FACTS
ABOUT SEVEN

| ORANGE TABBY |
| ABOUT 13 YEARS OLD (we think) |
| WEIGHS APPROX. 8 LBS |
| NIBBLES ON HER FOOD |
| VERY "LAID BACK" |
Seven is a very sweet cat.
She's not a lap cat, but loves to be
around us. Whenever we're
on our computer, Seven will jump on the computer table and just walk over
and around the keyboard. She does this a lot when she wants something to
eat!
I feed Seven in our bathroom
and she also lets me know when she wants food by kneading on the bathroom
rug. We say that she's "marching" when she does this! Seven jumps on the
bed in the wee hours of the morning to let me know it's time to eat and
pats my face with her paw to wake me up. I open my eyes only to see two
eyes staring back at me! One thing that Seven doesn't do is meow. I think
this is called the "silent meow". She just opens her mouth and nothing
comes out! I have heard her meow before though. That's when she smells
tuna and wants some!
Seven and Speckles have gotten where they play together a little bit.Speckles chases Seven around the house, and even though Seven hisses at Speckles as she's running, I think she enjoys the play!
In 2005, my husband
and I took Seven in for her annual checkup at the vet. The vet did all
the routine checks, but when she listened to Seven's heart, she thought
she heard a heart murmur. The vet said she wanted to do some X-rays to
check on this further. We left Seven at the vet and was told to come back
and get her that afternoon. Later that day when we arrived at the vet,
she wanted to show us the X-rays and talk to us. Seven indeed had a slight
heart murmur, but when my husband and I looked at the film, we noticed
some small dots scattered around the film. Thinking the film was defective,
we mentioned that to the vet. To our horror, the vet told us that the dots
on the film were actually small pellets of buckshot that Seven had in her
body!! Before we found her as a stray, someone had shot her with buckshot!
I counted 25 pellets in her body, but that was just the amount I saw from
that particular angle of the X-ray. Needless to say, we were very upset!
We had never known until now what had happened to her because we had never
had any reason for Seven to be X-rayed before. Well, I almost started crying
and asked the vet if the buckshot could be removed. She said that it would
be more traumatic for Seven to remove the pellets since they were scattered
so much over her body. She said the pellets were probably just under the
skin and had not penetrated any organs. Seven's right eye has always been
bad, her iris has always been discolored, and my husband and I have just
thought she had gotten into a cat fight before we found her and a claw
had damaged her eye. After finding out about the buckshot, we realized
that Seven's bad eye was due to a pellet or pellets going into it. It's
a wonder that her eye wasn't put out. I can't imagine the pain she must
have felt when those pellets went into her. I just know that she's now
so glad to be in a loving, warm home.