Foster Love!

Nimue is already spayed and has attended her first two Adopt a Pet events.  She has done surprisingly well with people.  She's not all snuggles, but she allows people to touch her for a minute or two before she gets anxious and decides to growl.

And the girls have their very own Petfinder listings now.  They're not spayed yet, so they are not exactly ready for adoption, but we hope to get that done before the month is out.  Hopefully someone will fall in love with them online and we can speed things along.

Charmin and LuceyLot comandeered a shopping bag full of fabric for their napping spot last night.  I couldn't resist.

I've now enabled comments from LJ Friends only for this blog.  If you have friended me and still can't make comments, please send me a message through my profile.  I don't always keep up with who has friended me on a regular basis.

I'z Going to Eat U for Dinnerz!!!!

Lucey is really beginning to come into her own in regards to playtime and silliness. Charmin's still quite a bit ahead of her in the silliness dept, but Lucey is nearly as fast tearing across the apt as Charmin is and she scraps just as dirty when they wrestle. And as you can see, she's a bit of a biter when it comes to vanquishing a foe. She gets that from her mother.

As you all know I am Way behind on my picture posting for these darling kittens. They're growing like weeds.  Unfortunately Live Journal has changed the way they want you to add pictures and the old html code doesn't want to work properly, so you're getting a condensed version of the Many pictures I took.

LuceyLot!


Charmin!

I just caught Miss LuceyLot TEETEEING in the Litterbox!!!!!!!!

Yaaaaay!

I had figured she was doing it as there weren't anymore puddles on the floor, but since I knew that Nimue was disposing of the poo once we were over the evil diarrheas, I just couldn't be sure.

But I was in their area and Charmin took a potty break and then shortly thereafter Lucey joined her. I was so excited I did the "teetee in the potty" song and dance. Yes, there is one! Any of you moms to Human children know you have one too.

And just to up the cute ante, after Lucey teeteed, she made a Huge show of covering it up. It was some sort of digging game in which she dug and covered and rolled over and dug while on her side and then leapt up. Silly girl. I wonder if this came from her mother's propensity to fling litter far and wide when she's in there.

In other funny litter news, Charmin will use the little box in their area, but much like her mother, she prefers to go use the Big Kitty Boxes in the regular cat closet as soon as I come home and let them out of jail/the bathroom. Those girls sure are silly.

So much has happened in the last two weeks its rather hard to find a place to start. I guess firstly we'll start with the bad news.

Where once there were four kittens now there are two. Little Miss Matchstick passed away on the 1st of October. I woke up and she was normal, but by the end of my getting ready for work she was fast sliding down into a Very worrisome state. I've taken care of many kitties through this shelter and only once before have I had cause to classify a cat as "lethargic and on death's door." Matchstick was the 2nd cat ever I was that worried about and it happened so quickly. I dropped her off to the shelter director on my way to work knowing it would take a miracle. And by around 1 pm I got the call that she didn't make it. We don't know the cause of her death, but we think she just was unhealthy to begin with and wasn't able to absorb any nutrients. She never had any signs of the reason we lost the 2nd kitten.

Which brings me to the 2nd kitten. On Sept 26th, the evening after my last post, Charmin started having some motorskills problems which progressed to very little movement. Our Shelter Director came by to check it out and we decided Charmin needed to spend some time with her to get put on antibiotics and have some extra fluids. Then around 24 hours later both Sir Lancelot and Guenivere started having diarrhea. I picked up some Albon for their issue and crossed my fingers that I was simply dealing with the one symptom and not more of what Charmin was going through. Sunday it was still just the one symptom so I had hope. Then Monday morning Guenivere was lethargic and very hot to the touch. I made arrangements for our Shelter Director to get her from me at my work. Over the next several days there were ups and downs with both Charmin and Guenivere and just to be safe I put both Matchstick and Sir Lancelot on antibiotics.

