10 posts tagged “kitten”

Zsazsa is a small thin cat, and as such, she is always cold, seeking whatever warm spot she can find.  Whether it be curled up on another kitty, or on our laps or in front of a furnace vent. 

Recently, Zsazsa has discovered the Xbox.  In case you haven't heard, the Xbox 360 is prone to overheating.  So it's already warm enough.  I should've looked for the "falcon" version with the larger heatsink, but I didn't.  I figured I'd take my chances.

Tonight, Zsazsa snuck back there while we were watching a movie, and suddenly the xbox fan went into overdrive!  The fan went into this high whine and we got freaked out and turned it off.  We were worried about  the RED RING OF DEATH! 

Zsazsa is forbidden from playing with the Xbox.  No more warm snoozy spots for babycat. 

We have a year-old kitten who likes to play with socks.  She somehow figured out that SOCKS come from the DRYER!   So now whenever the dryer door is left open, she has to get in there and look for socks.   (Yes, we are very careful to make sure she's not in there before we start our laundry.)

Here's our Zsa-Zsa, looking for socks.

Last night I spent a couple of hours trying to trap the last kitten, who was with Momma Cat hanging around under the deck at my friend's house.  The last kitten was tricksy, though, so we put momma in a crate with some salmon, and then put the trap right next to her with some food in it.  When Momma finished her salmon, she gave a cry for the baby kitten to come join her, and he ran up, smelled the food in the trap, ran inside to check and BAMMO.   Kitten!   I took them both home last night. 

Today, Momma Cat, who I'm naming Jezebel, went to the SPCA to get spayed.  They made me pay for it because she's friendly and wasn't in the cat trap, which... whatever.  I went ahead and got her tested for everything and got her all the shots and stuff, too, because, well, whatever.  If I'm gonna pay for part of it, I might as well pay for all of it I guess. 

The kittens I got signed up with the rescue organization last night, and they are going to the vet today.  I think Thurman's bent paws are fixable with some physical therapy.  I've been working with him, massaging his paws, trying to get them to straighten out a little.  If nothing else, he thinks that is fun playtime.  All four kittens have eye infections.  I think one of the black ones, Houdini the escape artist, will probably need one of his eyes removed.  I don't know what I'll call the other black and white kitten.   I try to name kittens in batches so the shelter knows they're related?   But I dropped the ball this time by calling the big red kitten, "Big Red" and by naming Thurman, too.  I guess I could still change all of those.  I thought about calling them all by H names:  Houdini, Hank, Hal, Holden, etc.  I don't know.  Any suggestions, people? 

The kittens are pretty glad to have their momma back, and she is pretty glad to have them with her.  They are much more relaxed when she is around, and Houdini didn't try to escape once all night, which is amazing, because he can turn his head sideways and squeeze through the bars!  It is only a one-inch gap!  

Well, momcat is doing well, I let her free on Saturday and she took off like a gunshot, she couldn't have been happier to be free.  I saw her Sunday, and I've been feeding her in the same old location, hoping she brings the black kitten back to that spot, so I can trap the black kitten and work on taming it.  Momcat is staying well-fed, at least, so that'll help her heal from her surgery.  I hope she is keeping a low-profile, but who knows.  I am probably foolish to think that she would bring her kitten to be trapped.  She eats next to that trap but won't fall for MY tricksy human ways again!

The kittehs are doing pretty well.  They still hiss a little bit at me, but they have stopped spitting at me and trying to swat my hands.  They realize that the hands bring the delicious spoonfuls of all-meat pureed baby food, which they LOOOOOVE, so they tolerate my presence.  They are even venturing out into the other parts of the cage when I am not looking---they even ate a whole bowl of kitten kibble last night.  They are very skinny so I am encouraging them to eat as much as possible.   Today I picked them both up for a few minutes and held them in my lap and tried to get them to eat some baby food.  Gray tabby went for it, but orange wasn't having my bullshit.  They both were glad to get back into the cage, huddled in their corner.  Baby steps with the feral kittens, baby steps.  It is hard, because I want to cuddle them and kiss their (de-wormed) bellies, but obviously that will be a while.

Anyway, I set the trap again today for the last kitteh, I hope I catch him/her, but if not, I'll keep moving the trap around that area and hope that I just luck out.  Persistence (and wet food) is the key.

Thank you all for the generous donations! 

Cat rescue is such a heartbreaking job.  Especially if you love kittycats like I do.  It is very physically hard work, there is a lot involved with finding the colony, setting the trap, and most importantly, checking it really frequently to see if it worked.  Then, it's emotionally difficult when you do trap anybody, because the reality is:  you still have to find a rescue organization who will take the babies, and you have to find a vet who has an early morning spay appointment, or who is kind and caring enough to make room for you.  If I can't find a spay appointment for Friday, I'm not sure what I'll do.  Try to make an appointment for saturday?  Take her to (don't say it) Animal Control and have her euthanized?  Let her loose again, unspayed?  She'll never get in a trap again if I do the latter, so it's almost more humane to have her euthanized, although... none of the solutions are great.  I have to hope for pity and kindness and understanding.  And then I will probably have to shell out a hundred and fifty bucks or so.

