The Story of Pouncer (Part 2)

Pouncer was the definition of a wild kitten. If something could be broken in the house, he made it his goal to break it. We woke up one time in the middle of the night to the sound of breaking glass. Concerned that someone was breaking into the house, we went to investigate. We found Pouncer in the kitchen, on top of the refrigerator, staring down at the three jars of jam that we purchased the day before. We put them on top of the refrigerator to keep them out of Pouncer's reach.

We had a large imitation ficus tree in our bedroom and woke up one morning to find that Pouncer had climbed the tree and was near the top, which was now bent over the top of the bed.

The house we lived in at the time had beautiful stained wood doors and door frames. For some reason, Pouncer was fascinated with this. He would climb as high as he could on the door frames, putting large scratches in the wood as he went. I can remember brushing my teeth one morning, and looking in the mirror to see Pouncer at eye level hanging on the door frame, just staring at me. Another time, I heard a commotion down the hall and when I went to investigate, I found that Pouncer had climbed the door frame all the way to the top and hooked his claws into the sheetrock of the ceiling and was hanging upside down looking down at me.

I will admit that he was not all destruction. His first Thanksgiving, we had several guests over. For whatever reason, Pouncer was afraid of one of the women, and found a hole under the dishwasher just large enough to allow him to slip into. We spent much of the day trying to coax him out to no avail. We placed turkey near the hole, put the most we would see was a small outstretched paw reaching out from the hole to snag the turkey and bring it into the hole. He certainly had his fill that day.

Nancy and I always had real Christmas trees. And for some reason, we liked to get them REALLY big. We always made an effort to get the biggest tree we could get on the lot, and then struggle to get it home, in the door and then get it to stay upright. Pouncer loved to climb the tree, as I suppose any kitten or young cat would.

When Pouncer was two years old, in his third Christmas season, he started acting funny. Very lethargic. There was obviously something wrong. We had used the same vet for several years. There were four vets in the practice, but we always used the one who originally started the clinic. I didn't really know the others, but one of them just rubbed me the wrong way. She was obviously a dog person, and was very strict with her dogs. Overly so in my opinion.

It just so happened that when we took Pouncer in, that our regular vet was out of town, and the only one available was the overly-strict, dog-loving vet; my last choice.

She checked out Pouncer and ran some blood tests. Her demeanor indicated that she thought that Pouncer had something REALLY serious. The next day they called with the results of the blood test. Everything was negative, but the vet was convinced that Pouncer had FIP. She told me that we should put him to sleep immediately and to not do so was inhumane and cruel.

Obviously we were devastated. I called the regular vet and we talked for a long time. He stood by his associate.

So I called around to various vets and found a cat-only hospital that sounded good. They made an appointment and would do a biopsy on Pouncer and confirm the FIP diagnosis.

In a weird twist of fate, Nancy called to reschedule the appointment, and called a vet with a similar clinic name, but no association. And a traveling vet on top of that. A day later, Dr. Wilson arrived at the house.

This guy was like something straight out of a movie. Long greying hair, and definitely marched to the beat of his own drummer. There was something odd, yet reassuring about him.

He took one look at Pouncer, then looked at the Christmas tree and immediately declared that the other vets had made a big mistake. And he actually knew our regular vet rather well; they attended vet school together and were friends.

Dr. Wilson's diagnosis? Pouncer most likely drank some of the water in the Christmas tree holder and had an allergic reaction. In what would prove to be a fateful decision, Dr. Wilson prescribed Prednisolone for Pouncer, with instructions to give two pills a day.