Alby – The “Big Turkey” of the new family

Alby came to us as part of a household of surrendered cats in mid 2019

Absolutely nothing is known about his previous years other than he was living in some way with or related to Pearly and Foxy.
We were told he was 6 years old when we collected him from Coventry.

It has since become apparent that he has for many years had various health issues including Kidney problems, Bladder scarring, Heart murmur and more. In the past year alone this has cost us several thousand pounds on vet bills, surgeries and medications but we would not change our decision of adopting him even if this had been foretold 4 years ago.

He is our lovable lumpy butt – Turkey Roast. He weighs 5.5kg and loves to roast your hands by laying on them!

Found that forever family Eggy told him was waiting…

Alby was certainly the least likely of the three upon first glance to become the snuggler of the older babies.

He took a couple of days to get used to being held and stroked but I won him over by holding him IN his snuggle bed on my lap and progressing from there to the sofa blankets then to my arms etc. Boy can he snuggle when he wants to! 

Eggy was incredibly patient with each of the new clan – and I often wonder what she would have been like if we had got Willow before her passing… but with Alby – Eggy was so sweet. She sang to him (even through coughing fits and wheezes) to soothe his fears away and told him stories of how he could have a forever family – her family – if only he would trust these hoomans (me and johnny etc)

Another case of “it sounds potty if you aren’t a believer” but it must have had impact on him as he was the first the settle and lead Pearly and Fox to follow in his paw-steps too

Will add more soon.
(writing this section at 8.18am Friday March 3rd 2023!)

Alby was Put To Sleep….

Tuesday 29th Aug 2023 we had a re-occurence of Albys long standing health issue (Urinary issue) where he began spotting blood. 
We rushed him to the emergency vets as we had been instructed to do if it ever happened again…. 
Long story short, he was kept in that night as he couldn’t “produce enough wee to run a test” (no, really?! that’s why he was taken IN…), and the next day was a series of phonecalls summounting to him having to stay in another night. Many stacking sums of fees were named and very few solutions or actual procedures were told to us. I understand that many cat owners most likely don’t know (or don’t WANT to know) the ins and outs but when we blatantly ask, or voice our previous knowledge/experiences you’d think there’d be a small sliver of “oh, look they know whats going on” (never mind that fact it’s all been with the same vets so we are well known there, or he was).

Anyway it all came to the crunch when we received yet another call around midnight Wednesday… by half past I had grown…. antsy as I wasn’t on the phone and it sounded like they were trying to pass everything off again and just keeping him in up to another 48 hours. I did something I haven’t done for many many years and picked up the phone and began speaking to the Overnight Vet Nurse myself. After a lengthy discussion it was agreed that we would allow her to perform some injectibles to see if this would clear his “sludgy bladder” and if not there would be high costs added for performing another round of catheterisation etc…. I’d quite frankly exhausted myself and probably the poor woman too going round and round about his condition, history and options / funds etc. I hung up around 1.00am and dashed off to feed the other cats and sit frantically for the phone to ring again as it was arranged that she would call back once she had done anything she could think of to help him at as low cost as possible before asking for permission to move on to other more expensive things. My head barely touched the pillow after the cats feeding when the phone rang again – I bolted so fast that nobody else even heard it ringing…. I can’t write everything just now… may never…. but it was decided after another near hour of talking about him and his prognosis that it was kindest for him to be “helped away”… I insisted that Mum and Johnny be with him and it was arranged for a very early meeting at the clinic (time then was 2.55am and it was arranged for 5.45am) – however I could hear the urgency and sadness in the Vet Nurses voice and moments later mum was ringing back to ask if they could go sooner…. hoping at least that they could spent time with him before the injection…. by a little after 4am they were on their way home with him…