Thank you all for your interest in our new little buddy, now renamed Tex (as in Don't mess with...)! He is much less skittish than he is cautious,
moving and curling up like he wishes he could disappear. He is letting us pet him now with no hissing or anything, but the way he seems to go limp when he
sits on our laps, not squiggling or squirming at all when we try to pick him up, and the fact that he looks like he really hasn't been cleaning himself for
a while made us opt on the paranoid side and take a little trip to the vet this afternoon.
I hope I didn't do more harm than good because I'm sure Tex was THRILLED to get in a cat carrier and go somewhere ELSE, but I felt like it was the
right thing to do. My SO and I were both worried about going through the weekend without getting a clean bill of health, so I packed him up and took him in.
One stool sample, an earmite check and a Vitamin B12 shot later he has a diagnosis of "totally terrified." His temperature is normal, his heart and
lungs sound good, his teeth are perfectly OK, he's a normal weight, etc. The vet -- and I went to a new one I'd never been to before because our old
one really ticked me off last time we went -- was super nice, talked to me for a long time, held Tex (who barely fussed at all except for the really gross
parts of the exam) and reassured me Tex is not in fact dehydrated or anything. Just scared. The doc didn't even laugh at me or charge me a gazillion
bucks, just told me to keep doing what I'm doing and that if this cat let total stranger pick him up the way he did I probably don't even have anything
to worry about behavior-wise in the long term.
He told me to ignore his foster mom's advice about taking him out from under the sofa chair to get used to being around us, that my sitting around ignoring
him was the best thing for him and asked me to call back tomorrow to let him know if the B12 shot did anything.
Tex did have one accident earlier today so when I got him home I re-introduced him to the litterbox at which time he promptly went back under the chair where
he knew no one would stick anything in his whatever. OK, cool. At that time I also noticed he ate almost ALL the canned food I'd given him, somewhere
along the line. Even better.
I promise to keep you informed of any big developments and, hopefully, next time I'll have some pictures!













