A TRIBUTE TO F2 BARRINGTON: His Rescue and Fight with HCM

August 31, 2020 Laura Dodge Root

The owner of Barrington is the late Pam Pasteur Hatch, who provided this article about Barrington. The co-author is Laura Dodge Root.

I've had some experience with Savannah cats. When my breeder friend, Jannel, contacted me about one of her previous F2 kittens she spotted on a rescue page, I was thrilled to take him in.

Jannel received him back to her cattery in southern Utah. Sadly, he first endured two surgeries to repair his knees, which is believed to be a result of an injury. Unbeknownst to her, both knees had patellar luxation, a congenital or traumatic condition where the kneecap becomes dislocated, causing lameness and inability to jump.

The surgeon corrected each knee separately, and after his first surgery, caging was necessary for six weeks for his safety and healing. The second operation was a few weeks later, so we met in Northern Utah to take him home post-procedure. I'll never forget the shock of seeing Barrington for the first time. He was huge.

Barrington was 2 ½ years old when I brought him home to Montana. He stayed in a cage in my bedroom while healing from the second operation. I slept with him on the floor because he experienced so much pain.

Not long after Barrington got out of "knee jail," he got a wild hair and scared the dickens out of me when he took a running leap from my bed, launching himself 15 feet as he ran off, testing out his new knees!

At his healthiest, Barrington was 32 lbs. Being scared of strangers, I couldn't put him through the fuss of measuring to certify his height—but, wow, he was big! He was ½" taller than the Guinness World Record title holder, the late Arturius, owned by Will Powers.

Barrington was terrified of the vet, yet his vet loved him to pieces. He wouldn't have anything to do with anyone but me, and we were soulmates. At a regular dental check and cleaning, something made our vet Katie do an ultrasound. That's when she discovered his thickened heart wall--HCM.

Katie was afraid to drain the fluid around his heart that HCM produces. She sent us to Dr. David Bostwick in Missoula, three hours away, specializing in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM). Barrington was on four medications. A friend in California, Brigitte Moyne, sent me empty gel capsules to place the cut-up drugs into so I could easily administer them to him.

I became an expert at catching him asleep, putting pressure on the corners of his mouth, and dropping those pills down his throat. Most times, he didn't even wake up. He was such a gentle soul; he'd let me do this to him. But for anyone else, this 32-pound Savannah would run and hide!

After the first fluid draining, it was a few months before he had to return to the vet. I could tell things were progressing because he'd have trouble breathing. Near the end, the visits were about every two weeks. And you know--you know when the time has come.

I called a vet to come to the house as quickly as possible to help him cross the rainbow bridge. He was only five years old.

Dr. David Bostwick, who treated Barrington, was kind enough to provide education and insight regarding HCM.

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