The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Brookfield cat adopts a Chihuahua puppy
BROOKFIELD — Jada lay on a cushion, nursing her six young, though not all of them were actual offspring — or even all cats.
Nestled among the lilac and chocolate fur of the five kittens, lay a Chihuahua puppy, Lazarus, who Jada has adopted after his mother showed no interest in him and wasn’t producing milk.
“This mother has really saved his life,” said Dr. Sharon Eisen, the veterinarian caring for the puppy and cats.
Lazarus, was born last Wednesday, and was adopted by Jada, a lilac British shorthair, shortly after.
Eisen said she has never experienced a cat adopting another animal as his or her own in the 30 or so years with her practice, The Complete Cat Veterinary Clinic.
It’s unusual, but not that uncommon for another species to look after another’s young. National Geographic has highlighted some instances of animals adopting other animals, including sperm whales taking in a bottlenosed dolphin, a dog nursing a baby squirrel, apes caring for cats and a dog taking care of a baby owl.
Finding acceptance
Eisen has bred lilac British shorthairs for years, but this was her first attempt to breed Chihuahuas with her friend, Yvonne Chapman. The two coown Lazarus’s parents, who live just down the road at her friend’s house.
Chihuahuas are difficult to breed and Eisen wasn’t sure the mother was actually pregnant until she scanned and saw one puppy.
This generally means the puppy is too big for a natural birth and so she was brought to Newtown Veterinary Specialists on Wednesday for a cesarean section. After the procedure, the Chihuahua wanted nothing to do with her young because she wasn’t awake for the labor and wasn’t producing milk,
Eisen said.
“So we had a puppy with no mother and no milk,” she said.
She tubefed the puppy, tried a number of things to encourage the mother to start feeding him, looked for a wet nurse for the puppy and even tried a number of different nipples to bottle feed the young Chihuahua but nothing worked. She turned to her own cat, Jada, as a last resort.
Jada had just given birth to her third litter on Thursday morning and when one of the kittens didn’t make it, Eisen decided to give it a try. She checked with other veterinarians and compared the formulas for both the kittens and puppies before determining the milks were similar enough that it would be OK for Jada to nurse Lazarus. She’s also started cleaning him like own of her kittens.
“That’s really key that she’s accepted him completely,” Eisen said.
Lazarus has had a difficult start to his life, which is why he is named for the biblical figure who comes back from the dead.
He wasn’t breathing when he was born, and the veterinarians worked for about 30 minutes on him before he drew his first breath.
“I didn’t think he was going to make it,” Eisen said.
She credits Doctors Adam Porter and Debra Weisman for Lazarus’s survival.
Chihuahua lap cat
Eisen said he’s doing really well and has been accepted by not only Jada, but the other kittens.
“I don’t even think they know it’s another species,” she said. “As they grow, it will be interesting to see how they interact.”
Though they look very different — Lazarus is spotted like a tiny cow and the kittens are either shades of deep brown or light gray — Eisen said the two breeds have similar traits.
“They’re like a lap cat,” she said of Chihuahuas. “Give them a lap and all they want to do is sit on it.”
They’re taking it day by day, but Eisen doesn’t think she’ll end up selling Lazarus as originally planned.
“After all we’ve gone through to keep this puppy alive, I don’t know how we’ll be able to part with him,” she said.