We’ve just arrived home from the video store; it’s the 8th of July 2006 and we’re all ready to sit down and watch a movie when the most pitiful meowing comes from outside. We do a head count - 1, 2… yup, all our cats are accounted for - and look at each other. “Garden cat?” I suggest, in reference to a stray who lived in our yard for about two months earlier in the year before moving on without leaving a forwarding address. I open the door and peer out. Rather than the fluffy whiteness of Garden Cat, I am greeted by a much darker cat peeking out from the shadows. Too timid to come near, it’s hard to tell what it looks like, but it’s howling for all it’s worth. “I’ll get some food” I say.
As soon as the bowl touches the ground, the stranger in the shadows flings himself onto it, gulping it down with hardly a pause for breath. “Poor fella was starving to death” says my husband. Now we can actually get a look at the critter, it’s in sad, sad shape. It’s neck is completely bald, and most of the hair is missing from the back of it’s head. What hair it does have seems to be a sort of grey, where it isn’t white. It’s so skinny, skinny like I’ve never seen before - even it’s tail looks malnourished. In short, it is one sad, pathetic and scrawny animal. On the spot, I christen it Starvin’ Marvin (later we discover he is actually male which is fortunate but wouldn’t have changed anything).
Marvin is pleased to find that there are a pair of gullible suckers prepared to serve him enormous quantities of food and decides to become a permanent resident at our house. Initially he’s distressed at our reluctance to touch him (I feared ringworm because of the baldness), but in time his hair begins to grow back, and a vet suggests the baldness was due to malnutrition. After our fears that he’s contagious are laid to rest, we start patting him more, and the Marvin loves this. His heart’s desire is to be an indoor cat and he tries busting into the house at every opportunity, but we are firm in our resolve to keep him out; he’s a disreputable tom cat who has lived the tough life on the streets but our babies indoors are pampered princesses who’ve never had to defend themselves in their lives. We fear he’ll make minced meat of them.
Marv puts on a little weight, but then seems to come to a standstill. I have him wormed, but it has little or no effect. As time goes on, his coat becomes patchy again and he starts to look a little baldish. To my concern, I also notice that whenever I pick him up, he feels a little too warm. Gradually the suspicion that he’s not a well man becomes an uncomfortable certainty. However, with the breakup of my marriage, poor Marvin becomes a very low priority and doesn’t get the attention he deserves.
Today I stopped by the old house to pick up some more of my junk (the ex is still living there) and Marvin hops out to greet me on three paws. The third he’s dangling in the air and won’t put down at all. I didn’t realise my sad stray with the skinny and the bald and the pathetic could get any more pitiful looking, but sore foot does that. It’s time. I call the vet and manage to get in straight away. The foot is ok, a course of antibiotics will take care of it and she said it should be fine. The rest of him concerned her, and she said he looked remarkably like another cat under her care that has FIV. This does not shock me in the slightest as Feline AIDS had already occurred to me, and so I agree to have him tested. Marvin is FIV-positive.
This puts me in an awkward place. I can’t take Marvin as I have two FIV-free cats living in my house already. Marvin shouldn’t be outside as he could pass his infection on to the neighbourhood cats. Ideally, my ex should take him indoors and make him a house cat for the rest of his days, but my ex is concerned that Marvin might spray and doesn’t want him inside. Marvin needs a new home.
My mother advocates having Marv put to sleep immediately which I am reluctant to do. He’s a sweetheart and while he doesn’t look like the handsomest of chappies, he seems happy enough right now. I feel his lifespan will be short enough and I’d rather try to find him another home than destroy him at this point.
So… any ideas on how to find someone willing to take on an FIV+ cat for his remaining days? I was thinking about advertising him in the paper and hoping a bleeding-heart type will come to his rescue but it seems like such a long shot.