Although we do our best to keep Kitten Academy a bright and positive place, once in a great while we encounter an unavoidable tragedy. Dover, one of Port’s eight kittens, passed away in the early morning hours on Saturday the 3rd of April, 2021. We can report that a few hours before his passing, his breathing had cleared up a lot and he had a peaceful end.

He had “aspiration pneumonia” - a lung infection that begins when food or vomit enters the lungs. There’s little that can be done to address this issue directly, particularly for a kitten that’s less than three weeks old. After he was seen at the emergency clinic and the issue was confirmed via X-ray, we were left to treat him with antibiotics and a nebulizer. When we suspected he might be getting worse, we consulted with multiple vets and got the same answer all around - there’s nothing else that can be done. After that, he did begin to get notably better, but the process was taking a lot of energy and it turned out to be more than he had.

It’s the current assumption of the emergency vet who first diagnosed the pneumonia that the underlying cause wasn’t any error in our feeding protocols, but instead was a congenital defect or lack of development that resulted in reduced gastrointestinal motility, causing Dover to cough up food into his lungs. This is the sort of issue that we could have further investigated and confirmed after the pneumonia had resolved. As it stands, we’ll never have a definitive answer, but we can say that this is the theory that best fits all the facts.

It’s additionally possible that it’s related to the more severe lack of development that caused Port’s ninth fetus to be stillborn. As a result, we’ll be watching the rest of the class even more carefully, if that’s even possible. Fortunately, they all seem very happy and healthy so far, and as they get older, bad outcomes become progressively less likely.

Of course, because there are no definitive answers, we’ll also be examining all our own rules and protocols to ensure the highest levels of care and caution, which is a good thing to do once in a while regardless.