NUMBER FIFTEEN
JULY 2022 EDITION
RESCUE CATS
STRAY THE VIDEO GAME
This feature originated on Jo's Book Blog, and you will find it here in The Library the last Thursday of the month.
This was my first glimpse of our cat Zuzu from last October. My son snapped a photo of him outside of his friend's girlfriend's house. We had tried to adopt two different black kittens from local shelters, but they wouldn't accept the animal walk-in clinic as a vet on our application, even the second time when one rescue shelter had 100 kittens and were begging people to adopt. It was meant to be, though, because if we had gotten the second of those kittens, we wouldn't have been able to take in Zuzu two and a half months later. In fact, the entire situation seemed to be destiny.
My son never gets to hang out with his one old high school friend because he never has weekends off from work, but this one Saturday he did, and his friend's girlfriend just happened to be out of town, so Baz went with him to feed the girlfriend's cats and a stray she had been feeding on her back porch. The only thing on my cat wishlist was that I wanted a black cat, so Baz snapped the photo and the rest is history...
This and the previous photo were taken two weeks later in our home. He had such a raging infection in his left eye he kept it tightly closed all the time. He had been out on the streets for so long the collar he was wearing was just a buckle and three warp strings; the rest had all worn away. This breaks my heart every time I think about it. The girlfriend had only been feeding him for three or four months and she hadn't seen him around before that, so we dont have any idea how long he was homeless. She was relieved he was getting a home before it got cold outside.
This was New Year's Eve with my son in front of the Christmas tree.
In November, after his initial course of eye drops from the vet in October, and then twenty days of twice daily eye flushes, his eye was about seventy percent better, but as you can see here, by the end of December, his eye was only around fifty percent opened and on its way to being completely closed again. It also was constantly filled with gunk and didn't reflect light very well. After another course of eyedrops and daily flushing for twenty days his eye wasn't much better and I was getting discouraged. Then one day, when I was scrolling our local lost and found pets Facebook page, a cat fosterer told a woman who had a feral mom and kittens in her backyard with eye infections, to buy this OTC eye ointment from Chewy because it works quickly and might save the kittens' eyes. I bought some for Zuzu, and after only four days of treatment his eye was fully open with no gunk! It's still fine months later...
His eye was infected for so long there is a thickening of his upper eyelid which makes that eye look smaller, but other than that it's perfect. I just like knowing he is not uncomfortable any longer. He does have a scar on his cornea from an old injury that looks like a white spot in his eye if you look closely. The infection probably started with the eye injury.
When he first arrived we thought he was a female so we were going to name him Wednesday because Baz brought him home on a Wednesday. Ha ha. It took me a couple of days to realize he was a neutered male.
ZUZU CAHT "BOYO" POOKAPANTS
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He no longer constantly stops to look behind himself when he's eating.
(see first photo)
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He loudly begs for mayonnaise when he hears the jar open.
(he arrived knowing what sound the mayo lid makes)
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He finally started purring about a month ago.
(he still doesn't mix, but I'm hopeful)
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We didn't think he was going to be cuddly, but he is now.
(even when it's ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the apartment, ha ha)
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I am happy to announce he doesn't dog fart anymore.
(he was just getting used to his new food)
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He has slept with Baz since night one.
(when he hears him get into bed he zooms from wherever he is to jump in)
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His favorite toy is a hiking boot shoelace.
(after I spent about $35 on cat toys)
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His favorite treats are Greenies, any flavor.
(thank goodness because he had dragon breath at first)
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He is deathly afraid of thunder, but not fireworks or other loud noises.
(he has a safe place in the bathroom closet with his blankie, near his litter box)
It took fifteen shots to get the two good photos. Here he is telling us he was done with our picture taking shenanigans. Ha ha.
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We honestly don't know why he was abandoned. He uses the litter box faithfully and he's not wild around the house. He has a tendency to play rough and will start gnawing fingers, but if you go limp he stops. Was that enough for someone to dump him? He's never growled or hissed since he has been with us. I guess it will remain a mystery.
This is my favorite street cat rescue on Instagram. They help cats living in extreme conditions and those with serious health issues. It was difficult finding photos to post here because the director doesn't hide the ugly and cruel side of animal abandonment and homelessness. In the top left photo and bottom right is my favorite rescue they have at the moment, Santana, he was one of their managed cat colonies "ferals" and he started losing a noticable amount of weight. After a vet visit they found out he had a severe fungal infection of his nose, but after that cleared up they noticed his mouth also looked bad. That ended up being oral cancer, so they've kept him at the rescue and he's on pain meds and getting fed steak. Surprisingly he has turned into a cuddle bug. I love watching his cuddling videos on instagram.
Have you ever wanted to play a video game as a cat? Well, here's your chance! People were bragging in a Facebook Stray players group that they have been following the development of this game since it was called the HK project, but I started following its development when it was just a string of letters and numbers. I think it's been almost seven years for me.
This is the first trailer from summer 2020 when the game was supposed to be released in 2021. It was eventually pushed back to this month. It was the only trailer I saw until the 2021 E3 video.
I had absolutely forgotten I'd seen the zurks, blob-like ticks, in this game explanation video by one of the developers, but from the images I had no idea they could kill the cat if the player can't manage to work the controls fast enough to shake them off. The game doesn't say the cat is dead, but it's said he falls over and just lies there. I guess one could considered the cat just passed out? The cat gets knocked out in the beginning of the game and it looks the same. I'm still not sure about the emotional impact of the game on younger players even though it's rated ages 10+.
This 2022 trailer is much darker in feel than the others.
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I wonder if there's any way to just stay on the main routes and scratch on trees, chase butterflies, trip robots, play with your cat friends, knock over potted plants and meow; all things you can do in the game. I guess there is a scene where a robot is trying to clean up spilled milk and you can make the cat walk through it repeatedly, making the robot angry. Ha ha.
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I'm going to wait until September to buy the physical game to play on my son's PS4, so I can't give my opinion on its playability for ten to twelve year olds. Baz was a sensitive kid, so at the least I would have played it myself first to see how he would have been with it, if he was under thirteen.
The big thing in the players group has been members posting videos of their cat's fascination with the game. This YouTube video is not very long and shows some clear images of the start of game play.
This is a full play-through video. *I might be wrong because the game is supposed to be five hours long* You can watch the first twenty minutes of the game and not get spoiled. The player has a pleasant voice, and a good sense of humor. Katherine, when the cat falls from the cliff it doesn't die; that's when it falls into the robot city. He does get knocked out though, and when he wakes up he frantically runs around calling out for his friends. I started getting teary-eyed myself.
Do you play video games?
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