She loves me, she loves me not

Under-socialized kittens can be the most rewarding type to foster. When these kittens come to me, they tend to hide and they refuse to look at me. By the end of their stay here, most of them warm up to me, and many even act is if they never had any fear of people to begin with. It’s usually the first purr that tells me we’ve had a breakthrough.

That said, I’ve come to the decision that Sprout is an unusual case. She acted like the typical frightened kitten on her first day, and for a few weeks to come. After awhile she would leap the baby gate and play like a happy kitten in the living room with Patch or Serra. When it came time to put her away, however, Sprout would run and hide under the sofa. I figured she was going to be one who never quite came around.

On Monday, Sprout was really sick. I wanted to return her to the shelter with Patch (whom I did return yesterday, with a heavy heart), but if she has a cold she’ll be stuck in the shelter system for awhile. It’s better to keep her here where she can get the one-on-one socializing. She escaped from the kitten room when Michael was feeding the kittens in the morning, and was adamant that he did not recapture her, so we let her be. She’s big enough to take care of herself.

I finally found Sprout later that day lying in one of the cat beds on my desk. When I came in, she ran away and tried to climb the cat tree, but Buttercup was inside and hissed and growled at little Sprout. I rescued the frightened kitten from her awkward position stuck to the cat tree, and put her in my lap. It was then that an amazing thing happened – Sprouty started to purr!

For the next half hour, Sprout sat in my lap and rubbed against my chest and face. She relished the petting and neck massages. I thought for sure that my little scaredy-cat had come over to my side and given up her feral ways.

The next day, I let Sprout back into the living room. She didn’t run under the sofa when I walked by, but she would not let me touch her. It was if Monday had never happened.

On Wednesday, I let the kittens out for a little playtime before I sent Patch to live in a cage for a few days. I felt bad returning him alone, but he is so big and he kept accidentally hurting Lady when he played with her. Patch is healthy and huge. Most of all, he is ready to find his forever home. He’s such a nice kid that I think it won’t take long.

I put the 3 smallest kittens back into the kitten room before I left the house, and I placed Patch in the carrier. I tried to capture Sprouty-Sprout, but she took off for my bedroom and hid under the bed. Since I was only going to be out for an hour or so, I left her there. She knows where the adult cats’ litter box is, and she knows where to find water. Plus, she’s semi-feral and my cats have difficulty hunting flies. I think Sprout has the edge, here.

Sprout was in the cat bed in the office again when I came home from the shelter. I sat down and ignored her, thinking I would just try to get her used to my presence. I was surprised when Sprout climbed down into my lap, purring like a maniac. I was wearing a new wool sweater, which I think put her over the edge. Sprout kneaded my arm and my stomach, suckling on the wool. This is a behavior to watch (wool sucking kittens can end up with intestinal obstructions from ingesting wool), but she was so happy that I let her go at it for awhile. She didn’t eat through the sweater, she just left a huge wet spot on my sleeve.

I had to leave the office, and Sprout let me carry her with me. She sat on my lap while I was on the sofa. I let her roam for awhile and only put her back after the knit-night crew arrived. She was really sleepy then, and had little resistance.

This morning, I let Sprout out again. I have to leave in a short bit to pick up a load of cat food for Toni. Will Sprout let me catch her today? No. Apparently, what happens in the office, stays in the office.

Catching an escaped prisoner

I had a week or so of insomnia again, so I’d taken the opportunity to socialize the kittens in the middle of the night. It’s quieter then, with fewer things for Sprout and Lady to be afraid of. Unfortunately, It’s also a lot easier for the kittens to get unruly since I am generally alone at that time of day.

On Saturday night I heard some crying from the kitten room, so I opened the door and everyone rushed out. I think it’s an elaborate scheme designed to trick me into freeing the prisoners. Not gonna happen – Buttercup cannot be trusted unsupervised with the kittens.

