Rescue stuff

 Still no kittens. But it's still April, although mom is developing a twitch. 

As an update we are just fostering and mom is volunteering with the shelter. She had some personal issues with the small rescue and decided it was time to move on. 

Speaking of rescue though, there is a bird rescue in MI that got some attention over the last few days. Everything is  summorized here. But essentially, she got an inquiry asking to come to their location to view the birds, though their policy is you have to apply and be approved first.

A lot of small rescues will do this as it cuts down on wasted time for volunteers. And there are people out there that do treat shelters like a petting zoo where they can just come and hang out. For larger groups and facilities that may be fine, but it's very hard on small rescues.

Anyhow, the guy got mad and the director decided she had enough and replied with quite the email calling him out. He of course had to respond and she decided to post it to their Facebook page. They are now over $30k in donations, which is amazing.  But more than that, I hope this is a window into how small rescues operate and how your "one request" is just one more than on top of so many other things. 

So...hang with us while we wait for kittens. And please be kind to your local rescue staff and volunteers. 

Nothing exciting

 Still no kitten here. Mom knows it should be soon but she is getting twitchy.

In the meantime, mom did buy a new mattress that was delivered on Thursday.  She managed to get everyone except Goldfish into the back bedroom. It would have been fine except mom realized at one point the front door had been left open. When the guys left, there was no sign of Goldfish and mom started to panic a little. Finally Goldfish squirmed out from under the sofa. Scary...

It's nice here so we do have open windows with the screen inserts in to keep everyone safe.

Boba and Chanel also got some time with the puzzle toy:

Harness training

 Mom would like to get Boba trained to wear a harness and go outside. Miss Emily at  Kitty Cat Go is a trained behaviorist and offered an online course. 

Mom is put a harness on kittens before and also on Chanel. Boba though is a tough nut. She has lots of opinions and things need to be her idea. So to get some tips and trick and also support Miss Emily, she signed up.

That said, mom admits she hasn't been as on the ball with training as she should be. Thankfully Boba is food motivated.

After a few introduction steps, mom got the harness on:

After a few more tries, mom moved to a new plan and bought a different harness. The one above needs Boba to put her legs through and secures on top. 

The new one sits on her back and velcros under her neck and stomach. She still needs more time to get used to it, but at least mom doesn't have to wrestle her to get it on. 

Happy Birthday Chanel

 

Dior, momma Millie and Chanel

Hard to believe this was just over 7 years ago. You can see more baby pictures here

Chanel had her annual vet check on Monday. She is healthy, doing well and weighs about 11 pounds.

Chanel sent her sisters Cupcake (fka Dior) a card and some treats.

Looks like Cupcake approves (and has no intention of sharing with Newton).

Happy birthday girls (and your brothers)

Weekend report

 Mom spent this weekend out of town with her family. 4 of the 6 of them have a birthday within 12 of each other do she wrntvto celebrate. 

Mom & the kid (her niece) actually share a birthday. The kid asked Mom if she wanted to get a matching tattoo. Friday night they went and did this:

The daisy is the flower if April. 

Saturday was lunch and presents and pie and basketball. 

We were glad she got home safe to us though. Ms Ingrid and Mr Morgan came to take care of us and they are great. But it's nice to have mom back. 

It's especially gard on Boba we think. She cane after mom started working from home so she used to her being here all the time. 

Hapoy Birthday Boba

 The baby turns one today. 

Hard to believe she used to be that little. 

Boba is certainly one of a kind and keeps us all on our toes. She will snuggle with mom at night. Hates to have her nails trimmed. Taught herself to play fetch. Has figured out the food puzzle. And has opinions about EVERYTHING.

Happy birthday sweet girl.  

Weekend report

 Orange kitten report: of the 7, 2 of them have been adopted. Yay!!!

Valencia is healing up well and she and Cara will likely go to the partner store this week. Mom would like her wearing the cone for a few more days. 

