Cat Republic: Senior Pet Adoption Assistance Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The grant funding is being held until Tiger Balm is adopted; he's currently still in our care. Cat Republic will use this grant to help subsidize medical care costs for Tiger Balm, a 14-year-old diabetic cat that we pulled from NYC ACC in November 2020. While Tiger Balm has been in our care, we were able to get his diabetes into remission, and we would like to use the funds to help support his future adopter for quarterly vet visits for a year to check his blood glucose levels and to purchase a home blood glucose, lancets, and test strips, along with insulin should it be required again in the future. Vet visits will cost at least $125/quarter, and an Alphatrak 2 blood glucose monitor with additional test strips is approximately $110. Insulin also runs about $100/vial.
This grant will be used to assist Tiger Balm's adopter with vet costs and blood-sugar monitoring equipment to help keep him in remission!
How many pets did this grant help?
1
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Tiger Balm is 14. He lived with his family in NYC until October 2020. Back in July 2020, Tiger Balm was diagnosed with diabetes, and his regular vet taught his owners how to give him insulin. However, Tiger Balm’s diabetes was never well-regulated in his original home, and he developed significant back-leg neuropathy that prevented him from using the litter box consistently.
He was surrendered to Animal Care Centers of NYC on Oct. 6, 2020. While in the shelter, he received his insulin, but blood glucose monitoring was difficult as he was stressed and not very tolerant of getting his blood taken.
ACC searched for a New Hope partner to pull Tiger Balm and provide him with more care than they were able to in the shelter, eventually putting a deadline on his placement needs. We stepped in, despite having little experience with feline diabetes, and agreed to pull Tiger Balm from the shelter in order to save his life. Though he was sick, he still had a lot of life left to live.
Immediately, we began to study up on feline diabetes, receiving immense support from the online feline-diabetes community and its regulation protocols. The first thing we did was to switch Tiger Balm to an all-wet-food diet of Fancy Feast pate. Because Fancy Feast pates are very low in carbs, many cats are able to go into remission with this diet change alone. Over the course of four weeks, Tiger Balm earned reduction after reduction of his insulin dose until he hit zero. A fructosamine test at the vet confirmed that he was officially in remission.
Then, just two days later, Tiger Balm was struggling to breathe. X-rays and blood work at our vet indicated some sort of asthmatic reaction or perhaps inflammation of the throat, and Tiger Balm ended up being admitted to the local emergency hospital for three days. His bill there ran about $4,200, and when he was released, he needed medicine 10 times per day.
In typical Tiger Balm fashion, he rebounded quickly from this incident and was able to stay in remission from his diabetes. He recently received a clean bill of health and his blood-work results are unremarkable. We’re excited to help this sweet old guy find a retirement home!
Given Tiger Balm’s age and diabetes diagnosis, he’ll need quarterly vet checks to confirm his blood glucose levels. We’d like to also provide his adopter with an Alphatrak 2 blood-glucose monitor for home monitoring. We hope he won’t need insulin in the future, but if he does, we’d like to be able to help his future adopter with those costs as well.
Tiger Balm is still looking for his forever home! You can meet Tiger Balm here.
