Meet Thunder

Tiny Medical Miracle • Professional Booper • Attention-Seeking Gremlin

Thunder came home alongside Callie after what should have been a perfectly normal trip to the mall before a Tampa Bay Lightning game.

Unfortunately, there was a kitten adoption event.

And unfortunately, I was foolish enough to show my husband a calico kitten.

Now, by this point in our household history, everyone should have known that I was emotionally incapable of separating kittens that appeared attached to each other. The calico kitten — who would become Callie — shared her enclosure with a tiny gray tabby.

That tiny gray tabby was Thunder.

So naturally, we adopted both of them.

At the time, Thunder appeared perfectly healthy. He was energetic, playful, and looked like a completely normal kitten.

About a week later, that changed.

Thunder developed severe diarrhea that simply would not stop. In a household full of cats, this is basically nightmare fuel. We separated him immediately and started what would become weeks of vet visits, medications, panic, and heartbreak.

Over the next month, Thunder lost more and more weight despite trying medication after medication. By the end, he weighed under two pounds and looked terrifyingly fragile.

At one point, I sat crying in the vet’s office asking if it was cruel to keep trying to save him instead of letting him go peacefully.

We were exhausted. Thunder was exhausted. Nothing seemed to be helping.

Out of desperation, I reached back out to the rescue group we had adopted him from. They insisted he had been healthy before adoption but suggested one additional treatment:
A medication designed for horses.

Now imagine trying to calculate an appropriate horse medication dosage for a dying kitten small enough to fit in one hand.

I was terrified.

In what was probably my least professional moment as a pet owner, I ended up cyberstalking my vet on Facebook over the weekend to ask whether this medication was even safe. I opened the message with a full apology and an offer to find a new veterinary practice if necessary.

Thankfully, she was incredibly kind about the whole thing.

And more importantly:
The horse medicine worked.

Within four days, the diarrhea finally stopped.

Thunder slowly began gaining weight, regaining energy, and turning back into a real kitten instead of a tiny skeleton with fur.

Unfortunately, after weeks of being force-fed medicine multiple times a day, Thunder never fully recovered emotionally from being restrained. To this day, he does not tolerate being picked up and held. Additionally, since Thunder was so sick he never learned to groom himself properly, so he frequently looks greasy.

But that does not mean Thunder dislikes people.

Quite the opposite.

Thunder is one of the most aggressively affectionate cats in the house — as long as the affection happens on his terms.

My youngest daughter used to gently bop him on the nose with one finger while saying “boop.” About a year later, Thunder started booping people back. Sometimes with claws. Always with enthusiasm.

If Thunder wants attention, he will physically shove himself into you with alarming force. He has knocked arms downward, pushed smaller humans off furniture, and inserted himself directly into personal space simply because he believes petting should already be happening.

He loves snuggling.
He loves attention.
He loves people.

He just absolutely refuses to be held.

Thunder’s entire personality can basically be summarized as:
“Touch me immediately. But do not restrain me.”

Adopted: December 2019

Special Skills:

• Booping humans directly in the face
• Weaponized head shoving
• Surviving through pure stubbornness