Mom did put up the air lock gate and opened the foster room door. Cara was unamused by Chanel.

The weather got nice on Sunday so mom cracked the windows open a little for some fresh air.

Still a little early for little kittens here but should be soon.

In the meantime, these two are enjoying the quiet.

Oranges and food puzzles

 The oranges were all spayed and neutered on Friday. Next step adoptions. We did get a couple kittens wrong: Seville is a girl and Cara is a boy so now maybe CC). 

Tangelo and CC 

Mom broke out the food puzzle again and this time Boba figured out all the doors that were closed (2 of them). 

Chanel was a little more confused by the puzzle. She can get treats out of the open doors then relies in Boba to open the other doors. Which isn't exactly how it's supposed to work but points for figuring it out in her own way.

We are behind on updates

 No little kittens yet, but a woman reached out to the rescue last week and the rescue took in 7 kittens about 4 months old. The rescuer said they came from a hoarding situation with lots of cats in a mobile home. She's working with the lady but for now this crew us out and safe. 

Two girls and five boys. And they all look very much alike. Mom and her friend Heather are fostering so the kittens are divided 4 with her and 3 here. They are scheduled for surgery on Friday. 

The kittens are named after oranges. The three here are:

Cara Cara (female)

Tangelo (male)

Valencia (female)

They are being treated for ear mites and the girls have hunky eyes being treated as well.

The boys are all super friendly while the girls are a little shyer but not much. 

Welcome to the oranges. 

The car kittens are still available and waiting for their forever families. 

Kitten update

 Sally was spayed on Friday and is now available for adoption and at our partner store.

Lizzie, Lightening and Mater are being spayed and neutered today and will go to the store later this week.

Friday however, we had a little excitement. Mom was working at her desk and Boba was looking under the sofa and was being growled at. A tuxedo shot out and was slinking around the room. Mom muttered for Goldfish to get over herself.

And the she looked a little closer: turns out it wasn't Goldfish. Mater had snuck out of the room and was a little freaked out by the stalking tabby cat (Boba).

Goldfish

(No idea why she is making that face)

Mater 

The adventure

 A post by the mom

You were promised an adventure story - here goes:  

On Saturday a post went up on Facebook about a woman in a domestic violence situation who was trying to leave but needed to know a mom and kittens were safe. If you know anything about DV situations, a lot of people won't leave because there are very few shelters that will take animals and they fear what will happen if they are left behind. 

A friend asked if I could take them since I didn't have fosters at the time. While I always want to help, I do have limits and mine is there has to be some sort of rescue backup for vetting and adoption placement. That fell into place and I agreed to go pick them up and foster. 

Now, here is where I will add a couple of caveats - first, we all should have asked a few more questions about "kittens" and the weather. We have gotten snow here in Ohio but it is clear where I live so I didn't really think about it. The woman did say maybe we should wait a few days, but that made me nervous. Also, this is not my first rodeo so while I agreed to go get them, I was taking someone with me. 

We drove about an hour, found the turn off and realized we were driving onto a track of driveway not really a great road and there were no other tire tracks. But we had made it that far and decided to just finish up and not have to worry about trying to come back. We drove down the road, turned left onto what we thought was another drive way and ended up having to park a ways from the house since it was snow and I didn't want to risk getting stuck in their front yard. 

My friend and I trekked to the house with the carriers I brought and the lady came to the door. We got 3 kittens into carriers (after realizing they were about 5 months old - so again, ask a few questions. we still would have taken them, but I would have brought bigger carriers) She had mom in a pop up crate and said we could just take that. But one kitten was loose in the house. She tried to get it and came back out and said she couldn't. 

We weren't comfortable waiting around so headed back to the car. As we were loading up, she yelled she had the last one. We got that one safely in a carrier, wished her well and got in my car to head out. 

We got almost back to the top of the hill when the front wheels lost traction and we started to spin. Back up and try again, to no avail. We did notice a slightly flatter line off to my left so we backed up and tried to make a run at that.