Most of the kittens are not hard to round up when they escape. I can just call Pumpkin and Patch and they come running back to me, purring. The smallest 4 can’t jump over the fence because they are too small, so they are neatly contained in the kitchen. But Sprout, oh Sprout.

When I open the kitten room door Sprout heads right for the fence. It one graceful movement she is over and exploring the living room. I’m happy that she feels confident enough to explore the house, really. She also lets me bend down and pet her when she is in the kitten room. Unfortunately, unless Michael and I have direct control over her when she is in the living room (like when we bring her out for snuggle therapy), Sprout will not let us touch her. This is problematic when I want to put her away.

Especially with undersocialized kittens, it is very important to be aware of what each action you take means to the cat. You want to reinforce desirable behaviors, and discourage the less desirable ones. When Sprout escapes, I cannot just recapture her and lock her up. She already runs when I approach her, so if I only go after her when I want to put her away, she’ll make that connection and never let me catch her again. Instead, the capture routine gets a little extended (not such a great thing when I’m in a hurry, but what can you do?).

The first thing I do when Sprout runs under the sofa is to lure her out with an interactive toy. It isn’t long before curiosity gets the better of this naughty kitty and she emerges to pounce on the toy. I have to resist the urge to scoop her up right then and there – the whole reason she went under the couch in the first was so that she didn’t have to face me. Instead, I continue to play with her, luring her farther and farther from the couch. As she gets more involved with the toy, I reach down occasionally to pet her, still avoiding picking her up. I want her to see that when I reach for her it isn’t always to hold her. After a few minutes, I do reach down and pick her up. I still can’t put her away at this point, or she will think that the only reason I hold her is to put her away. Instead, I place Sprout on the sofa and play with her there, again reaching down to pet her when she is distracted. Only after we have a few minutes of fun can I put her away without encouraging Sprout’s negative feelings about me holding her.

The technique I used with Sprout can’t be used with all cats. If the kitten is the sort who gets overstimulated when she plays, you can’t touch her during a play session or you’ll get bitten or clawed to pieces. In that case, it might be better to lure the cat back to the confinement area with the interactive toy, or coax her to come out with her favorite food (then you can apply the technique I used). The bottom line is that you have to make touch a good thing (or at least not a scary thing) and you have to disassociate the carrying action with confinement. Simple, right? Pfft.

The new kitten is named…

We are happy to announce that Ling Ling’s sister now has a name. After viewing all the suggestions, Michael and I settled on:

<drum roll>

Tiki. Congratulations Peggy, you have the bragging rights for naming my new bottle-feeder!

I really liked the other 3 suggestions as well.

Lane, where did you get the name Esme? It definitely fits the criteria, and I liked it, but I was wondering what particularly attracted you to it? Maybe I can use it in the future.

Sara: Cleo is a lovely name. My aunt had a dog by that name who was recently put down, so I decided that this just wasn’t the right time. Also a name I will file away for a future kitten.

Carisa, I do think Panda is an adorable name, but I think I should use it on the next black and white kitten. Naomi (not my spinning friend, but the foster parent who got my Blaze) named Ling Ling for the panda for obvious reasons. Foxy is also a cute name. I wonder what sort of kitten I would see as a Foxy..?

I returned Lani and Kai to the shelter today. They passed the behavior evaluation, but they need to get the doctor to look at them and confirm that Lani’s lice are dead. The thing with feline lice is that the eggs adhere so permanently to the hairs that they do not go away until the fur comes out. I tried trimming her fur, but it was just so much. It isn’t contagious to other species, and Kai doesn’t have it, so I think it will all work out.

After all that, can you believe that I got even more kittens today? Undersocialized kittens, as a matter of fact. I think that they are less fearful than Lani and Kai were, but not by much. Linnea came over today and named them. Don’t worry, I will have more naming requests in the future, and maybe I’ll make some cat toys to send out to the winner.

