Meet Kimiko a pure breed fancy schmancy International champion winner Sacred Birman cat.

Kimiko was one of the matriarchs and model to her breeder; She started producing kittens when she was about 1 year old and from then on she had litters every season for 5 years straight. For whatever reasons Kimiko had had several C-sections (assisted surgical birth) to be able to have her kittens and what happened to her 4th litter is beyond what I could find out digging up the breeder’s Facebook. However, what I did find out is there’s no registration of any live kittens after the post that announces “Kimiko 55 days pregnant”(gestational period goes between 63-65 days), after that Kim gets pregnant again and gives birth to only one kitten (again another C-section) then suddenly got spayed and vanished from social media. Reality is Kimi couldn’t produce strong or live kittens anymore without clearly any complications so she had to leave her home, her people, her cat mates and everything she knew until the age of 6.

The man who took Kimi in was a friend of the breeder and lived alone (no family or other pets). He travelled for work and would be out of the house for weeks in a row and Kimi would have to regulate her food (she ate from a big cooking pan), water and be her own source of entertainment.

After 4 years he realized he couldn’t take care of Kimiko anymore and he told us he felt sorry for her because he saw her struggling, begging for attention and suffering spending day after day alone. He wanted to do the right thing and that would be to let her go.

When Kimi arrived to us and I was in complete shock. She was just skin, bones a whole bunch of dreadlocks and horrible teeth. Probably one of the worst cases of neglect we had. The matted hair was so bad I had to shave her and to my surprise I found the dreadlocks were so tight it ripped her skin open. She also had a horrible diarrhea so I rushed her to the clinic. Kimiko was given supermarket cat food and her feces were horribly orange (years and years of bad food that completely messed up her bowels) AND last but not least she STUNK!. Her feet were full of old diarrhea that dried up and her whole body smelled terrible.

I took her to the clinic for the following:

⁃ Full panel blood test

⁃ Dental work

⁃ Vaccination (her last shot was 5 years ago)

⁃ Finish shaving her back legs

Happily we found out she’s in fairly good shape considering what she’s been through and no further testing is necessary. We got antibiotics for her stomach and that should help her.

Kimiko is today 9 and 1/2 years old, She had several litters, 2 owners, mejor neglected health and some lonely years packed in her suitcase but now the rest of her life begins, specially because now she has a wonderful adopter Annaëlle and they live happily in Utrecht.