By Sept 29th, Charmin was improving quite a lot and Guenivere was making very Small strides, but we were hopeful. That night Charmin actually came home to stay. She was mobile and simply needed her antibiotics which I was already giving to the other kittens, so we hoped she'd begin nursing again and continue thriving. We got our wish. Guenivere, however, stayed with our Shelter Director so she could receive the care and bottle feeding she required. On the day we lost Matchstick so unexpectedly, I actually received good news of Guenivere improving to a point where she was walking and her bowel movements were even attempting to improve.

By Oct 3rd, Little Guen had improved enough that we were going to try a weekend at home with Mama Nimue. Her mobility was improving so much and she actually attached herself to Maizy, so hope was still looking better and better. Unfortunately that was short lived. By Sunday morning, Oct 5th, Guenivere was back to being lethargic. I tried to bottle feed her multiple times, but I wasn't having any luck and I could tell she was uncomfortable again the way she was acting. Since I was in the middle of filming work at my home, I couldn't rush her over to the Shelter or to a vet. The Shelter made arrangements for someone to come pick her up. Guenivere stayed with our Shelter Director and was up and down with improvements for the whole next week. But by the 8th, things were looking dire. I stopped by the Shelter to speak with our Director that evening and to drop off my extra key for a fellow foster who was going to tend my herd while I was out of town for the weekend and she just looked terrible. She was still getting fluids and antibiotics and Albon and everything else we could do for her, but she was not improving. Then the next day I saw her again before I packed up for my trip and she had literally just passed away before I arrived.

So we're down to one original kitten from the litter and one orphan. I guess two kittens was going to be the number no matter what. We sure miss those sweet babies anyways.

But there's Good news!

Sir Lancelot and Charmin are eating whole food! They both get KMR and Wet food twice a day and they're eating like crazy. They're still nursing of course, but they're getting lots of food in their tummies! Charmin even tries to eat the dry food in her momma's bowl from time to time. I wet down some of that for her and Lancelot in thier own separate dish from the wet food and they do eat some of that at times as well.

Anyways, as a result, they're growing and playing and beginning to roughhouse. Charmin's favorite game is "vanquish the human's leg." And Lancelot tries to hold her own wrestling with Charmin. Oh, and Lancelot is Most Assuredly a Girl! So henceforth I will probably be referring to her as Lucielot (Loo-cee-lot), or Lucey. I was supposed to change her name to Morgana if she was a girl, but I just can't do that now that I'm so attached to her as a Lancelot. Lucielot is a good compromise and I'm pretty positive that it's odd enough to be Original for the shelter, which is hard to come by these days!

Nimue is doing well. She's getting more and more comfortable in the apt with the other cats every day. Maizy is still the devil and gets slapped from time to time, but I can't really help that. Nimue met a little girl the other day and bonded with her, which was a SHOCKER! She used to live with a tiny child who supposedly terrorized her, so I was watching really closely and listening in case I needed to deflect a slap in the face. But she really wanted to smell the little girl's face so she just jumped right in her lap and leaned in. It was funny, we were conducting an adoption there for a fellow foster and the whole apt gasped when it happened.

I think that's about it for a full update. I DO have pictures! I just need to get it together to upload them and post.

Well, this evening the real food adventures of Charmin and Matchstick weren't as successful as this morning. I need to keep working on them. Matchstick knows she wants to eat any food on my finger, including my finger, but she hasn't made the connection yet that the food is in the bowl. She also hasn't discovered the litterbox yet. I need to teach her how to climb out Somebody tinkled in it this afternoon though. I can only guess that was Charmin as I witnessed Matchstick tinkling outside of the box on my lunchbreak home.

But in addition to food and litterboxing there is another development. Charmin is "running". I put that in quotes because it's sort of a pounce, wobble at the moment. But the point is that she's moving faster on purpose and that's Fantastic! I think she may have even attempted to play with some fuzz. She's the middle child of the group, almost a full week younger than Matchstick and almost a full week older than the original litter. But she's the most advanced health and skills wise. Matchstick is just a touch behind. Although Matchstick is trying to socialize with the Torti Girls, Nabisco and Taquita. Part of me is amused because it's the Attraction of the Tortis, hehe, "Torties Unite!" But then again, Roz and Dunbar Flee in Utter Revulsion at the sight of any of the kittens coming their way, so it could just be that the Torti Girls are the only ones acceptable. It is cute, though. I caught Matchstick shadowing Nabisco a minute ago.

