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Almost 2 months have gone by since our last blog entry. So much has happened. Enjoying the peace and quiet of our new home and exploring the many hiking trails in the area. But most important of all, getting to know the newest member of our small little family...

On a Saturday in September, Martin and Fabrizio met a few children during their routine afternoon walk. The children asked him if Fabrizio is kind towards cats. When he enquired as to why they should ask, they said they saw a small cat somewhere in the bushes. He told them not to worry, Fabrizio is harmless and then carried on with the walk and of course forgot about the incident. 

The next morning when I took Fabrizio for a walk Fabrizio suddenly became very silly and I thought he wanted to play with me. It was very early Sunday morning and I had no intension of running around with him in a state of being half alive and before having had my first cup of coffee. So I ignored him. Usually Fabrizio gets the message very quickly(that said I never give him much of a choice...I heard them call me Boot-Camp-Carl once when they thought I wasn't paying any attention...!!!) and then he runs ahead just to wait at the next corner. But this time his behaviour was very peculiar. All he then did was to freeze. His right paw pulled up. His eyes fixed on something that was invisible to me. I thought the little bugger was getting too smart for his paws and went on walking calling him to me. He very reluctantly followed. Fabrizio has never before been persistent or hard headed in any way what so ever...This behaiviour developed into a pattern every time we walked past this particular spot on the trail. On Tuesday afternoon we evetually decided to investigate.  It took a few minutes to find the reason for Fabrizios behaviour...beneath a big tree, hiding beneath twigs and leaves with only his head being visible, was a beautifull black kitten. With no hint of agression and obviously releived with being found, we carried him back home. Fabrizio was so excited with this little "thing" HE found in the forest. It was HIS cat!!! Of course we were completely unprepared to take in a new pet, never mind it being a cat! Besides, it seemed improper to just keep him and ignore the fact that he might belong somewhere else. For all we know some other family has been missing him the last 4 days! We informed the police and all the animal shelters in the area. I took him to the vet the next day to see if he was chipped and of course he was not. No one seemed to be missing him. I could see it in Fabrizios eyes. He would never ever have forgiven us if we decided not to keep HIS cat. The cat belonged to him. HE found it... So it didn't take long for kitty being christened "Moritz" and adopted by Martin and Fabrizio. I did not have a choice. I'm sure both of them would have left and filed for divorce if I hadn't agreed with the adoption.

So friends, we introduce to you Fabrizio and HIS Moritz!!!

Hi Folks! Sorry again for being so absent for so long. Fabrizio is ill with Anaplasmosis. He developed a pattern of being well for a week and a half and then being sick for a few days. The vets we visited didn't really take us seriously, but Martin and I suspected either leishmaniosis, Gardia or Anaplasmosis. Turned out to be Anaplasmosis after I insisted on the test being done. 

Symptoms were:

June 29:

Throwing up blood

No appetite

Sleeping more than usual

BUT NO FEVER!

The vet x-rayed his abdomen, because we suspected him swallowing an object of some kind. Turned out to be a false alarm.

Diagnosis: Gastritis

7 Days later:

The same symptoms repeated itself.

The vet gave us Metoclopramid-drops.

Througout the next few weeks Fabrizio had a few days of feeling a little bad. Throwing up a little and having no appetite. The Metaclopramid helped him feeling better quickly.

About 5 weeks after June 29 we noticed he had a bad rash. But he didn't itch and didn't scratch at all. We were told it could be from grass mites and some thought he might be allergic to the grains in dog food. We thus started to b.a.r.f. (bioligically appropriate raw food) again and that seemd to better his symptoms a little.

2 Months after June 29 on a Sunday morning, we could hardly wake Fabrizio up. After our morning walk, he just collapsed on the living room carpet and slept for hours. At noon we drove to Duisburgs famous Kaiserberg Clinic. We thoroughly described his symptoms and told the Vet what we suspected. She wanted us to leave him there for a few days for them to do a number of tests, including a gastroscopy, taking biopsies and various other test, NONE of which included doing a simple blood screening for parasites. So we left there being quite disgusted and went to a friends vet the next morning. To make it short, a normal titer would be smaller than 1:40...Fabrizios titer was 1:1280!

So folks, take ticks seriously. Although we used Preventic SPOT-ON with intervals shorter than 4 weeks in sucsession, somehow we must have missed that one tick.

After a week and a half of Doxycyclin, our friend is doing very well again...

Fabrizio has a big surpise for you all...something changed drastically in our house-hold in the past few days. Something very exciting. Well keep you posted!