I caught the momma cat tonight, but she is wild and full of fear.  I feel sad for her babies, because I have no idea where they are, and I'm sure they are terrified and alone and ... alone.  I have to catch them too, or the feral cat colony will keep growing.  I feel sad for momma cat; in a terrible cage, no food or water (in case they can spay her tomorrow, no food or water before surgery), unfamiliar place, terrifying car ride, awful human carrying her in the cage, setting her up on two chairs in the basement.  More of a crawlspace, really, but keeping her off the floor keeps her dry and out of her own poo if she has to go, and there is a door to the space so she is safe from any predators, and it is dark and cool and mercifully quiet down there.

I feel like a monster, doing this.  It is so heartwrenching every time.  The cats don't understand.  I AM THE ENEMY!   I know that having her spayed and releasing her is not a happy-fuzzy-feel-good ending, but it is the best life she can have at this point.  Better than having endless litters of kittens and being hungry all the time. Or dead.

I know I am doing the right thing, but man, it breaks my heart. I weep for the feral cats of the world.  I do my best, my friends, and I know my best is not enough.  I love kitties too much.  I hope momma cat forgives me. 

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

You all know about our kitty Eva, right?   She's the one that is really clumsy, always running into things, falling off of things, we thought she might be blind, but the kittycat ophthalmologist told us she was probably just retarded?

Well today I was making my rounds and I was poking around ICHC, a daily favorite, when I saw a link to a video about Charley, a kittycat with cerebellar hypoplasia  (scroll down to "spastic cats". Affected cats are also sometimes referred to as "spastic.")

Anyway, I'm grateful to Charley's owners for posting the video.  Eva does the same wobbly-headed thing sometimes, and she definitely falls off of things, and has a funny run.   It's not as pronounced as Charley's, but, well, it appears to be the same sort of thing.  I knew she had brain damage, per the kitty ophthalmologist, but it's nice to have a name for it now.

The bad news is, Eva kitty has been deemed to have some "neurological developmental disabilities, probably in her cerebellum."   i.e. Girl's ridin' the shortbus to school!

We went to the kittycat opthamologist today (thank FSM this is Richmond, where housing is affordable and so are specialty vet visits--it only set us back $80, i was expecting twice that) and he took a look at her eyes and said they looked normal, healthy, great!   Then he watched her walk around for a bit, bonking her nose into everything she sniffs, tiptoeing around the office, stumbling over things in her path, misjudging distances and lunging into things...  He said that it's not her eyes, she's not going blind.  He thinks that when she was developing, some sort of neurological damage happened, whether it's naturally occuring (ie random) or from a virus or something her mother may have had.  He thinks she's, to put it kindly, a wee bit mildly retarded.  He said she tracks well visually and can follow things with her eyes, but she has a problem processing some of the information and therefore misjudges her body's movements, which accounts for her weird gait, her strange mannerisms and a huge amount of her clumsiness.

He said, "Well, the good news is, she's not blind, she's not going blind, she shouldn't go blind anytime soon.  On the other hand, you've got a funny little weird kitten on your hands, and she's going to be funny and weird forever!"  

I laughed and replied, "She'll fit in just fine with the rest of us, then,  I reckon."

Eva kitten went to the vet the other day to get examined for her clumsiness.  FIP and toxoplasmosis were ruled out, and that left severe nearsightedness, and poor pupil reaction time, indicating a fair level of functional blindness and possible metal retardation. 

Well, at least she's not SICK.   

So we will be permanently closing the cat door by buying a new back door, and we will return to buying cat litter in bulk at Costco.  We are sad at this turn of events, but at least it is not a fatal disease or anything.  If her behavior worsens, we are to take her to the kitty opthamologist to check for cataracts or other "fixable" problems.  We are not the type of people to spend thousands of dollars on blind cats, so it is unlikely we'll go that route.  I've lived with blind animals before, it is mostly hilarious/sad to watch them constantly crash into shit.  Twice at Dr Jack's office, Eva jumped off the exam table and SMACk into the wall.  Oh, boobookitty!    Oh well, at least she showed off her exxxxtreme clumsiness!

So we went from one special-needs cat (Chet, the PissMaster 8000) to another.  Eva-Full-of-Grace, we love you, babykitten.  Even if you are ornery as hell.  I'd be ornery as hell if I kept crashing into everything all the time, too.  xoxoxo.