Iniki is a very pretty, VERY active, very happy and very sociable girl. She is used to children and a gentle, cat-trained dog and when sleepy is a real cuddler (even with Bella the dog). While she looks petite and dainty, Iniki also has rip-roaring fun tearing through the house with her toys in her mouth.  She'll "sneak attack" the dog when she walks by, and has no fear of harassing her feline big brother Mr. Big, even though he whacks her every single time!

Iniki is also a very lucky girl. When she and her brothers (Ike and Izzy, already adopted) came to FFGW as babies, she was half the boys’ size. While the boys grew like little weeds, Iniki lagged behind. Something was just not right. We were very worried and asked our vet to figure out what was wrong.

It turned out that Iniki had a birth defect called a portosystemic shunt—an extra blood vessel that was diverting blood around instead of through her liver. Uncorrected, the defect would have caused a build-up of toxins in her body and a painful, shortened life. Not on FFGW’s watch! We started Iniki on medications and a special liver-friendly low protein diet to protect her body from the toxins while we researched surgical options.

Iniki had successful surgery on February 2, 2016. Her doctors tell us she can live a perfectly normal life! Her only special care involves her figure and her diet: she has to stay trim and avoid high protein and human foods. This means a regular adult diet until she is a year old and then a lower protein senior diet. (Iniki is very happy about this because she thought her pre-surgery prescription food was yucky!)

Our sweet girl surprised us every single step of the way, right down to eating a whole meal the night of her surgery! She has NO IDEA anything was ever wrong, and cannot WAIT to find her forever home.  Iniki asked us to look for a family with feline playmate to wrestle and chase, and a cat-loving dog would be great, too. Even better, Hickory, the ginger kitty in the pictures with Iniki is also up for adoption from the same foster home! Why not adopt both boys that already know and love each other to add to your family? 

Special note: FFGW is enormously grateful to Dr. Krista Wiechmann of Loudoun Cat Care, who diagnosed Iniki and advised us as we grappled with this very rare, very novel health issue, and to Dr. Anke Langenbach, owner and Chief of Surgery at the Veterinary Surgical Center, who performed Iniki's surgery at a most generous discount.