Mitten Kitten likes baskets. Isn't he cute. He also likes Rusty Kitty.Sunday, November 09, 2008
More Kitty News
Star - Oreo - Splash
Star is a very friendly kitten, playful but also loveable, our friends adopted him. Oreo and Splash are great kittens, both are very playful. Splash is rough and tumble and loves to play fight with his brothers and him mom. Oreo is a purr baby and will cuddle up with you. Yesterday they both went off to an adoption event and if they didn't get adopted there they will have been placed into one of three area pet stores. I had mixed emotions about them leaving, I was tired of having and taking care of so many cats but they had become part of our family after living with us for so long. I hope they find loving forever homes.
What have I learned from this whole experience? It is hard for me to foster, I get emotionally attached to the little kittens. I have learned how important it is to have your animals spayed and neutered. Ignoring stray animals around your neighborhood can endanger your own animals through disease and fighting. Would I do it again? Possibly, if we had an extra room that we didn't need regularly - such as a spare bedroom. I won't be volunteering anytime in the near future, especially since we now have three cats of our own, one of whom is not keen on other animals - including the two she lives with.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Kitties, Kitties, Kitties
This is Rusty, our 16 year old furry boy.
This is Jasmine; aka: little momma; aka: Mean Kitty. She is actually a pretty good cat and would be a great pet for a family who has no other pets. She tolerates the kittens most of the time, but absolutely hates my Rusty kitty. This has been a big challenge.
We train them early to love books. This is Skitters, the petite and only girl of the bunch. She has gone to live with my sister and her family. I will post about the rest of the group later. Blogger photo uploading is just too slow tonight.Monday, November 03, 2008
Our life . . . Random events - not so minor
So much has happened in our lives since I posted months ago. I have already shared about the kittens - I will post more pictures in a later post. My husband is a Boeing employee who just went back to work today after a 57 day labor dispute. It was great having him home, but stressful watching our savings dwindle. Although we prepare for a strike every contract year, we always hope it won't come to that. We are very thankful that this contract is for four years and we gain an extra year of breathing room. Our daughter moved from Washington state to Nashville, TN and you can read about her adventure on her blog, The Joyful Student . We are excited for her but at the same time will miss her greatly. After an extremely growing year with our next child in line, things have come around and we are doing much better with our relationship. He is a senior in our homeschool and will graduate in May. He is in process of joining the Navy and will probably ship out to boot camp sometime in June. I think it will be a time of growth and self exploration for him. We have had a busy fall with our third child in football, his first year at the high school level. It has been tough competition, but a growing experience for him. He still loves to play, but is glad that it is drawing to an end this week. A blessing to my husband being on strike for so long is that he was able to see our son play in almost all of his games, due to his working swing shift he usually misses all of the games. As you can see we have had a very busy few months.
Crazy Cat Lady
This is Splash before we brought the kittens inside.
This is oscar right after we brought them inside and he was the first to be adopted.
This is oscar right after we brought them inside and he was the first to be adopted.
Recently, I have been called the “Cat Lady”. You know, one of those people who has WAY too many cats. It all started one day many, many years ago when we acquired a young cat named Rusty who was about two years of age from some friends who were moving out of state. He has been our furry family member for the past 14 years. A year or two after his arrival in our family, we got an all black kitty for our daughter, which she named Velvet. Velvet lived with us for many years until she died of kidney failure a few years ago. And now the story continues:
One day in early August we discovered 3 kittens on our front porch, the next day there were three more. Where did they come from? and where was the mother?, we wondered. We were soon to wonder no more as the very skinny, all black mommy, who looks almost exactly like our daughter’s prior kitty Velvet, showed up. She was not much more than a kitten herself and she evidently found under our porch a safe place to have her brood of 6 kittens. At first I thought she was wild but she had on a very tight flea collar, thus we knew she had been a pet to someone at one time, although we could not find out whose. It didn’t take too long and she started to trust me and come to me when I called, but the kittens would run anytime we tried to get near to them. I contacted Purrfect Pals, a local no kill cat shelter and found some help there. I proceeded to trap all 7 cats and bring them into my house for safety. Once they were all trapped we took them up to the shelter for an examination, they all were healthy. When the kittens were big enough, I took them up to the shelter to be altered and have their vaccinations. We decided to keep one of the kittens and take care of the mommy as she was