Random Fridays

In case you missed it on social media, yesterday we celebrated Daiquiri's 5th Birthday.

Mom is in the process of replacing all the "litter" boxes with new ones (we don't use regular boxes - she cuts the sides down on large storage containers). Two more to go and Daiquiri is currently using them as a fort.

That is one relaxed Goldfish.

Mom will be out and about most of the weekend. Fortunately Monday is a holiday plus she decided to take Tuesday off as a "mental health" day.

Saturday she will be local with one of the rescue partner stores to celebrate 4 years together and (hopefully) 100 adoptions:

If you are around central Ohio, stop by the Graceland Pet Valu. And if you know someone in the area looking to adopt, send them our way.

Sunday is another adoption event, but the rescue isn't expecting big things from that one.

We know it won't last, but it has been nice here for a few days and mom has had the windows open. It gets a little warm in the condo by late afternoon but nothing terrible.

Have a great weekend!!

trackball

We have a couple of these and they continue to fascinate the kittens.

They continue to do well. They were a little off of canned food for a few days, but mom got some dewormer in them and that seemed to help. She needs to get the scale out and weigh them again. But the next surgery dates she could get were the end of September, so we have plenty of time. For now they are doing well, had their first vaccines and are complete lovebugs.

weekend update

incoming!!!

The weather got REALLY nice here starting on Friday, so mom opened our windows. Since she was home most of the weekend, she opened the screen door in the foster room and propped open the foster room door while using baby jail as an air lock to keep the kittens inside. Fortunately the kittens haven't figured out how to climb the gate yet, so there were no escapes. It was nice to have some fresh air and a cool breeze through the house. Supposedly it will be nice most of the week so we will have open windows for a few more days. Of course, it is August in the mid-west, so we know it won't last forever.

Of course, if the foster room door is open, some cat will have to go check it out. Daiquiri was in there a couple of times. The first time the kittens put on their stranger danger suits - we think more that they weren't expecting her to drop out of no where. After that, she went in a couple more times but as always there wasn't anything very interesting so she came right back out. Of course, this one time Ivy saw Daiquiri in there but can't defy gravity enough to follow....  MOL

Random Fridays

Cricket

Hopper

Check out the background of this picture. Our friend Miss Connie of Tails from the Foster Kittens posted a while ago about redoing things in her foster room. Part of what she did was take adhesive shelf liner and put it on the walls. Mom read that and was all.....THAT IS BRILLIANT!!

Of course she then realized it was not a one person job, so thankfully Miss Zamion came over on Saturday and helped her put it up on the back wall behind the food dishes and litter boxes.

Beetle rarely holds still long enough for a decent picture. This was isn't great, but it is as good as it got. MOL

These three are just awesome kittens. They will run around like lunatics but then also come up and climb into mom's lap for a nap. She got to thinking and really none of the kittens from this summer were lap kittens except for this crew. They are a little small for their ages, but are a good weight. Mom weighed them on Sunday and they were all about 1 pound 10 ounces (and they are about 8 weeks as of last Monday - give or take).

cute videos

Miss Lane - we don't believe you are supposed to be playing with that

Turns out the fountain works again - SORTA. Our friend Miss Z came over and messed with it. Mom can put water in it but can't fill it. Over a certain point and the dumb thing leaks out the back. Of course, as you can see, a certain tuxedo cat won't leave it alone either.

Actually....she spent the first half hour messing with it and lost interest. She will drink out of it but only tries to play with it after mom adds more water.

Who me??

weekend update

Well last week certainly sucked. Mom got a text on Thursday evening that the couple that had adopted Enigma came in that night and wanted to let the rescue (and mom) know that he had been euthanized on Monday for FIP. We hate that stupid disease.....  RIP Enigma/Anubis. We know your mom and dad loved you very much and miss you terribly.

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Wait? Where we going??

