Clem's Story |
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Sir Clementine
Clementine is a black silver spotted with white Devon Rex. He was born on the 15th of July 2004 in Willow's first litter and his father was Narnia's Pinoccio. They all developed well and seemed very healthy so we were able to look for new owners for them all. We had taken the precaution of checking Willow's blood group before she was mated and that showed that she was blood type B which will be fatal to kittens if the father is not the same. The owners of Pinoccio checked him and found he was also type B and the result was a litter without problems. Sadly, what we did not know was that Willow had a very high 'viral burden' of a common virus in cats called coronavirus. Probably about 80% of all domestic cats are infected with this virus but at a low level and it rarely causes problems at any age. However what can happen is that if the infection is very high, although that does not bother a cat or even a kitten, there is a greater chance of some of the individual viruses mutating into a much more dangerous form. The result is an infection called FIP which is untreatable and 100% fatal. Sadly at 14 weeks old, two of his bothers died of FIP. By then Clem was ready for a new home, but with the loss of Laurel, who we had decided to keep, we could not bear to part with him. He grew into a rather large (for a Devon!) cat and became a happy part of our growing family with his mother makig sure he behaved himself! In 2017 he started to lose weight as his digestion was gradually deteriorating. He allowed us to syringe feed him for several weeks but eventually his system couldn't remain stable. His full story is yet to be written in a later Chapter of our History (link under menu, Text). He was 13½ when he died on 18th November 2017. |
