After spending a long couple of months at the Castaic Animal Shelter, 7-year-old Tabitha’s health began to deteriorate, leaving shelter staff with no choice but to arrange a foster home where she could get hospice care. But after being removed from the stress of the shelter, Tabitha surprised everyone by making a rapid recovery.
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“She very quickly relaxed and ate and drank and seemed like a normal cat,” said Susan Friend LeTourneur, a shelter volunteer and Tabitha’s foster. “We thought, this is not a hospice cat.”
After visiting a private veterinarian, Tabitha was diagnosed with pleural effusion, or fluid in the lining of her lungs, a condition that can usually be easily managed with medication.
Related: KHTS Adopt A Pet: Cecelia, Castaic Animal Shelter (VIDEO)
In Tabitha’s case, she’s already been able to reduce her medication from one pill once a day to half a pill three times a week, with a goal of weaning her off of it completely.
“We don’t really know what the cause was, but I think it was stress,” said Friend LeTourneur. “As long as she’s not in a stressful situation, she seems to be healthy and fine, and the vets here said she can live a long life.”
Mellow, inquisitive and affectionate, Tabitha loves to sit at the windowsill and look out, lay in her foster family’s laps and cuddle up next to them.
“She’s sweet,” said Friend LeTourneur. “She’s very cuddly and she likes to sleep with us in bed, and she plays a little bit. She’s a good cat.”
Tabitha seems to get along fine with kittens and other adult cats, and would make a good companion for just about anyone, according to Friend LeTourneur.
“If you want a mellow cat that is very pretty and affectionate, I think she’d be good for that kind of person,” Friend LeTourneur said. “We hope that she can get a good forever home so she can have a nice place to live out the rest of her years.”
To find out more about Tabitha, or the adoption process at the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control’s Castaic Animal Care Center, call (661) 257-3191, stop by the shelter at 31044 North Charlie Canyon Road in Castaic, or click here.
About the KHTS Adopt a Pet Series
Every Wednesday, the KHTS Adopt a Pet series features an adoptable animal from the Santa Clarita Valley in need of a home. The KHTS Features team travels to different rescues and shelters in Santa Clarita to meet the pets and tell their stories in hopes of helping them get adopted. First launched in August 2016, the series has partnered with seven local rescues, as well as the Castaic Animal Shelter, to showcase more than 40 dogs, cats and bunnies, and has seen 30 — and counting — adoptions so far. The series was created by Features Director Melissa Lampert, who has more than 10 years of experience in the animal rescue world and co-founded Madeline’s Angels Pet Sanctuary in Santa Clarita in 2016.
See the full collection of the KHTS Adopt a Pet video feature series here.
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