Today belongs to my other special-needs kitten, Trey Baby Wader Cleveland. The *Wader* is in tribute to the sweet, little gray kitten that was born in my shed a couple of springs ago. Male hormones guided him away from here, but he eventually returned only to pass away here because in his journeys someone had been mean to him. That's another story, though, and one that breaks my heart ~ so I will focus on Trey.

Neighbor Elly and I were flooded with kittens from strays this spring ~ a subject for another post. However, Trey was not among those kittens. He showed up suddenly one morning, huddled into a teeny, frightened ball. I watched him for a day and a half, but no mother showed up to care for him. I knew he had plenty to eat if he wanted it because I set out breakfast and suppie each day for the strays. However, even the kittens of those strays were bigger than this little guy, so I couldn't be certain he was able to get through the gauntlet of bigger kitties.

The next evening Elly called to tell me that this kitten was still huddled outside, and we had some major storms on the doorstep here. Having brought Deuce inside the previous month to bring my household total to a fuzzy five, I definitely didn't need another kitty inside, right? But how could I leave him outside?

He didn't make the bringing-inside process easy for me. He was too weak to run, but he scooted faster than I was able to scoot beneath my bushier lilac. These days arthritis in my back keeps me from maneuvering too smoothly, but eventually I was able to gather him up and bring him inside, where I kept him inside the *ICU Kennel* I had used for Deuce for a while. Since I had one kitten named Deuce, Trey seemed like a good name for this one. :)



Trey continued to huddle in a corner of the kennel. Whenever I reached for him, he hissed at me or flinched, so goodness knows what his life had been like previously. I took him to my wonderful vets at the Douglas Vet Clinic the next day. Besides being emaciated, he had a belly full of worms. Dr. Bailey told me he would need a huge amount of TLC ~ was I sure I wanted to proceed? I had to give the little guy a chance.

He required a lot of medicine and milk replacement as well as food, and his pooie problems persisted for several weeks to the point that he couldn't always get to his litter box. He had to spend a day at the vet clinic, too, before he finally started to come around.

During the night, he sometimes emits this mournful meow until I call to him to let him know that I am close by. He is the aforementioned kitten that peed on my bed during the night, but I *think* he was marking his mommy because of his abandonment issues rather than the problem being behavioral as Chelsie's was. Time will test the validity of that brilliant insight.



I do know that he has stopped hissing at me and flinching away from me. In fact, he seeks out my attention and loves to cuddle. He and Deuce have become energetic playmates and loving buddies ~ much to Joey's relief since Deuce doesn't bug him quite so much now. Joey takes his big brother duties seriously and will protect the Terrible Two from their sisters or help me break up wrestling matches that become a little too rambunctious. :)







Trey had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Britt yesterday. He had gained over a pound in just two weeks and received a clean bill of health along with his shots. He has quite charmed his favorite vet tech, Karen. :)

You already know that he had me from the dance at the lilac bush, right? :)