I have so many pictures to post I'm just going to have to wait until the weekend to wade through them for posting.

There's so much going on with the kittens its Insanity!

First, we have a 2nd orphan. Wednesday the shelter brought over a little torti girl who had refused bottle feeding, had refused at least one mother for nursing, and refused being syringe fed. So we tried her with Nimue. Of course she decided she liked Nimue. She's 3.5 weeks old, so she's got teeth. Nimue is adjusting to that. Her babies are only 2.5 weeks old and so she wasn't prepared for that. Charmin is 3 weeks old and she is only just now getting teeth to break through her gums. Her name is Matchstick. Little Matchstick is doing pretty well with the rest of the household. I'm proud of her. She drank a little water this morning out of the water bowl, but she's not yet shown any interest in the cat food. I'm going to see what I can do about that this weekend. Maybe if I douse some food in KMR she might show some interest in it. I'm supposed to be coming up with a better name, but I kind of like that one. ( And here she is: )

I have a LOT of pictures from the weekend, including a Nabisco "look at me!" dance. I wish I had time to put them up today. Maybe tonight during Heroes commercial breaks.

But I couldn't let the day go by without posting the latest news and at lease One picture. My foster cat is a foster mom. Yep, Nimue took in an orphan. Just one, her name is Charmin. She was named before she got to me, so no Arthurian connections. She's 2.5 weeks old, so about 5 days older than Nimue's real kids.

( So, here's Charmin: )

I'm over in the cat closet looking for an inspirational sewing DVD and I hear this Loud Mewing. I turn around and Sir Lancelot is in the Living Room! And Nimue is trying to figure out how she's going to get him back to his closet.

Gawain is about a day behind in development, so he's trying to explore, but is a bit timid and can't go as far.

But it's official, the kittens are Bustin' out! And they do NOT like being redirected when getting into a corner.

Whoops! Maizy just got a whack on the nose by Nimue for putting her nose in too close. Again, Maizy has shown just how good she is with the fosters. She barked just a touch, but didn't make any move to defend herself. And in fact, she bark she gave Nimue was nothing short of the backtalk I used to get from her as a puppy when she would be told "no" or the "hurry up, I've got to PEE" talk I get sometimes when I come home from work.

I just placed the kittens back in the closet. They were clearly looking for lunch and Nimue was too frazzled to let them nurse in the living room. This litter is most definately Not like Flo's litter. By this time, Flo had taken up residence with her kittens on the couch and they were not allowed to move off the couch. I had to line the floor with pillows just in case any of them went overboard, haha!

I took pictures of the adventure today, but my iphoto is acting funky, so uploading them to the blog will just have to wait until Monday when I can do it at work.

She had her combo test today and she is Negative/Negative for FIV & Feline Leukemia!

This is wonderful news!

Not only does this mean that she has two less hurdles to jump for adoption, but it Also means that our current feral cats in the area may Also be clean. You have no idea how happy that makes me!

Oh what a momentus morning we had today! As we have seen over the last two days, Sir Lancelot's eyes are opening. Well, as of this morning all but the bitty outer corners of his eyes are opened now. I'm sure they'll be fully opened by the time I get home. Anyways, with Sir Lancelot's new eyes, he managed to escape the crate this morning and send his mother into a rather confused frenzy.

( I have, of course, commemorated the moment with pictures. )

Those sweet little eyes are beginning to peek open!



For Sir Lancelot they are anyways. Gawain's eyes haven't started opening just yet, but that's ok, they're still only 1 and 1/2 weeks old, so he's not due to open his eyes for another several days. I remember Flo's litter had one kitten, Virgo, who opened his eyes rather early, and the rest of the litter opened their eyes within the next 3 days or so.

