There are times when we think Tabby’s Place should have its own medical mystery television series. Our Vanilla’s case would make a perfect episode. He arrived with his sibling Chocolate in early November (2015). From the start, Chocolate did beautifully with us, but Vanilla, who was very small for his age, wasn’t gaining weight and seemed listless. Considering that both were still babies (they were born around mid-July, 2015), Vanilla’s behavior was quite worrying. So we did the usual tests. When those turned up nothing, we did more tests. The results? We still had no idea what was wrong.

Was Chocolate bullying Vanilla, or keeping him away from food? Nobody had seen anything like that, and I myself had seen Vanilla go up to a sleeping Chocolate and fall asleep with his chin across Chocolate’s back. But we decided to separate them because we didn’t know what else to try, and because Chocolate was perfectly adoptable.

Within a week, Vanilla looked less sorry for himself. He has begun to gain weight, and that listlessness is disappearing. We’ll probably never know what really happened, but we’re delighted that this little guy is doing better. He remains small for his age, but his good looks make up for that! (He’s almost all white, with a few tiny patches of black hairs on his head.)

Vanilla had a rough start with us, and he’s still not entirely certain about people. He will hiss at you initially, but if you pick him up he’ll begin to purr, so there’s excellent potential there. We know he’ll become better and better with humans as time goes on.