Nirrti

Nirrti and her three brothers were born under our house in 2006.  When they were old enough to walk, we captured them and their feral mother, and she raised them in our spare bedroom.  The mother cat now lives in our cat-fenced back yard “preserve” while Nirrti and her two surviving brothers live in the house.

Even though I had known Nirrti since she was about three weeks old, for the first few years of her life she was inexplicably terrified of me.  If I so much as made eye contact with her, she would cringe, squint her eyes, and race away into another room to hide.  I never understood why, since I had never done her any harm.

Then came the day Nirrti was diagnosed with megacolon, which would require “pilling” twice a day… surely an impossible task with this cat!  Nevertheless, it had to be done, and eventually I was able to catch her and pop the capsules down her throat (mainly because she was frozen in terror, that first day!)

After the first couple of days, however, a strange thing happened:  Nirrti stopped being afraid.  Within a week, she not only quit running away from me, but actually started letting me pick her up and cuddle her for the first time ever… apparently she viewed having pills shoved down her throat as an enjoyable bonding experience!

Today Nirrti is a big fat fluffy happy cat.  She never tries to spit her pills out -- this has earned her the nickname “Daddy’s Best Girl” (much to my wife’s amusement!)  If I sit on the floor, she’ll waddle over and curl up on my lap or drape her great bulk across my legs… quite a change from the feral who ran away in terror every time I glanced in her direction, and all it took was a life-threatening health disorder!  Thanks, megacolon!

Pictured: Abject terror