Mom took Lane and Fate to the local partner store where she helps clean. Normally they would go up to the adoption center but there was an opening and mom wants to see if they could get adopted from the store. The cage isn't very big so if they are there more than a couple of weeks, mom will move them to the adoption center. They would probably go in the juvenile kitten room and there are quite a few kittens there are the moment and mom is afraid they will get overlooked.

Lane and Fate are both 4 months old, tested negative for FIV/FeLV, fully vaccinated and microchipped. They don't have to go together but would do very well together or would need to be in a home committed to keeping them busy or with another younger cat as they are both very active. That said, they are also so very very sweet. They are in central Ohio.

We had these two for quite a while and this was a hard one for mom leaving them up there.
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The bug kittens continue to do well. They are wild and crazy but also so very sweet and love to come up and climb on mom for some love when she is in there with them.

Random Fridays

Thanks for all the comments about Mopar. It is part of fostering, but it never gets easier (and if it does then we should probably find something else to do with our time).
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mom walked into the bedroom last weekend and saw this

pretty sure she doesn't even WANT to know what those two were plotting

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Lane adores that fish shaped kicker

which is good since her newest habit is to chew on mom

the face of the very smug (Fate)

Fate and Lane are recovering really well from surgery. Like most kittens, they came home, rushed out of the carrier, demanded a meal and ran around like they were on fire. Weirdos.

Luckily there is a spot at the partner store where mom helps clean so they are going to head up there tomorrow morning. There hasn't been a ton of luck with kittens out of this store, but mom would love to see it happen.

The bug kittens continue to do well. Mom put the happy duck from Miss Dee back in the foster room and they can be found curled up on him napping (btw - Fate tried this and mom saw him on the web cam....he didn't fit so well - hahaha).

break out

As it was left on Monday, Mopar had broken IN to baby jail twice Saturday night and Sunday morning. Mom decided to surrender since the last time (Mopar wasn't going OVER - he was pushing the gate) resulted in Cricket getting out and wandering around the room.

Mom took the pen done Sunday morning and let everyone mingle. There was some name calling, the little kittens bounced around and occasionally put on their "stranger danger" outfits. All in all however, it went fairly well. Meal time is taking longer as mom has to stay in the room to make sure that everyone gets to eat....some of them aren't very good about staying in their own spots.

Lane leans over to give a little kitten a good whacking

same little kitten yells at Lane that she wasn't done with her just yet

Beetle checks out the track ball.

Considering that the bug kittens are less than half the size of the single kittens, it has been going pretty well. Luckily Fate and Lane have decided that the little ones can be fun, but bouncing on each other is MORE fun.
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In other news: the single kittens went yesterday for their spay/neuter surgeries. Fate and Lane are doing well and are now ready for their new homes.

Mopar however was having some issues. We had been treating him and hoping for the best, but he looked bad at the clinic yesterday. They tapped his belly and pulled out yellow fluid which is a sign of FIP and the director of the rescue authorized them to euthanize him. Mom is heartbroken. He took a while to come around but once he did he became a wonderful and lovely boy. Mom spent some time in the kitten room on Monday night and gave him lots of love.

Mopar

weekend update

If you have been following us on instagram and facebook, you will have seen these faces before now:

Hopper, Cricket and Beetle

They had been taken in by a young local vet as bottle babies. She got a call asking her to take more bottle babies and since these three are eating on their own, the rescue agreed to take them and mom picked them up last Tuesday. They were tested (negative) and came to the house. Mom was told they were 6 weeks old (now about 7 weeks) but they were smaller than mom anticipated so she put them in the bathroom rather than the foster room.