They are both, however, beginning to actually stand up on those wobbly little legs and move around. It won't be very long at all until they are wobbling all over the place. And then they will be impossible to contain, hehe.

Nimue is scheduled to have her combo testing either tonight or Friday. I am unsure if she's ever been tested or has ever had any shots. I assume neither as she was not spayed, but I could be wrong. I knew her past owner and knew that she had some serious early upper respiratory issues, but other than that I do not know what vet care she has received. I am actually quite positive that she never saw a vet for the Upper Respiratory because I was able to give her information on handling it until she was able to see a vet. I believe Nimue cleared up without a vet. I am crossing my fingers that she is clear of Feline Leukemia and FIV. Once we are sure on all accounts, I can let her freely roam within the apartment. She's begun to try to venture out of her area and I've allowed that on a controlled basis, but it will be nice if she can have free reign so she can continue to become socialized with the other cats and Maizy. Especially since she may very possibly have a home once she's weaned the kittens and that home comes with a dog.

Well, that's all the news for today. ( Here come the pictures. )

Well, the babies are officially one week old as of this morning. This is very exciting. This means only one week until little kitten eyes are opened. And only one week until they start attempting to wander around. And the countdown to adoption day is one week shorter. Having kittens is a wonderful feeling, however placing kittens in the Perfect home is even better!

This evening Nimue decided to be bold. Not only did she venture out of her room and hop onto my sewing machine table and sniff around there, but she came to the table and investigated my dinner with all the cats and Maizy around. In addition, she walked over to Maizy's corner of the couch and peered up at her. And didn't throw a spitting fit. She also laid down at the far end of the apt and watched our goings on from there as opposed to from the entrance of her room. This is all major progress in her socialization.

So I'm thinking that Lancelot is Most Assuredly a boy. He has Kahones. Gawain is still up in the air. Some days I think he's a boy and some days I'm sure he's a girl. Oh, and due to there being a past Lancelot at the shelter, Lancelot is officially Sir Lancelot. Perfect!

( As per usual, let's end with pictures. )

Right this very minute I'm sitting at my computer, which is right next to the door to the bathroom/closet, and Miss Nimue is sitting beside me. Yes, Beside me. Not in the doorway, not next to her food, not in the actual bathroom, she has actually decided to forsake her safe little personal area to come out and socialize with me. And this is definately for socializing with me and me only we're talking about here. She's still not getting along with the other cats. But she's relaxed a little bit when it comes to them. She doesn't charge the door anymore claws flying if they peek their noses into her sanctuary. So that's some progress. Whoops!!! Nimue just tried to jump on the Tower of Power and Taquita decided she wasn't having any of that. Hmmm. Well, at least she's trying.

I'm still not positive about the sexes of the kittens, but I'm leaning more towards the tabby being a boy, and the jury's still out on the russian blue. However, I have settled somewhat on names once I'm comfortable settling with sexes. The Tabby will be Lancelot and the Russian Blue will be Gawain if they are boys. If they are girls, the Tabby will be Morgaine and the Russian Blue will be Guenivere. Although I tend to change my mind about the girls' names back and forth, so I'm really only committing to the boys' names.

Last night I finally took down the cage. Nimue is happy as a lark with the new carrier setup. It gives her more coverage/hiding for the kittens and herself, but she can get out and away from the kittens if she wants a break. This morning she did just that as I was getting ready for work. I saw her just stretched out in the closet on her own. It does mean that I have to be more watchful of keeping that door closed to her area though when I'm not home. Here's what the setup looks like now. Still a little crowded but not near as bad.



Speaking of that door, this morning Taquita succeeded at coming to visit me while I was getting ready for work and Nabisco Miserably Failed. See, Taquita can mind her own business and walk straight to me and straight out the door again without nosing into Nimue's business. Nabisco can't help herself. She has always joined me in getting ready for work, but since the kittens are here, she mostly wants to stick her nose in their business. And she'd Really like to steal one like she did with the last litter! I don't believe Nimue is going to allow that like Flo did.