still a little wild and not likely to be adopted by anyone. I surrendered the other kittens to the shelter, but kept them at my home as foster kittens. Our family has worked on taming them so that they can be adopted. Purrfect Pals hosts adoption events at major pet stores in the area every Saturday and the foster parents bring their little wards to these events so people can see them. The first time we took our kitties to an adoption event they became stressed and hissed at everyone. Even so, one of the cute little guys got adopted. The remaining babies caught an upper respiratory infection and I had to give them an immune booster so that they could get over it before they went to another event. In the meantime they became more and more tame and used to us. Soon three of them were well enough to go to an event. They became so stressed while there, they had to be removed from the display and thus none were adopted and they came back home with us. The fourth little guy was adopted by a friend of ours and now happily has a family of his own. We were down to three kittens, 3 months old and thinking they belonged with us. We tried taking just two of them to an event (thinking they were feeding off of the third one’s stress). They still were stressed and hissed and thus came back to our home. So then I tried taking the mellowest one to an event by himself, he did better but still hissed. Who wants to adopt a hissing, snarly kitten when there are 13 sweet loving kittens nearby? It is very frustrating to have these sweet little kittens in our home and then see them get so stressed that everyone thinks they are snarling wild cats. My sister came and her children came to visit and fell in love with the kittens, now we only have two extras that need homes. A further complication that we have is that mommy kitty HATES my Old Man Kitty and causes a bit of chaos around here. Most of the time, foster parents don’t have their wards this long, we are just having a time with stressed out kitties. So while those at the shelter try to figure out what to do, here it is November and I still have 3 kittens and two adult cats and thus the name cat lady.
One day in early August we discovered 3 kittens on our front porch, the next day there were three more. Where did they come from? and where was the mother?, we wondered. We were soon to wonder no more as the very skinny, all black mommy, who looks almost exactly like our daughter’s prior kitty Velvet, showed up. She was not much more than a kitten herself and she evidently found under our porch a safe place to have her brood of 6 kittens. At first I thought she was wild but she had on a very tight flea collar, thus we knew she had been a pet to someone at one time, although we could not find out whose. It didn’t take too long and she started to trust me and come to me when I called, but the kittens would run anytime we tried to get near to them. I contacted Purrfect Pals, a local no kill cat shelter and found some help there. I proceeded to trap all 7 cats and bring them into my house for safety. Once they were all trapped we took them up to the shelter for an examination, they all were healthy. When the kittens were big enough, I took them up to the shelter to be altered and have their vaccinations. We decided to keep one of the kittens and take care of the mommy as she was still a little wild and not likely to be adopted by anyone. I surrendered the other kittens to the shelter, but kept them at my home as foster kittens. Our family has worked on taming them so that they can be adopted. Purrfect Pals hosts adoption events at major pet stores in the area every Saturday and the foster parents bring their little wards to these events so people can see them. The first time we took our kitties to an adoption event they became stressed and hissed at everyone. Even so, one of the cute little guys got adopted. The remaining babies caught an upper respiratory infection and I had to give them an immune booster so that they could get over it before they went to another event. In the meantime they became more and more tame and used to us. Soon three of them were well enough to go to an event. They became so stressed while there, they had to be removed from the display and thus none were adopted and they came back home with us. The fourth little guy was adopted by a friend of ours and now happily has a family of his own. We were down to three kittens, 3 months old and thinking they belonged with us. We tried taking just two of them to an event (thinking they were feeding off of the third one’s stress). They still were stressed and hissed and thus came back to our home. So then I tried taking the mellowest one to an event by himself, he did better but still hissed. Who wants to adopt a hissing, snarly kitten when there are 13 sweet loving kittens nearby? It is very frustrating to have these sweet little kittens in our home and then see them get so stressed that everyone thinks they are snarling wild cats. My sister came and her children came to visit and fell in love with the kittens, now we only have two extras that need homes. A further complication that we have is that mommy kitty HATES my Old Man Kitty and causes a bit of chaos around here. Most of the time, foster parents don’t have their wards this long, we are just having a time with stressed out kitties. So while those at the shelter try to figure out what to do, here it is November and I still have 3 kittens and two adult cats and thus the name cat lady.
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