chewy morsel bits. It is pure meat freeze dried. So you can put a few in your pocket. I used them with his training he would go mad and do anything for one. I used to feed them to him at night mixed with water as his dinner too. The duck and goose one was a big hit. As treats the bag lasts a very long time as if you read how much to give as a meal you realise it is packed with a lot of goodness and may need to cut back a little on his other food intake.
 

nudebea

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Im so glad that your love and refusal to give up on Donald W paid off, he is really beautiful .Wishing you safe happy and healthy travels !xx
 

Rachlp

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Thank you all for your well wishes and support.

Well it looks like I spoke to soon, I’m absolutely shocked and gutted right now.

We just received the follow up from his urine results and they said there was leukocytes which indicates he still has a urinary tract infection after all of this time, so he is scheduled in for Friday morning for an antibiotic injection (he spits liquids out or bites if you try tablets) and there is crystals in his urine so he needs to swap to a urinary tract food, which I don’t even know what all of this means. My head is spinning, I thought we were over this, I thought he was happy and healthy and I had fixed him and now to find out our little boy is still not well, will it ever end? Will it ever be Donald’s turn to live happily ever after?
 

Catzzzmeow

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Our one girl has been on prescription food for years and never had another UTI since. Just want you to have hope.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Rachlp

Lairian
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Sep 5, 2021
Messages
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@Catzzzmeow Thank you so much, he seems in good spirits so that always gives me a little dash of hope, it’s just hard being knocked down again - not for me, for him. I don’t want to loose him or let him down, he is just precious and been through so much already.

I am having trouble finding canned urinary food here in Mexico, has anyone used the pro plan prescription urinary food? It’s not a brand I use at all (except for the forti flora) so am skeptical about using it.

Donald has both wet and dry biscuits, the vet says we can just swap over his canned food to urinary but if I can’t get any, would it be safe to swap over his dry biscuits to Royal Canin Urinary instead?

He also has a urinary chew every morning so I hope that is currently helping?

Can I ask what brand you use? And your recommendations about the dry versus wet and pro plan?

And if anyone else has any advice I would greatly appreciate your help, this is very new to me.

Thank you in advance.
 

nudebea

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Im so sorry to hear about your setback with Donald. We use both wet and dry foods which include a small amount of Royal Canin urinary care dry food daily. Could you get your vets advice regarding the best diet for Donald ? I know moisture is important and when I asked our vet about urinary care(fortunately our two haven't had problems in this department, its more a a preventative strategy) they did say wet food should make up a large part of the diet . Good luck and hope all goes well xxx
 

Rachlp

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Sep 5, 2021
Messages
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@nudebea thank you for taking the time to reply.

Finally after much searching, we have managed to track down Hill Science Diet Urinary canned food and Royal Canin Urinary dry food so have stocked up that and agree, we will continue to use a little bit of this as maintenance in the hope that we can shake this.

We are giving him a urinary chew every morning mixed in with his food, his pees as a nice and yellow, he is eating three wet meals a day with access to dry food at all times. We just have to wait a few days for it to arrive and only two days to go before we see the vet now for his antibiotic injection.

We will also be taking another poop sample in as on occasions he is still having partly runny poops so we are worried about going through this again.

Please let positive thoughts be with us and we will let you know what the vet says on Friday.

Thank you all for applying, right now I plan on doing something positive and starting to order Donald’s first birthday items as things take so long to arrive when ordering from overseas to Mexico.

Then we will certainly be making his own Instagram page to let everyone know what this poor ten month old kitten has overcome in his lifetime and to make sure you buy from a reputable breeder.

Have a great night everyone.
 

Rachlp

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Messages
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Hello @nudebea how are you?

Thank you for taking the time to reply and ask about Donald.

Donald is doing well, he has to have another antibiotic injection on Friday, then his final urine test (well we hope) will be two weeks after that.

We are currently feeding 1/2 tin of royal Canin kitten in the morning as it is his absolute favourite and then two meals of science diet urinary with pumpkin and once with a probiotic and he is weaning off royal Canin kitten to royal Canin urinary dry food - which he absolutely adores lol. He really doesn’t like the science diet urinary wet food much, he will only eat it if he is spoon fed, I think he think it’s much better than smooshing his face in it lol. So we managed to track down some flavoured pro plan urinary as recommended fed on this site so we are hoping that he likes this as one is chicken in gravy and one is salmon flavoured, we are just waiting for it all to arrive as getting things here in this part of Mexico can be a little challenging but we are packing up and moving in 6 weeks after spending 6 months in this part of Mexico so looking forward to that. So yes Donald’s pees seem a lovely clear colour now, he seems to be drinking much more which suprised me as he barely use to drink and he is feeling well enough to climb up to my shoulders like I’m a scratch post :)

Here is a recent pic we love this boy so much

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I hope you and your babies are doing well ?
 
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