This is Moonlight. She started out today in the feral kitten room at the shelter. I told the foster coordinator that I needed a sibling for Wisteria. She mostly cries now because she is lonely, and she needs other cats. The foster coordinator said she needed foster homes for several under-socialized kittens. I decided it was best for all involved that I take an under-socialized kitten home so I could solve both problems at the same time. Wisteria is just so self-confident and trusting that it has to rub off on the other kittens. I put the two of them in the same room, and within minutes Wisteria was engaging Moonlight in snuggling. Linnea visited all my new kittens tonight, spending a great deal of time with this one – I think they are in love now. Poor Moonlight is so bony – she is about 2 weeks older than Wisteria but she weighs less. Linnea fed Moonlight wet food from her fingers and comforted her with petting. After awhile in her Auntie Nea’s lap, Moonlight began to purr. At first it was so quiet I thought I was imagining it. As she sat there, the purr got louder and louder until it filled the room. Yep, this one cracked like an egg.

This ‘fraidy cat is Sunshine. She didn’t seem so bad at the shelter. As a matter of fact, she was in a different room than her sister, Moonlight. She was purring for our foster coordinator, and seemed ok. It was for a different reason that I took Sunshine home:

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Take a look at Sunshine’s rear right leg.

She is missing her leg from about mid-calf down. It’s kind of a club-foot. She gets around normally and even scratches her head with the abnormal appendage. Sunshine was much more fearful at home and hid in her box most of the time. She came out to go to the bathroom and ran past us so we couldn’t touch her. After I see how her poop looks (I don’t want to make a diarrhea situation worse), I am going to start her on baby food therapy as soon as possible.

The bottle-feeders have gotten to a new life stage today. They are awake for awhile between feedings. They are a great deal of fun to be with because they just look so darn cute! Here are a few adorable baby pictures:

Tiki and Ling Ling are still in need of stimulation to go potty. They hadn’t made number two yet, so I gave them some vegetable oil (0.1mL) at their last feeding to help things along. I thought it was working, but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to make anything come out. Unlike me, my husband is good at getting that job done. He just has the magic touch with the tiny kittens. By day he is a professional finance guy, but by night he is Poop Master Michael!

Wisteria was very helpful in getting her new roommates settled. The bigger kittens now sleep in the same bed as Wisteria. She welcomed them as well as I could ask of a 4 week old kitten. She tries to play with them and to groom them – I think she’s happy to have some new friends. The bottle-babies have their own cage that I lock them in when I am not in the room, but while they are out, Wisteria helps me with them, too. See how she snuggles those two? She also played gently with them, but I think she is teething and got a tad bit rough with the little ones; hence the cage they stay in when unsupervised. Wisteria was also incredibly cute at their dinner feeding-time. Tiki and Ling Ling started to peep for their food, and Wisteria went to their door to check on them. What a sweet big sister! I think all that work wore her out, though.

Tonight I have a special treat! I managed to get not 1, but 2 kitten-tongue pictures:

So help me, I have no idea why I think this is so cute.

New skills

It seems that many of us in my household are learning new skills lately. I’ll start with the most exciting: Kai! Mostly, Kai has been fearful of me. He hides behind the toilet when I visit him. He hisses when I reach into his carrier.

I was thinking of moving him to another foster home because he just wasn’t making progress with me. But lo, and behold – Kai loves me now! He started this morning just as surly as normal, but when I scratched his ears, he started to purr almost imperceptibly. I put him in my lap so he could help me with my blog post, and now he’s purring like crazy. He’s also sucking on my t-shirt, but I’m not complaining. The more I rub his ears, the louder he purrs! Congrats little buddy!

Lani is developing her super model skills. She posed for me this morning and I got this lovely shot of her:

I’m still worried about the FIP thing because her belly is still a little fatter and firmer than I like. I’ve seen lots of kittens in my time. They all tend to be a little fat for awhile, and then they get skinny. The fat is usually soft, though, and hers is not. Kai’s is much better, so I think that Lani will get better, too. I would be so relieved to learn she just had an infection. I like her too much to have her put down.

