Sadness.

We have two cats, a two-year old calico named Skeezix and a tiny white kitten my wife found hiding under the AC a couple months ago.

Motormouth and Skeezix shred the kitty castle.

The pitiful, scrawny little critter wouldn't stop crying when we brought him inside, so his name is Motormouth. Skeezix was not too keen on the idea of Motormouth invading 'her' space, but after a couple weeks of dirty looks and the occasional hiss, they've become buddies. I have to think that Skeezix is going through a bit of a second kitten-hood, because all the roughhousing and chasing (and being chased by!) Motormouth has made her act like a kitten again. I've even seen her chase her tail!

Motormouth the day he adopted us

Motormouth is now a 4-pound ball of energy who has firmly adopted my wife as 'his human'. He's a cute one indeed, and we've grown very attached to the little bugger. That made this morning's visit to the vet all that much harder to take.

We found out today that little Motormouth is positive for the Feline Leukemia Virus. The vet's best guess is that mama cat passed the virus on to little Motor. There's no telling if his immune system will clear the virus (there's a chance) or how soon the virus will take hold. If he can't clear it, we're looking at losing him within the next 2-3 years. More than likely the virus will weaken his immune system (poor white cell production) and an opportunistic pathogen will do him in. Our primary concern is keeping Skeezix healthy, so separate feeding dishes have been instituted. Skeezix has already had the primary vaccination and a booster, so there's not that much concern, but we brought her in today for a booster just in case. She's is mostly an outside cat, and we'll keep Motor inside from now on to prevent him from spreading the virus to any stray cats in the neighborhood.

I hate to think that by adopting Motormouth we might have put Skeezix at risk. Of course, rationally I know that with Skeezix being outside more than half the time, she's exposed to all kinds of threats, and I don't feel guilty about that, so why should I worry about her exposure to FeLV? There's no reason for it, but I feel I should try to do something to keep Skeezix healthy. There's no telling how much time we have with Motormouth, but we'll treasure it all the more. It's really painful to look at the little guy, with all his energy and exuberance, and think that his doom is already sealed. I love my kitties, and this is pretty hard to take.

So you can probably expect a lot of pictures of Motormouth here in the future.