More names

Well, the orange boys are now called Duke and Dizzy after Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. My older daughter is considering the name Hades for the all black kitten, but I am still thinking of him as Count Basie. My husband is waffling between Ella and Dara. She is quite delicate looking.

The kittens are still having a tough time without Mama. I feed them and it takes them quite a while to settle down. They often cry for 10 minutes after they finish eating. They won't take more food, but they still want to be able to nurse for comfort. On top of that, I put my new fuzzy blanket into their box, and now they have attached to it as a mama substitute! I tried to take it out to wash it, and they were inconsolable. As soon as I returned the blanket to the box, they quieted down. So my hubby is gonna buy me another one so the kittens can keep theirs - LOL.

Orphaned kittens

I got a call on Friday that 5 kittens had just been brought into the shelter without a mama, and would I consider fostering them. The cat foster coordinator estimated that the kittens were between 2 and 3 weeks old.

So off I went to the Humane society to pick them up.

The litter consists of two orange tabby boys, a completely black boy, a tuxedo boy, and a little tortie girl. They slept the entire way home, and most of the evening, which worried me. I tried feeding them, but they were not interested in the bottle AT ALL. I woke them up a couple of times, with little success.

Naming them is the next step. My older daughter wants to name the all black one, although he already has the nickname of "basement cat". I thought he might do well as Count Bassie, which lead me to think of the tuxedo kitten as Louis Armstrong. Louie has stuck. The little girl might become Ella (as in Ella Fitzgerald), but we are stumped on the orange tabbies.

Saturday was spent trying to get food into them. After a few attempts, I had managed to get 30 mls into the kittens collectively. I called Jennifer at the Shelter, and she told me if they kept refusing to eat, then I should bring them in Sunday morning. But that evening and this morning, they seem to be getting the hang of things - sort of. They are *very* loud, and clearly miss their mama. They have absconded with the new fuzzy blanket my husband bought me; they love to burrow, knead and suckle on it. Clearly, it is a comfort for them.

So the next week looks to be busy and tiring.

Taking the good with the bad

Lots of chaos this past week. Lorinda and kittens are very happy and active in their office space. I haven't had as much time with them as I would like because I have been working long hours this week. However, I often slip into their room for a few minutes to watch the kittens play chase with Mama. She is so sweet with them.

All four of them are still sniffling and sneezing, despite a 10-day course of Clavamox. I am almost certain the whole thing is viral, but at least the Clavamox has ensured no secondary infections.

On a less positive note, it seems our elderly cat, Cosmo (age 15) has caught the URI. He started out "reverse sneezing" so we took him off to the vet. He *hates* being in the car, and the vet is nearly 30 minutes away. He was NOT a happy boy, but the vet told us his lungs were clear and he seemed healthy. However, the next evening he was extremely lethargic and when I did a skin pinch test, he was clearly dehydrated. So, off to the emergency vet service. The vet there said he had a fever. He had to stay overnight to get rehydrated, and to get a urine sample for culture.

We brought him home yesterday and quarantined him. So now two rooms in our house are "cat quarantine" rooms . Since he is going to be on antibiotics for a while, I thought it would be best to consider letting the kittens go back to the shelter. However, the shelter is very crowded right now AND a good friend of mine is set on adopting Orlando and Lady Jane (whom she will call Jethro and Requia). She offered to take mama and all three kittens as fosters until the shelter can give them their surgeries, then adopt the two she wants. I fully expected this plan to get bogged down in bureaucracy, but to my delight, the cat foster coordinator agreed immediately. I am thrilled to know that even though I have to give my brood up early, they are going to another great place without having to go back to the shelter at all. AND, I get to see two of them grow up :-)

All in all, despite Cosmo's illness, I think the situation balanced out positively. Now I just need to nurse my boy back to health.

Kittens & bunnies & rescues, oh my

I went out to the back deck about 3 hours ago only to discover that our kitten, Ember had cornered a very tiny baby bunny. Being soft-hearted, I rescued the bunny from Ember, and sat back to figure out what the heck I should do now. Buster (the bunny) was tiny enough that I could hold him in one hand. He was (maybe) 3 inches long and as soft as silk. After calling the vet at the Seattle Humane Society and hemming and hawing, I did a bit of internet research and discovered PAWS Wildlife Rescue center in Lynnwood (www.paws.org - they are always looking for donations). Cindy, the lovely volunteer I spoke to, suggested I bring Buster in to see if they could keep him alive long enough to release him back into the wild.

So I drove up to Lynnwood with little Buster in a shoe box. He survived the journey, and was taken into the recovery center. Cindy said that once he was checked over, he would be put with some other bunnies. She also took down my name and address and promised to send me a card telling me what happened to Buster.

Another interesting day...

Chaos, Havoc, and Snurfles

I woke up yesterday to what I thought was a cat fight on my head. It turned out that Ember (one of our 9 month old cats) had snuck into the office to find out what all the fuss was about. Of course, Lorinda objected strenuously to an unannounced visitor harassing *her* babies, and so was a little bit defensive. Poor Kurt felt awful - he has no idea how Ember snuck by him. Ember was rather confuzzled at all the fuss, and the poor kittens were a little shook up. They spent the rest of the day hiding behind the toilet. Luckily, they are back to running around the office with abandon.

All my fosters are struggling with the URI. Poor Lorinda spent the first 24 hours at home here mouth breathing and unable to meow or purr. She would get bubbles coming out her nose. She's been on Clavamox for 3.5 days now and her breathing has really improved. She still snurfles lots, but she can meow and even purrs occasionally.

Orlando is the most adventurous of the trio. He is happy to run out to greet me when I enter the office. Tora (or she may be Tarot, trying to decide) is still very shy. She takes a bit of coaxing to come out and play. Lady Jane's name has stuck. She is such a little princess - although Orlando might disagree. She torments him whenever she gets the chance! She has the worst of the sniffles. When she sneezes her whole body gets jerked back!

More pics soon - I promise.

New Kittens are here.

I got a call this morning from the Seattle Humane Society - they had a mama and three 8-week old kittens that needed a couple of weeks of foster care to recover from an upper respiritory infection. So off we went to pick them up. They are delightfully cute - there is one peachy orange boy whom we have named Orlando. The other two are girls - a brown tabby with a very lynx-like face that we are calling Tora, and a cloudy grey kitten who has yet to share her name with us. Mama is a beautiful tortie named Lorinda.

The three kittens started out very shy, but are already warming up and tearing around the office. They love to climb up my desk chair I already have scratches on my neck and shoulders.

This one is the grey girl. I think of her as Lady Jane Grey, but I think she has a different name.

This is Orlando, relaxing and hanging out alrea5tr'[;4dy. (His commentary on my commentary)

And this is Tora, my little tigeress. She is the shyest of the bunch.

Getting kitten fever

Whew - I am done my MBA capstone project and immediately my thoughts turn to fostering! I have missed having babies around the house, despite the fact that we now have four cats underfoot at all times now (and I do mean underfoot!)

Over the past few weeks I have been snowed under with computer work. Clearly Moxie and Ember (our two newest family members) think that I am in need of support and sustenance - in the past week they have brought me 6 dead shrews. I'll be sitting at my desk working away when I hear one of their tiny "mew" under the office window. I will open the window distractedly, only to discover one of the huntresses flinging the dead rodent up in the air behind my desk chair. They seem rather miffed when I summarily return them AND their newly acquired toy back outside.

I will write as soon as we acquire a mama cat and/or some kittens.