Poor Wisteria is learning about all sorts of new things these days. She has had diarrhea for awhile now. Diarrhea is VERY common amongst bottle-feeders. I have no idea if it’s the formula or the way we feed them, but it is almost guaranteed. The only bottle feeders that survive it are older and bigger. Almost every time I visit Wisteria she is covered in poop, which means she gets a bath. I also have to put cream on her poor, sore bottom. She hates me touching her “there”.

Her life is just completely miserable right now because she is also experiencing the weaning process. Wisteria loves her bottle. I thought at first she just didn’t like the food I was offering her. I tried several types.

She would eat them all from my finger or a spoon,

but just as quickly as she started eating from the bowl she would stop.

I tried feeding her formula from a saucer, but she didn’t want that. I then had the idea to see if it was the vessel and not the food she was objecting to. I made a mush of formula and wet food, cut a bigger hole in one of her bottles’ nipples, and tried to feed that to her. I was finally successful. She’s been consuming food that way since yesterday. I moved her to a bigger box and added a litter box and food bowl to her space. She still hasn’t really touched the food, but it’s available if she wakes up hungry. She only uses the litter box about half the time as well, but I think she might just be fastidious enough to get the hang of it when the diarrhea goes away.

I, too, have been expanding my skill set. I finally started to spin yarn in class. My first yarn from the wheel was not nearly as good as my first yarn from the spindle. Every time I read about spinning, it is always advised that you start on a drop spindle. I don’t know why – it is a very different skill. I was excellent at drafting on the spindle, but my hands were in a different place and had to do something different for the wheel, so it didn’t translate. It took me longer to get the right rhythm.

On Monday I worked on my homework. We were given two different (natural) colored pieces roving to spin. Next week we are going to ply it. In any case, that went incredibly well. I was able to spin while – get this – talking on the phone and watching TV.

Get a load of the singles I made – I am impressed with it myself. (Oh yeah, did I mention I am re-learning Calculus, too?)

I only have 2 bobbins, so I think I am going to spin some of my own roving before making the second singles for class. I have a week and incredible enthusiasm, so I figure that it’s doable. I separated about 175g of roving in 4 colors for my own project. You know, I really need to invest in a niddy noddy (a tool for winding yarn off of a bobbin into a skein) soon…

Serra likes my spinning, too. She just had to take her turn after I left.

And finally, today is Buttercup and Wesley’s birthday. They turn 7 today! Hold cow – I am the mother of 7-year olds. How did that happen?

Trouble in paradise

Meet Lani and Kai. Their names mean sky and sea, respectively, in Hawaiian. We thought it would be nice to make the “plain black kittens” seem more exciting by giving them exotic names. These two kittens are undersocialized, so they are going to need behavior modification work. I am concerned that they will also contract ringworm given that I still have 3 from the previous litter in the house (but in a separate room). They’ve got at least a month with me anyway given their current state of affairs.

Lani has lice. The nice thing about those bugs is that they are feline specific – people can’t catch them. I do have to keep her away from my cats until the Advantage has killed them all off or I will have a bigger infestation on my hands. I pretreated my cats just in case. She’s made progress since I picked her up on Tuesday. I’ve given her a spoonful of baby food once a day, and now she is ok eating and roaming around the room when I am in there.

Kai doesn’t have lice, or at least has too few for me to notice. He has really shiny, incredibly black fur. Lani is a little brown in comparison. Kai is more undersocialized than Lani as well. He hisses when I look at him. It’s really cute when a kitten that size hisses at you – he is so tiny, yet he thinks he’s fierce! I cannot resist kissing him when he gives me that angry hiss. He was very quick to warm up to baby food, so I am betting that by next week he’s going to think I’m not so bad.

At knit night, I cast on and finished a hat. I think it will fit a five-year-old kid. I just grabbed 2 partial balls of yarn from my stash, cast on 36 stitches onto size 10 3/4 dpns, and knit away. Carisa has a goal of knitting 5 of them – I think I can do that. Shoot, with big needles I can knit a ton of them. I am just going to knit hats until Carisa mails them off. Wow, what a great excuse for casting on tons of new projects! I love it when the world steps in to validate my addictions.