That didn't last very long. They were rowdy and mom wanted the bathroom back. Saturday morning she took the smaller exercise pen and set it up in a corner of the foster room as their own section of the room. Bets were placed as to how long it would take for the bigger kittens to break in.

we didn't do it and you can't prove anything

By Sunday morning, Mopar had broken in to baby jail - TWICE. (to be honest, mom's money had been on Fate being the jail breaker, so she was rather surprised the first time she found Mopar inside the pen) Mid morning she gave up and took down the pen and spent some time in there supervising to make sure that the big kittens didn't beat up the little kittens....  More on that Wednesday. 

more on FIV+ cats

**a post from the mom

A woman walked into the rescue a few weeks ago and asked about our policy on adopting FIV+ cats. I replied that we do a standard adoption but no real restrictions once she was approved. Then I asked why the question. It seems that the local humane society has recently started adopting FIV+ (this is a policy change for them) but will only adopt to single cat homes and if you adopt an FIV+ cat from them, you cannot adopt another cat again for the lifetime of the first cat.

EXCUSE ME??

While I appreciate the change in policy, could they be any more ignorant?? (ok - I'm sure they could, but still...if they are going to make a policy change, the least they could do is give out correct information)

I've posted about this before... I've gotten mad at bad tv information, I played 20 questions with a vet and vet tech. I have an entire page devoted to information about FIV and FeLV. I fostered an adult FIV+ boy along with a kitten (who did later test negative).

Soda and Annatto

What amazes me is the amount of BAD information still floating around out there. We have taken kittens from vet offices to save their lives after an FIV+ test. I have taken to telling our FIV adopters that if they get any fishy advice from their vet, FIND A NEW VET. Just this past Wednesday, I had to assure a potential adopter that you can have positive and negative cats living together.

I was interested upon touring Treehouse Humane Society in Chicago (I visited while there for Meow Meetup) that they keep small colonies of cats per room and mix positive cats with negative cats. They have an info sheet about each cat in a book and while it is mentioned on the info sheet, they don't make a big deal about it.

I also discovered (and am not sure why it took me this long to realize it) but the FIV vaccine is no longer made as of 2017. (Turns out the article got the date wrong. The manufacturer stopped making it in 2016) I have never been a fan of this vaccine and have told people that over and over. Considering how FIV is spread and the risk for shot site sarcomas, it isn't worth the risk in my opinion (and I'm not a vet nor do I play one on the internet). The thing that has always bothered me more than anything about the vaccine was this one fact: if the cat is vaccinated, the FIV test will come back showing positive.

Read that again and think about it.... The test will come back positive simply if the cat is vaccinated.

Scary right? If you had a vaccinated cat that got out with no identification (and this is a good place to remind you to microchip your pets and keep the information current), and that cat was picked up by the average animal control officer, they would test for FIV and more than likely euthanize the cat based on a positive test result.

Which takes us back where we started long ago:
  1. FIV negative and positive cats CAN live together (so long as the positive cat isn't agressive)
  2. FIV will not shorten the life of your cat - they live the same average life span as a typical cat
  3. FIV can and should see the vet a little more often - they can have dental issues
  4. FIV is exclusive to cat - people, dogs, whatever, can't catch it
  5. FIV is NOT feline aids. Stop telling people that and freaking them out.

Tell me your stories... Does your local rescue adopt out FIV cats? Do you have one yourself? Have you gotten bad advice? Anything else you would like me to talk about??

kitten antics

feather teaser maybe??

eye on prize

hello?? you out there??

Fate would like you to know that

he is aware the teaser is in that bin

don't ask

weekend report

Mom has been gone the last 2 weekends, so she spent a decent amount of time this weekend getting stuff done around the house - lots of laundry and the dreaded vacuum.

But she made sure to take time out to play with the kittens and spend time with us too. Daiquiri, Chanel and Ivy all got pawdicures. Ivy got her revenge and stabbed mom in the hand before mom got to her back toenails. Ouch...

There is something about that cat ladder that brings out goofiness in the tuxedo girls. While some of their craziness makes mom twitch waiting for them to fall off (have we mentioned she finally got them signed up for pet insurance?) but they have a blast.

Chanel likes to hang off in very strange directions. Watch this as she leans off one edge, one back foot and her tail off the back, taking a bath:

HAPPY Birthday Ivy

Our resident princess and watermelon (cough cough) turned 11 years old yesterday!!