When I very first found Tabby in the middle of the road, the vet I rushed her to was great. It wasn’t our family vet because I wasn’t near them. I was only a couple miles from Banfield Pet Hospital, and, not knowing how bad off Tabby might be, I decided just to go to them.
However, in the three months since we’ve had her, a couple of their initial observations have proved wrong.
Room for Error
I’m not trying to impugn anyone’s character here. That’s not the point. Mistakes happen. And in this case there was room for error.
The initial determinations that have since proved incorrect are: (a) Tabby was probably around three years old; and (b) she’d probably been spayed.
He made the last judgment based on what he thought her age was and the way her nipples felt. (If you have a big question mark above your head at that last part, so did I. But he explained it was because if she wasn’t spayed, she was old enough to have had a few litters and the nursing would have “abused” them, so to speak.)
Ooops #1
Well, we didn’t have her long before her behavior changed towards Mr. Meow and we began suspecting that not only might she not be spayed, she might even be pregnant.
Since thirty days had passed, no one had claimed her, and we had decided to keep her, we scheduled a trip to our family vet. After examining Tabby, it was recommended she get spayed. That was how we found out that, no, she hadn’t been spayed, and, yes, she was pregnant.
Ooops #2
Two weeks ago I had to take Tabby in for her distemper shot. Dr. Singleton was very pleased to see Tabby had continued to progress since the mastitis and erupting pus incidents.
She also noted Tabby’s continued weight gain. She weighed seven pounds when I found her. She was over nine pounds for most of the last vet visits, but she had made it to ten and one half pounds this last time.
She’s not fat. She’s grown a ton in the three months we had her, not just her weight but her length and height too. For instance, she barely fits in the little cardboard carrier I initially bought to tote her around in.
Dr. Singleton had pegged Tabby’s age at somewhere around a year when she first examined her, which is what I figured. (Neither of us ever thought she was as old as three.) Now we’ve both changed our estimations again, based on Tabby’s weight changes. We figure Tabby was probably well under a year when I first found her, and is probably just now approaching that mark.
Oh well. Mistakes happen. Cats ages are hard to judge as it is, and as far as being spayed or not… Well, at least now we know for certain she is!
Related Articles