Adoption Jungle

We named the black on Winchester, the male tiger Dylan and the female tiger Pipa.

Winchester was friendly right from the start and purred immediately. Pipa and Dylan were longer coming around and Dylan didn’t quite come up to the same level, he’s remained skitish and cautious.

Last week Barbara took all three back to the MSPA to be checked out and they kept Dylan who was already at 2 lbs and as we found out may be resentful of other cats accounting for his standoffish attitude.

Winchester and Pipa are still under 2 lbs and coming along. They are friendly, curious and gentle. We keep them in a separate room and every time we open the door Winchester is busting at the seams to get out. He keeps us on our toes.

 

All are about 4-5 weeks old, one tuxedo and two gray tigers. They huddle together trying to disappear. They hiss some. We got them two days ago.

We got these three 5 week old kitten on TBD and helped them get to 2 lbs and be ready for adoption.

They left us on TBD.

Nothing remarkable about this litter except it’s been a while for us and this was our way back, maybe I should say Barbara’s way back since I support the effort rather than dig in like she does.

This is the first time we’ve hosted a litter in our exercise room. Why there?…

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I write this in Feb 2013 way later that I should but the conclusion to Beardley’s journey should be written.

Beardsley was wanted by the couple who adopted her brother Elliot (we called him Mackenzie) also an orange tiger. Very nice people and we knew he’d have a good home. We shed tears when we parted with him but that was always to be once he touched our hearts.

We’ve have exchanges with Ellen and Chris who adopted them and we have newer pictures too. He’s doing great and we’re very happy for everyone.

Today, 8 days after his surgery, Beardsley had his stitches removed and weighed in at 2lb 7oz. Only 8days ago he was 1lb 13oz and failing to thrive.

For the last week Beardsley had to wear an Elizabethan collar keeping him from grooming his stitches, he’s been fed during the day every 2hrs or so and been restricted from normal, rambunctious kitten behavior. Today his stitches were removed and no longer needs the collar. What a change, from a weakling to a combat ready cat in just over a week.

Ms. D told us that she has a small litter needing short term fostering and they were all nice kitties. Barbara and I discussed it and we agreed reluctantly, we were just unsure of our accommodations. The kitten room is just not quite  what Barbara wants – more about this some other time.

Ms. D dropped of the kittens, all about 8 weeks old, a black and two orange tabbies. All cute as could be. If you’ve seen the cover to the book Dewey you know what the two tabbies look like.

One of the two tabbies Beardsley was smaller than his brother Mackenzie, yes Mackenzie for a boy, and was the most outgoing and playful. Tori and Mackenzie were uniformly unconfident, huddling with each other and as far from us as possible.

On the third day Beardsley stopped eating. His siblings were fine and we were puzzled. A trip to the vet told us little except we needed to syringe feed him repeatedly through out the day getting him to eat on his own. So, we learned to syringe feed him and did so with about 10-20ml of watered down AD Kitten food mixed with some EnerCal vitamin paste. We fed him every 2-3 hours all day long only breaking at night time.

But, Beardley was losing weight. He came to us at just over 2 lbs and after the 2nd or 3rd day of syringe feeding he was down to 1 lb 14 oz. Over 2 oz lost! We were worried and were really not prepared to lose a kitty finally. After 70 kittens we’ve never lost one. We don’t take the hard cases, we take the kittens that need attention and a home to be habilited-in. We were not doing the feeding wrong, he just was failing.

Barbara insisted on a 2nd vet visit which carried no tests and advice only. We needed to give him some evaporated milk, keep up the feedings, blah, blah, blah. After 10 days of syringe feeding he was listless, had a 1000-yard stare, and was frailer than ever.

Barbara decided that Beardsley need to go our vet, Windham Animal Hospital in Windham, NH. They examined him, took x-rays and after showing the xr=ays to us and the gravelly material apparently in his stomach, they wanted us to give him a laxative for pets several times a day to help move what was in his stomach along. We did administer the laxative orally and after a day we were back at the vet as planned. With the unidentified stuff in his stomach there were two choices, he’s have surgery to remove the stomach contents or he’d be put down. Barbara asked the animal rescue organization to approve surgery and they agreed.

Dr. Sullivan didn’t want to do the surgery given Beardsley’s weak condition however Dr. Pearson did believing Beardsley would pull through. We were on pins and needles all day waiting to hear the outcome of the surgery. While were in the car coming home from some event or other we got a call and the news was good. Beardsley had ingested something thin and plastic, a lot of it, like a cellophane wrapper to something and it was wadded up tightly in his stomach. Likely before he was trapped with his sibs, he was hungry and food attached to the plastic was gobbled down. By the time we got him the full effects of the plastic in the stomach had not fully interfered with him. It was only a matter of time.

We went to the hospital the next day, discussed his home care and saw the plastic extracted from his stomach. Truly amazing.

