Rescuing Frost

Brooke Hammond, Chinook Multi 4-H Club Speech

Brooke Hammond was a participant in the recent Chinook Multi 4-H Club 2013 Club Level Communication Competition.  The following is a speech she prepared and presented at that event. 

Brooke Hammond
Myra Hammond photo

Good morning honourable judges, madam chair person, fellow 4Hers, ladies and gentleman.

Bouff, who works with my Uncle Dixon in Fort Macleod, found a tiny, almost dead, orange kitty in a snow bank outside the shop. He brought it in to the shop and placed it with Uncle Dixon’s other kittens to warm it up.

That’s where it ALL began.

Uncle Dixon asked my dad if we wanted a kitty but my dad said no.
Aunty Myra sent Mom a picture of this 6 week old kitten…he was so cute!…

We named him Frost because of the tiny frozen part on his nose. He even lost one side of his whiskers. He slept on our necks, loved to snuggle and spent nights in a toy barn.

Frost seemed to know that he was rescued and he love us.

My mom, my brothers, and I started to notice that we were developing little, red, itchy spots.  Monday after school, we went to the doctor, he thought it was mites and sent us back to school.


 By Wednesday those little spots had turned into big ring like circles.  They burned, and itched, and spread.  2 days later, after googling our symptoms, we went back to our doctor and now he agreed that we did in fact have ringworm.

Looking back now, the markings and the loss of whiskers on Frost were probably due to the ringworm not the cold.

Frost was given baths every 3 days in fungus medicine.

At first, Frost was purring because I was cuddling him, and then started to meow when we bathed him. If we bathed our old cat, Crockett, he would be going through a hissy fit.

Mom, Shawn, Carter, and I were given cream to put on each ringworm spot.  We had 200 spots each, treating twice a day.  That was a lot of cream.  We went back to the dr’s twice for more and different cream. The dr’s still didn’t know what kind of ringworm we had.  At this point, our Chihuahua, Mexli, also started developing ringworm spots.

The ringworm did not appear to be getting better and seemed like the spots were coming back, despite the constant cream. We went to the Children’s Hospital and the doctor decided we needed to see a dermatologist because there were so many spots and she wasn’t exactly sure what the rash was.  She knew it was a type of ringworm, but not sure which one, so she took samples for testing.

We had a night in Calgary with mom. We couldn’t go swimming, obviously, so we went to the Keg and back to the hotel for a movie.

The dermatologist said we had Canine Ringworm.  He thought it was funny that Canine ringworm is more commonly found on cats than dogs. He gave us all oral pills to take and said it would take at least 2 months for the spots to go away.

My mom and I are cleared up and are no longer taking the pills, The boys, on the other hand, still have bald spots on their heads and must keep taking the pills until they’re gone.

I have circles on my neck and back from where the ringworm was. As the ringworm dies it take the pigment with it.  I have to wear suntan lotion and ensure the circles do not burn.  The dr said it could take years for the pigment to come back.

Frost is now 5 months old and he is more than 3 times the size that he was when we got him.

For a cat, he LOVES water.  When I take a bath, he drinks out of the bathtub. He also steps on me while lying in the tub, to get closer to the water. I think this might have something to do with all the baths he has been given. Frost has been in the house and hasn’t seen the other cats because of the ringworm that he thinks he’s a dog.  He and Mexli are the best of buddies and play together almost constantly.

The estimated cost of our vet bills, hospital trips, and medicine for rescuing Frost is $800.  I learned from all this that you shouldn’t adopt a kitten that you find in the wild.  Especially one that’s almost dead.  But if you do, take him to the vet first, don’t bring them in to your home.

Related link:
Multi 4-H Club holds 2013 Communication Competition