Charity knitting is a great way of getting rid of yarn in your stash that you just hate. Poor Linnea was given a gift of yarn several years ago. I never would have known that could be a bad thing until I saw this pile-o-nastiness. No one who has seen that yarn has liked it yet. And wouldn’t you know it, Linnea acquired this yarn in a big garbage bag. She loaned it to our friend Melinda who made a blanket from this yarn, but still there is a mountain of it left. I think the picture represents 1/4 to 1/3 of the leftovers. The nice thing about this project is that kids tend to like brightly colored things that adults consider hideous. She can make many, many hats and be rid of at least some of it. Maybe some of the others of us in the group should make some hats from that yarn too, just to relieve Linnea of the burden…

In any case, not all of the hats I will make will be ugly by my definition. I actually like my first hat, and I intend to crochet a hat from my favorite cheap yarn of all time. Currently I am planning to pair it with yarn I have leftover from a skirt I made last year before my anniversary cruise to Hawaii. That should make it nice and fast warm.

I’ve avoided talking about this for the whole post, but there is a reason I entitled this one “Trouble in paradise.” Blaze looks awful! I got pretty far on it after I finished untangling all of its yarn. I got to the neckline, used a smaller needle than the one I used for the rest of the body, reduced nigh on 100 stitches, and yet somehow when I cast off I discovered that the neckline is bigger than the rest of the sweater. I am going to graft the armpits closed, set up my explanation of what I found wrong with the pattern, then try to shrink that bugger. I am hoping this is an issue of blocking. Seriously hoping. My husband suggested I stop trying to knit sweaters for myself from patterns. This is my second attempt that went way awry. My first sweater was a pink cashmere/merino thing that was too big for me, but fortunately fit my aunt who happens to love pink. It’s still in the family. The odd thing is that when I design a sweater myself, it tends to fit the recipient well. I cannot believe that I can do a better job than people who have published their patterns. Maybe I really am just that hard to fit.

It’s a good thing that I view failure as a challenge. My next step is going to be to find a yarn that I fall madly in love with and knit it into a sweater of my own design for myself. That one will fit. Period.

Up late, spinning, and more kittens

I’ve taken to posting late at night. I’ve had a little insomnia, and late nights are the only time when the kittens are all asleep and I have no interruptions or other tasks that I could be accomplishing. I used to hate that the world shut down at night, but at times like these, I rather like it. The one thing that annoys me about the late night posting is that if I get it up just after midnight, it looks like I posted the next day. I guess you can look at the time at the top of an entry to see when I really posted, but still, it just irks me.

The last few days have seen a lot of kitten turnover in my house. All of them have stayed alive, thank goodness. It’s just that I acquired a few extras and gave away some of the ones I had to a new foster parent. I am constantly covered in kittens right now.

 

Milkshake actually came to me on Monday. He’s growing well, but he is just a wee bit shy. I’ve been giving him “baby-food therapy” to help him overcome his shyness. I have several jars of Gerber 2nd foods chicken baby food. Many people I know refer to this stuff as kitty crack. Most cats and kittens cannot resist the yumminess that is meat-flavored baby food. I started out by holding him and feeding him a spoonful of the baby food. Once he figured out that he could come out of hiding when I was in the room, I began offering the baby food just out of his reach so that he had to come toward me to get some. In the next few days I hope to lure him onto my lap, then wean him off the babyfood. It’s just that too much baby food can give kittens diarrhea. For now, at least, he’ll stay in my lap when I put him there.

On Tuesday I got another kitten! His name is Malomar. His mother is a very small (about 5 pounds) feral cat. She started to feel sick, and them one of her kittens died of what seems to be sudden kitten death syndrome. Malomar woke up one morning with lethargy, and the woman who was caring for him got concerned. She didn’t have a lot of time to stay home and nurse him, and she isn’t really all that knowledgeable about kittens. She actually runs a rescue group and deals primarily with older feral cats or cats who were otherwise considered unadoptable at local shelters. She felt bad about trying to pass him off, but I think that everyone has a specialty, and it’s fine to rely on other specialists when you have a problem that is out of your realm of expertise.

