We are honored to present Tiggr Smith as Companion Animal of the
Month for February 2008. Tiggr is a 9 month old orange, tiger striped,
domestic short haired
kitten and he is the rowdy and energetic companion animal
to Karen Smith. Tiggr and his entire litter (who were all orange and tiger
stripped) were rescued by the Animal Rescue Need and Intervention (ARNI) Foundation from the Northern Florida Humane
Society. According to Karen, ARNI
brought Tiggr's litter to the Pets Mart in Daytona Beach to be put up for
adoption. When Karen noticed the litter, they were all asleep in one big
orange ball at the back of the kennel. Karen started calling out the name Tiggr
when one little head popped up. When she continued to call his name he
came running to the front of the kennel while the rest of the litter continued
to sleep. For Karen this was love at first sight and she
immediately adopted Tiggr.
Tiggr is always full of energy and loves to bounce around the house to such an extent that he is hyperactive. One minute Tiggr will be asleep on Karen's mother's lap and the next minute he will jump off her lap and chase the other cats, Dusty and Midge, around the house. His favorite toy is a pole with a string that has a flashy toy on the end. He will pounce on the string and attack and chew on the small toy. He also enjoys prancing around the house with the pole in his mouth. He loves to eat, and will eat anything, any time, anywhere, literally! Karen had to "Tiggr proof" her house to make sure he would not swallow any more foreign objects, as he did a few days after Thanksgiving of 2007.
This is when Karen called us after discovering Tiggr had
eaten his toy and the attached string. Upon doing radiographs, Dr. Sukhija
noted a suspicious metal
foreign body in his stomach. An emergency gastrotomy surgery was performed
to recover the foreign objects. During the procedure we found a lot more
than what we expected. Tiggr had apparently eaten the string toy, two
rubbery objects, and then proceeded to over-groom himself and form hairballs in
his stomach. All items were removed and Tiggr made a full recovery within
a few days. However, despite Dr. Sukhija's orders, Tiggr did not rest
during his recovery. A sedative was prescribed but it did not achieve the
adequate response. Finally, Tiggr was prescribed behavior modification
medication, initially to allow the surgery site to heal and now to help manage
his hyperactivity long term.
While Karen never had any idea that Tiggr would be such a
handful, she maintains a very positive outlook over the situation. Karen
jokes with the staff at Atlantic Animal hospital and says "we've
requested a zipper or Velcro for the next surgery". While Tiggr may
be a handful, he and Karen share an amazingly strong human-animal bond. It is
the love between a companion animals and their humans, such as between Karen and
Tiggr, that makes our jobs at
Atlantic Animal Hospital so incredibly enjoyable.
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