From what the shelter said, the kitten seemed fine on its initial checkup and was vaccinated (albeit too late) when we left the shelter with her. When we saw it in its cage, we thought her disheveled appearance was due to her obvious distress of being in the shelter. The biggest problem out here is that the shelter is very inadequately funded. Not as bad as the reservation, which only has one employee last I heard, but still pretty bad. The good thing was that the staff at the shelter seemed very heartbroken about what happen to their cats and kittens. The staff there is mainly volunteers who really adore the animals. One of the volunteers was planning on adopting a cat that had been there for too long as well. We're just glad that our kitten was happy for her last 24 hours of life. Even when she was obviously very sick by the time we went to sleep, she made a point of hopping up to go to sleep with me. At least she died loved and with a home.

Hopefully, we do have better luck with our turtle. Our late kitten was actually to replace our dog that was stolen, which replaced our long time family cat that died just a few months before that. We've had REALLY rotten luck. Thankfully, we still have my black cat twins that are both in fine health so our luck must not be that bad (knock on wood!).

Stephanie

In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.--Ralph Waldo Emerson