He’s really easy to raise.
First, let me share a picture I took recently, one of my favorites.
My cat was a little stray picked up by a friend on campus. At that time, he was only two months old, with pus in his eyes and couldn’t open them. He was extremely thin and small, weighing less than a pound.
My friend brought him to me in the afternoon he was found. He cowered in the corner of the cage, meowing constantly. The doctor prescribed eye drops that needed to be applied three times a day. He was so scared of having the eye drops put in that I had to coax him every time to keep him still.
Because he was too thin and small, he couldn’t be dewormed or vaccinated immediately. The doctor said he had to reach two pounds before taking the deworming medicine and getting vaccinated. So he first moved around on the balcony. The balcony was semi – enclosed originally, but I made it fully enclosed because I was worried about his safety.
I came up with several names for him. Finally, considering his grayish appearance and a star player I like, I named him Meiqiu (Coalball). When it came to taking medicine, he was very disobedient and kept moving. Since I was afraid his throat was too thin, I didn’t dare to shove the medicine directly in. But as soon as I called him “Big Brother”, he would stop moving. So later, I always called him Brother Qiu.
After three or four days, his eyes began to open slowly, and he started to recognize me. Wherever I went, he would always cling to my instep.
Then, he turned out to be a big eater. In just over a week, he had grown to two pounds. Then I took him to the hospital for vaccination and deworming. Brother Qiu was so well – behaved during the injection that he didn’t make a sound at all. It was as if he didn’t even feel it when the shot was done.
After deworming, I moved his nest to the living room, and he had free access to everywhere in the house except the bedroom. When he was first taken to the hospital for an examination, the doctor said he had a very good and gentle personality. But after he realized he had a home, his true nature was revealed. He was a little rascal who loved nothing more than running around the house at high speed.
Half a month after he came home, his eyes were completely healed. Brother Qiu was really a tough guy at home but timid outside. As soon as the front door opened, he would immediately hide under the sofa and only peek out when he saw it was me. More than a month after he came home, one day when I touched his arm, I suddenly found ringworm. And then began a tough battle. The ringworm would get better and then relapse, again and again. I changed three pet hospitals over the course of three or four months before it was completely cured. During this period, Brother Qiu didn’t seem to think he was sick at all. He ate, drank, and ran around the house as usual. The only thing that bothered him was the Elizabethan collar that prevented him from getting under the sofa.
After the ringworm was completely cured, it was time for him to be neutered. I was supposed to go to the hospital with a friend, and we planned to act out a scene. But when we got to the hospital entrance, my friend got cold feet. He was afraid Brother Qiu would hold a grudge against him and refused to take Brother Qiu into the operating room. In the end, I was the one who took Brother Qiu into the hospital, watched him get anesthetized, and enter the operating room. Surprisingly, Brother Qiu didn’t hold a grudge against me after the operation. He seemed completely unaware of what had happened. People say that cats become more docile after being neutered, but Brother Qiu is still full of energy every day. There’s nothing I can do but clean up the house every day.
However, after being neutered, Brother Qiu’s weight has been increasing steadily. Now, he’s less than ten months old but already weighs ten pounds. I plan to take him on a weight – loss journey after spring arrives.
I live alone. In the past, I always felt the house was cold and lonely. Even if I wasn’t watching TV, I would turn it on to make some noise to feel like there was some life. Now, although the house is sometimes in a mess, every time I come home, especially late at night after overtime, as soon as I open the door, Brother Qiu will be there to greet me, rolling on the ground by my feet and showing his chubby belly.
Look, although I’m alone, there’s a little cutie waiting for me to come home.
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