Malomar has a very similar dispostion to Nebula, so he and Nebby pal around quite a bit. They both try to climb my jeans when they want to be held (it’s one of the more difficult – and painful – tricks that I have to discourage in many kittens), and they both want to nap on my shoulders at the same time. It turns out that whatever was plaguing Mal was short-lived. I just gave him 10mL of sub-q fluids, and by the next morning he was romping with the other kittens. His muscle tone isn’t right just yet, so I am going to keep him until I can say with confidence that he will be ok for his other foster mom. Malomar also really loves the baby food. I am currently frosting the regular food with baby food to get Nebby and Merry to eat. Mal will stand on a plate of the food and growl if another kitten comes near him. I think he learned this resource guarding behavior from his feral mom. It seems like most kittens just grow out of that behavior when they realize that the resource is plentiful. Several of my foster kittens have growled like that the first time they played with an interactive toy. It’s just too fun to share!

Nebby is turning into a very naughty but clever kitten. He, like many other kittens, will howl at the door of his safe room when he wants attention. I refuse to go in when he does that because I don’t want him to get the idea that howling is a good way to get someone to open a door. Generally, I wait until he has stopped for awhile before attending to his needs. Well, that little evil genius figured out that I come running when I hear Meringue cry. Meringue never really goes to the door, but he has been pretty ill (he has steadily lost weight, his lanced abscess started filling with and leaking pus again, and he developed a sneeze despite being on Clavamox), so I run when he cries. It usually turns out that he really needs something, although mostly it is that he managed to poo on his long fur and needs me to clean him up. I don’t blame him – I wouldn’t want to walk around wearing poo either.

Yesterday, I heard Meringue (I mostly call him Merry) crying. I opened the door to the room, and there was Nebby, poised to escape with Merry howling right behind him. I think Nebby put Merry up to it. Merry didn’t need anything – he actually walked back to his bed when Nebby escaped.

Today, Nebby pulled the same trick using Malomar. Mal made the most pathetic cry I’ve ever heard him make behind the closed door.  I do worry that Mal is not out of the woods yet, so I opened the door to check on him, and both of those naughty stinkers came running out. Good thing cats are cute.

Thursday was a busy day for me. I had to take Merry in to the shelter vet to get his abscess wound flushed and to address his weight loss and sneeze. While I was there, Toni asked me if I could take some bottle feeders for the weekend. I have the time to do it, but not if I have 7 other kittens to care for as well. It just so happened that Claire, one of my friends from Scottish country dancing, had called Toni wanting to become a foster parent (believe it or not, she decided this even though she spent an evening at my house helping me feed the screaming star kittens, only to learn that some of them had died the next morning). I was able to give Cupcake, Cream Puff, and Biscotti to Claire since they were the healthiest (it’s never a good idea to give a first time foster parent kittens that may die – it might turn them off of the whole idea). Later that evening I picked up three new bottle feeders.

The new bottle feeders are on the bigger side of the category. They should be starting to wean in a week or so, I believe. They belong to one of my fellow foster parents who is leaving town for the weekend. She hasn’t had time to name them since she only had them one day before she had to leave. I want to leave that up to her, so I will just call them the black kitten, the grey kitten, and the multi-colored kitten. I’m not an expert at sexing kittens, but they all seem to be girls. They are quiet, they have decent poop, and they are heavy. These are all good things. I’ll be returning the kittens to their original mom on Sunday or Monday, depending on our schedules.

If you’ve been keeping count, that’s 10 kittens I’ve gone through this week. I still have 7 for now. Dude.

Despite all the kittens, I had just a little time to learn a bit about spinning. I borrowed Carisa’s spindle. Not too bad for a first timer, I’d say.