Oh, and remember me mentioning Nimue's habit of flinging litter everywhere and the kittens ending up sleeping in it? Here's what I mean. I think she flung nearly half of her litter from that small box onto the kittens' bed.



The new suprise project is put off until well into next week. My equipment didn't want to work, so I need different equipment. But I promise I'll work on getting it up as soon as I can!

I STILL can't tell what their sexes are. I peeked again this morning and was almost convinced they were both male after for the last two days I've been convinced they were both female. I'm hoping that when the shelter director comes by to take a look at them next week, we can get a final decision, because I can't decide.

( Here's the pictures of the day: )

I am happy to report that the kittens are still doing well. At two days they are doing just what is expected of them. Eating and sleeping.

Nimue is a great mom. She seems to be enjoying the nursing process and is selectively protective of her babies. When I pick them up, she allows it without any fuss, but keeps her eagle eye on them every step of the way. She trusts me to not hurt them, but she isn't about to turn her back. The other household members, however, are not faring so well. She doesn't trust any of the other cats. She hisses some pretty violent warnings when they try to peek into the bathroom where she and her kittens are housed. Sometimes the other cats can get away with walking past the cage directly to me while I'm doing things in the bathroom, but Only if they keep their eyes trained on me and not the kittens.

Maizy doesn't even get that much consideration. Maizy is seen as Evil Incarnate! Yesterday evening Maizy was trying to get a nose in the bathroom doorway while I was letting Nimue have an out of cage walk in the bathroom. Boy was there fireworks! The minute Nimue saw that nose peek through the doorway, she bowed up. It was kind of like one of those old wind up toys. Because the second Maizy attempted to put her foot in the doorway, Nimue had a Tazmanian Devil Spaz attack complete with hiss, spit, and flailing limbs. This of course stopped Maizy in her tracks and she gave me this pathetic "help me" look. So I tried to calm Nimue down and I attempted to walk out of the door so that I could remove the paralyzed Maizy and end the stand off. But apparently I was in the wrong for even attempting to interfere and I got a good swipe for good measure. Looking back, yeah, I should have expected that, but I think I came out pretty good since the other option would have been to grab Nimue and remove Her and that option was just Filled with all kinds of Stupid! I may have gotten bloodied, but in the end, I believe I made the smarter decision.

Speaking of my bathroom, where Nimue and kittens are caged is actually in my closet. Sort of. It's one of those entry way areas to the bathroom which has a tiny closet in it. It's probably more aptly called a dressing room or vanity room or something. I'm not that familiar with late 1940s apartment design, but I have made it into a Really nice large closet. Now, I say it's a large closet. It is. Until you put a giant mommie cage in there and expect to walk around it to get to the bathroom or the actual closet space. ( Here's some pictures. )

In my days as an animal rescue volunteer, I've had a few adventures. Usually, I come home with a cat from the rescue shelter to prepare for adoption. I've had everything from just curing the sniffles to birthing kittens to bringing emaciated to healthy. This new endeavor was the first time I took a neighborhood cat in. And let me tell you, I didn't plan it.

In my apartment complex, we have many stray cats. It is unclear with most of them whether they were abandoned or are runaways or even just started out life on the streets. Some of them are tended to by residents and some travel back and forth to many different locations for food and shelter. Nimue was, unfortunately, the result of abandonment.

Nimue belonged to my neighbor. It seems like only yesterday that she was a tiny kitten with an Upper Respiratory Infection. I watched her grow up and transition from indoor only to in and out whenever she wanted. When I learned that my neighbor was getting evicted, I also learned that Nimue was pregnant. I could have sworn that she had been spayed! I remember having the discussion of "low cost spaying" with my neighbor. But she obviously didn't go through with it.

When my neighbor moved, I never saw Nimue again. I thought this meant that she had found a home for her. She had talked about someone that was thinking of taking her eventhough she was pregnant. But last Friday she suddenly appeared in the courtyard. And now I could tell she was pregnant. I called her to me and tried to pet her eventhough she's never let me pet her before. She did come over and let me pet her for a minute. Then she got hissey and ran away. I just chalked it up to her being crazy and half wild. That's what I'd always thought before and honestly I was shocked she came to me in the first place.

