A Giraffe in Socks

Sunsweet has decided I'm a little weird

This might be the most ridiculous thing I have ever done - and that is saying a lot. As I told you on Monday we have some diarrhea going on with the kittens and I was worried about them getting poop all over Raffe since they were hanging out underneath him and that seemed to be the center of the poop storm.  I wrongly assumed that Hedy picked that corner for the heater and the fact that it was under Raffe was secondary. I moved Raffe to another corner and set them up with several heat sources and went to bed.

When I went down in the morning I found Hedy and all of the kittens under Raffe anyway.

So, it became pretty apparent that I needed to put Raffe back, but how to protect him from being contaminated.

My goal was to protect his feet. Using socks wouldn't necessarily do that as liquid diarrhea would be absorbed by the socks and then absorbed by the fur. I thought about using sandwich bags instead, but I wasn't thrilled with the idea of putting kittens so closed to a thin plastic bag, so I thought I would put the socks over the bag. When I went to the drawer where the bags are stored, I found these.

Goodie bags that I've had for years and two pairs of old socks I've had since high school (yes, I know.. shush, they have come in handy twice this month alone!)

And so that became...

And this is as good of a time as any to introduce you to Raffe 2.0

The original was abused pretty badly (as you can see) by years of kittens so I went online to find a used one that needed a new home and found one not too far away. He has been the one watching over Hedy, but for one last bit of precaution I brought out the original

Hedy wasn't too sure of this new Raffe at first

I can poop on this!

And on top of that, I cleaned the room. It took me nearly two hours to do a good scrub down as the kittens were pooping under the couch and I had kittens running everywhere. At one point I went to leave to get the socks and Marble scrambled after me (it was so freakin cute!). Hedy followed behind to see where she was going. I asked Hedy to put Marble back, and she looked at me, looked at Marble and then picked her up and carried her back to Raffe.

Poor abused Raffe

When I was taking photos I noticed something odd about Raffe..

My first thought was that someone vomited on his foot, but that didn't really make sense with the location and the small amount. A closer look revealed something unsettling..

It looks like Raffe is going to need a new set of feet.. and a new tail..

Fixing Raffe - again

Last year I attempted to fix Raffe's neck which had a seriously hard time standing upright. It did not help that kittens really enjoyed climbing up his neck. Even after 'surgery', it fell over again pretty quickly.

I attempted to fix him by simply pulling his head up, but the support structure started poking out through him

I figured that thin wire was not going to be enough to support the weight of kittens who love climbing up Raffe's neck. I went to the home improvement store to get some PVC pipe. My husband picked up a piece but it was a bit curved so he asked if I wanted a different piece and I looked up and saw a piece that "spoke to me" and asked him to get that one instead. We joked around a bit and I said he told me his name was Jim (when he spoke to me) and then we had a fun time sticking Jim in the truck because the piece was longer than the truck bed.

Apparently, The Crew thought I said gym because they had fun knocking it on the couch and then playing limbo.

I could have gotten a smaller piece, but I wasn't sure how far down I would be able to get into Raffe's leg, so having the full length would give me multiple options. I cut open a larger section this time and pulled out the original wire support. I as hoping to be able to manipulate the inner structure for his legs to get him standing with all four feet on the ground, but I couldn't seem to be able to do that. I wasn't sure how good he would look if I had one straight line from his head to his toe, so I decided to start with a smaller piece that went from his head to the bottom of his chest cavity. It took some manipulating to get it in there, so I'm hopeful that it will do what I want it to. If this doesn't work, I have more of Jim so that I can attempt to rework the whole thing again.

Sewing it back up was a bit more work this time, but with more dental floss and some persistence I as able to get it together.

Looks like Raffe will be with us for another kitten season, and hopefully many more.

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Mittens has become "Rupert". I was contacted by a local woman who wants to adopt him when he becomes healthy enough, and that was the name she picked out for him. I will admit I was becoming quite partial to Mozart and Einstein, but Rupert is a lovely name.

When he showed up I offered him a small bit of raw food which he inhaled and asked for more. I went and got him some more and he ate very little of it. I gave him a can of food that they sent home with him, and he took two bites of that and stopped. He left the shelter at 1lb 4 oz. When I went to bed he was 1lb 6. I was very optimistic.

In the morning he was 1lb 5. I opened more food, brought down more raw and he nibbled at it but didn't eat much. I hoped that he was just distracted with my being there and he'd eat during the day. He had some, but not a lot and was still 1lb 5 when I got home.

He is drinking a considerable amount of water for his size, and he peed several times during the day. He pooped once, right after he showed up and the stool was well formed. I had hoped that his whiskers were causing him stress since they were getting in his food and thus in his mouth when he ate. I trimmed them last night and that did not seem to help. I wasn't comfortable giving him a bath in that condition. I'm hoping tomorrow is better. That photo is prewhisker trim when I was trying to just smooth them back in hopes that they would stay and I wouldn't have to trim them. He looks adorable with 'regular' eyebrow whiskers now and I know that they will grow back again.

Unicorns are Magical Creatures

Before I knew what unicorns like to eat (according to the Companion's Guide they like to eat daisies, granola, starlight, rainbows, cupcakes, and wishes and dreams - wishes and dreams?? that sounds ominous) I wondered if Twinkle Spirit would like gummy bears.

She ended up having a Teddy Bear Picnic with them, it was really quite cute. When she went back to her bed another magical occurrence happened; our other magical being came to visit. I wonder what they talked about.

Then she went to visit Muffin and was able to touch her belly..

She then went to visit with Raffe and said a few words over him and left satisfied he would not look like this much longer.

I wonder what other magical things she can do.

Wordless Wednesday - Shhh, we be huntin raffes!

Raffe undergoes surgery

In September of 2014, I introduced you to the newest long term resident of the kitten room, Raffe. I purchased him at a yard sale for $20. He looked a little sad then, and despite my attempts to fix his neck with chiropractic manipulation, he has looked sad every day since.

I checked to see if I could easily see the stitching because I knew I would have to be cutting that thread to get into him, I was lucky it fairly visible with a bit of pulling.

I gathered up a few supplies from my craft room and set to work. Yes, dental floss. It is generally much stronger than standard threads and a bit wider so it isn't as likely to cut through the fabric. The cat butt coaster came along so I didn't lose the needle.

Ripping the original seam was a bit easier than I thought it was going to be.

I was fairly certain about what I was going to find when I got in there, but I was still surprised that support for the neck was so thin considering the wire for the shoulders - and I'm assuming the hips

I attempted to straighten out the neck from the inside, but it was simply not happening. I finally gave up and pulled the wire out completely and was shocked to find it in such poor shape. I guess whoever owned this before had someone who hung off that neck on a regular occasion.  Fortunately, it was fairly easy to bend back into a straight form. Getting it back into the neck hole was a different story, I ended up having to bend it again to do it, but it seemed fairly easy to bend it back once it was in there.

This is where the floss comes into play. I took a random piece and ended up being lucky enough that it was long enough to close up the entire seam.

Tada!

Raffe is looking up these days and hopefully, that was enough that he will be for some time to come. If not, I'll pop the seam again and find a stronger piece of wire to help him out.  Part of me wants to get in there and fix his hips and shoulders, as he only can put three hooves on the ground at any one time, but I figured that was going to be a far riskier procedure and I didn't know if I could get him back together again. Maybe one day I'll see if some chiropractic manipulation will work for those, but I'm in no rush, and the kittens never seemed to care and climbed up him despite his bad hips.