He was operated on Thursday, we picked him up Friday, he’s been on small, frequent meals of mushy food along with an antibiotic twice a day and pain meds. We’ve not syringe fed him once, just like any normal kitten, he eats the food out of a small dish and we’re so happy.

We got him a 1lb 14oz on Friday and today on Monday he’s 2lb 2oz already. Well on his way to fully mended and to the adopters waiting for him.

 

I went to the PetCo adoption event today and the number of kittens is overwhelming sometimes. There were twenty kittens at least which means  competition is very high and confusion for the prospective adopters is too. Isn’t it better to reduce the number of choices making it easy and more direct for the prospective adopters?

Addie is an 8 week old or so tiger with a wonderful disposition normally however the recent introduction of another litter has her stressed some and she’s been an unhappy camper to say the least. People looking over the stock today passed her by easily for the litter of white kittens that Jeff brought. Today was white day I suppose. Late in the day a mom and her 10 year old daughter came by looking for the kid’s late birthday present – a new kitten. After much inspection they zeroed in on Jeff’s only tiger with a little white accents on the belly and paws. It didn’t react much and there was a resigned attitude by the mom so I asked a few qualifying questions. The upshot was that Addie came of the cage and into mom’s arms and Addie with full barrels of cuteness loaded gave mom the whole treatment. Addie purred instantly, snuggled and pawed ever so gently and looked up at mom with those beautiful eyes. Zing! Soon mom was checking with the kid “Is this the one you want?” and the kid replied soon after “yes mommy, this is the one I want”. Dad comes over and says “Do you want to look at the MSPA shelter kittens?” to which the kid replies, “No daddy, this is the one I want, pleeeeeeaaaaassssse”.

That was it, out came the pen and after several forms filled out and check to ARM (Animal Resuce Merrimack Valley) Addie went home with a threesome family of lengthy cat ownership. Dad met the mom originally having 5 cats of his own and mom met dad having 4 cats of her own years ago. Tim has whittled down the brood but their love of cats hasn’t diminished and now Addie is the latest addition.

Out of all the kittens today Addie was the only adoption. I am happy for Addie but sad for the others – they need home too.

As to Tildie, we’ve changed her living arrangement for now – she’s in the upstairs bathroom to cordon her off from the temporarily housed threesome that stressed Addie and Tildie out. This way Tildie has piece and can eat and live this week without the stress of the other litter which is a problem. It does mean that other than Barbara and me she is alone but we have to do the best we can for her and this is it for now.

 

We keep touch with as many adopters as they will let us and last week Marcus‘ family told us that he has FIP. This is unfortunately a death sentence for him and we share the family’s grief. I know that I liked him and we were fortunate to have him in our charge and help him along. As time goes on slow and surely we learn of a small number of our fosters perish and we find it’s all worth it. It’s harder for them than it  is for us.

Trask, on the rocking chair, was grooming himself working on a paw. Nibble, bite, lick, lick, lick. Repeating this process a few times. Cadet was on the floor behind the rocking chair in a typical suggestive pose on his back, hind legs wide open and he was grooming a paw as well. Nibble, lick, lick, nibble, lick, lick on and on.

The next moment, Trask jumps off the rocker, to the floor and then on to Cadet. Right out of the Geo Channel programs Trask goes for a neck death grip. Cadet struggles, gathers his senses and courage and starts bucking with his rear legs. This fight is between two brothers, its evenly matched by weight and build and I have every expectation that it’s really just play for them. I, perfectly calm, enjoy watching the bout as the two of them toussel here and there. Neck bites change from Trask with the upper hand to Cadet with the upper hand. Barbara watches and says, “Cadet usually winds up on top” and you know she’s right. Trask started this but Cadet may finish it.

Morel : Be prepared even when your grooming yourself, you never know whose going to give you a toussel.

 

 

Addie is one of those rare youngsters that we as fosters’ get, a kitten at an early age that is happy. She was only 4 weeks old when we got her and almost from the start she didn’t fear us, she engaged us and rolled over for belly rubs early on and most importantly she purred. This last litter of four consisted of two kittens nearly frozen with fear, one that was confident but aloof and this little girl. Her personality from the get go made up for the difficulties the other three presented.

Addie has been with us for nearly 6 weeks, her initial weigh in was 1’1oz. A week ago when neutered she was 1’15 and 3/4oz but she’s lost nearly 1oz in the interim. Her body looked frail and her appetite was waining. When we fed her we thinned out her canned food to a slightly soupy consistency as we did for all the kittens under the theory that we’d be increasing their liquid intake and they’d like the easily lapped up mixture. I noticed when she was eating once that what she lapped up from the plate was more liquid than solid food and I suspected that was trouble brewing. I think we were wrong for thinning out the food and have been working to avoid thinning it out altogether.

One more thing, we have liquid vitamin gel and we started giving her that too before or after feedings. I cannot speak to highly about vitiamins added too Addie’s diet, in two days she went from listless to a bit more active and she readily eats now the food that we give her.