Saturday I spoke with my neighbor's mother who still lives here in her own unit. She can't have cats due to a severe allergy in her husband's family, so she couldn't take her in. I also learned that my neighbor had locked both Nimue and her other adult cat in the apartment when she moved and someone was supposed to be feeding them, but it was unclear if they really were. I got her to agree to care for the adult cat who had always been an outdoor cat. All she needed to do for her is feed her on the patio and keep her shots updated. But Nimue was out of luck. So getting permission to trap or capture Nimue wasn't a problem.

The capture was interesting. As well as filled with a whole lot of stupid. I went to look for Nimue that afternoon feeling full well that she wouldn't let me catch her. So I didn't even take a carrier or a cage. I hadn't even picked up the trap yet from the rescue. To my surprise, when I came down the steps from her house, she was waiting for me. Not only that, but she came to me and actually nuzzled me for attention. So I picked her up. She was a little unhappy with that, but not terribly so. Then I remembered that I didn't have a carrier. But I was on a roll, so I chanced it. I brought her in the apt with only my hands holding her. Boy was that a disaster! It ended in a standoff between her and my dog and all of my cats behind a trunk in my livingroom. I had to lock up the cats and instruct Maizy to stay on her bed in order to get her. And I still had to use the Towel Capture method. But I did get her into a carrier to take her to the rescue for a look see, however not without any bloodshed. I came away with quite a few scrapes and gouges.

All we accomplished at the rescue shelter was to decide she was Much too agitated to try to do blood tests and that she probably had a couple of weeks left of her term. Oh and we met the Cutest pair of dachsund puppies Ever! But that's beside the point. I grabbed a large mommie cage and we headed home. Once we got home, I put the cage together and put her in it and she began to try to relax. By Sunday she was a happy camper. She still was extremely hostile to all the other animals in the house, but if I closed the door to the bathroom and let her out of the cage with just me, she was very sweet and wanted a lot of attention. We continued to make progress like this all day and I began to think that she was a lot tamer than I had originally thought.

So we come to Monday morning, today.

I was going through my routine of getting ready for work, but with the bathroom door closed so I could let her wander out of her cage in the bathroom with me. She was doing fine. Then I left the bathroom and came back to put her away and I couldn't find her. I called her name. I was answered with a rather unsettling yowl. I panicked and began frantically looking for her. I found her in the closet and she was laying down like she was going into labor. Right then I knew that I was Very lucky to have decided to catch her when I did. Especially since she was obviously having a painful labor and may need to ultimately go to the vet. So I called in late to work and settled down for an uncertain amount of time waiting for kittens.

While I was calling my boss and amongst a Lot of loud yowling, so loud in fact, that I had to leave the room to make the call, kitten #1 was born in my closet on my fabric cutting board. And just to keep with the theme of the day, while I was preparing the rest of the animals for the day, food, potty time, etc., kitten #2 was born. Apparently Nimue is shy.

At the end of the day, once I finally went to work and finished my day, we were still left with just two kittens. Which is a sigh of relief. I don't know if I could handle a litter of even 4 plus mom plus my animals again.

So without further ado, meet the new family. I'm not sure of their sexes yet, so I've not named them. I'm thinking of some good ones now though, so once we decide what sex they are, they'll be named straight away.

#1


#2


Nimue & kittens

There's lots and yet not so much to update on Roz. Her eye is still showing the effects of the herpes virus. We were originally going to wait it out to see if the ulcer fell off and healed on its own. It's now getting a little worse and so we've added another prescription eye drop to her regimin. If that doens't work, then we'll try something else. She can still see out of the eye just fine, so there's no blindness there. But it does look less than stellar to anyone who doesn't know what's going on.

All things considered, Roz is handling life just peachey. She's a snuggler to be sure. Sometimes she absolutely monopolizes my lap. And to prove it, here's a selection of recent photos taken entirely from my lap.













Oh except for these ones, they were later. And they are gratuitous examples of those PINK TOES I tease her about.