Help Pip on the road to recovery

Aim

Pip, a streetcat from Spain, has painful stomatitis. The aim is to help with his vet bills and care so he can recover and have a good life

UPDATE:

Pip is doing much better. The specialist vet prescribed some pain medication and I can tell this has helped a lot because he is not salivating nearly as much. He has an appointment for radiography under anaesthesia next week and we will decide next steps after that. Really great news is he now weighs over 3 kg!! That's a huge change from the 2.15 kg he weighed when I first rescued him . 

***THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT***

Pip was hiding under cars in our local town. He was crying as he couldn't eat the dry food in the feral cat colony. In fact, eating was causing excruciating pain. 

He is around 5 or 6 years old and has the tell-tale cut ear to show he's been neutered. He is from our local town in the Ribeira Sacra where he is part of a colony of feral cats we feed along with another woman who lets the cats use her land.

Two weeks ago I managed to trap him and get him to the vet. He was filthy and tiny and hadn't eaten for a good while. In fact he only weighed 2.15 kg. The vet gave him a long acting corticosteroid shot and a long acting antibiotic shot, for what looked like stomatitis in the mouth. He is negative for FELV and for FIV - which is fantastic news. This condition, stomatitis, is where the immune system goes awry and overreacts to plaque on the teeth, causing severe inflammation. 

Since then, Pip has been living in our holiday rental (luckily there were no guests booked in!) in a large cage, and eating soft food. He is diligently catching up on missed meals, but he has had some diarrhoea, probably due to a change in food or perhaps the antibiotic. Hopefully he is now putting on weight.

After a couple of days he became focused on his ablutions and is now much cleaner than the sooty urchin who arrived. His white bits are now white rather than grey.

He wasn’t used to the cage set-up at all and seemed to think he might sit in the litter tray for a while. Roll on 14 days and he’s quite clear about where the loo is and where the bed is!

You can see by his expression that Pip’s not entirely convinced by all this, but is going along with it for now. 

What’s next?

It seems unlikely that Pip can go back to eating dry food in the colony, and that means his options are very limited. There is a chance a brilliant animal sanctuary nearby can give him high quality longer term care, but this will need to be funded.

Now that he's stable and eating, the next thing that needs to happen is for him to be examined by a specialist dental vet to see what can be done to help his painful mouth, as the corticosteroid will wear off soon.

Vet bills so far have been around £93.00, but the specialist vet and long term care with the sanctuary will cost at least another £1000. 

Can you help Pip recover and have a better future?

Your donation will mean we can move forward with his treatment and long term care. Please help if you can.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 6th August 2026 at 12:21pm