Nope - we ended up sliding sideways, perpendicular to the driveway and about a foot from a fairly large tree.

 

 

Thankfully we still had cell service so after a quick search we found a tow company and they said they could be out in about 30 minutes. Nothing to do now but wait. We kept our eyes open since we weren't too far from the house and had no idea who else lived back there. 

 

Thankfully the tow truck showed up fairly quickly and they got us turned around and facing uphill. However, neither of us could get traction at the same spot I had gotten stuck earlier. He had me back and and as he was about to make another run, the kid with him walked up to that flatter line we had seen earlier and announces "it a driveway" - yep rocks and gravel and everything. The truck got a start and made it up there then reattached the winch and pulled us up to the flatter run that went straight back to the road. 

Yes - we left them a really good review on google. 

We finally made it home but upon letting everyone out at my house, we discovered mom is not a fan of the kittens and was hissing and growling at them. Not really surprising considering their ages. My friend agreed to take mom to her house since she has a cage space where mom could decompress.

 

Meet Merritt - named after the towing company

 We did pick up Chinese for dinner since it ended up being an entire afternoon adventure not just a couple of hours. This was one of the fortunes:

The kittens have settled in here. They are a little shy but fairly social. Mom is also social. There are 2 boys and 2 girls. Mom and the girls will be spayed on Friday, the boys neutered a little later when we can get appointments. 

Either way, they are all safe and I hope the lady now feels she can get out and get somewhere safer. I don't know her circumstances and I wasn't going to ask. But I hope this little bit of kindness helped her.

Newbies

 There is a longer story to this that mom will tell in a couple of days, but on Saturday we got some new recruits in the foster room. They are about 5 months old and a little scared but calm and we bet they adjust in now time. Meet the cars kittens:

Mater (boy)

Lizzie (girl)

Lightening (boy)

Sally (girl)

Weekend report

 First, thanks for your comments about Ivy. It never is easy no matter the circumstances. 

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Update: Milkshake was adopted! Single guy in an apartment. No doubt Milkshake is loving having his own person.

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We've said it before, but Boba is super smart. And has all the opinions. Mom got a food puzzle and it going to see if that will keep her busy. It won't be left out - it will come out from time to time as a "new" toy. 

Boba & Chanel check it out

Daiquiri checks it out

Even Goldfish gave it a sniff

First try was treats with all the doors open. They figured it out pretty quickly. So next step is close one or two doors.

But her favorite game is still fetch

Princess Ivy Crankypants

born 8/1/08, gotcha day 12/16/08, passed away 1/9/24 

Mom got home after Christmas and Ivy had some swelling around her neck. Our vet wasn't available so to be careful, she checked in with a local urgent care vet and they did an ultrasound and diagnosed lymphoma. They did suggest a lot of things, but based on Ivy's age, mom opted to get some meds on board and take her home. 

We knew it was about buying time, but it turns out we only had a couple of weeks. Ivy stopped eating and just seem tired. Mom contacted our vet and was there with her for her last breath here. 

Ivy was a foster fail - she came to us with her momma and 4 sisters. 

Ivy is the one right in the middle.

She was the grand princess here for all 15 of her years. While she never tried to bite anyone, she was happy to growl at anyone who didn't make sure they respected her boundaries. She gave mom a run for her money when she was younger but mellowed with age. Though would still growl at the vet every time. 

We miss you Ivy.....

Slower time of year

 It being January in the mid west, it could be a while before we get foster kittens.

Mom is busy with work but thankfully from home so we get to see her a lot. She's also been doing some cleaning and organizing. 

Mom says she doesn't have any big plans for the year yet but would like to see some of her cat lady friends she has been missing. Just have to figure that out.

We hope the best for your new year.

Another year

 *a post by the mom

I try to sit down and do a year end review every year and it just didn't happen this time. 

I do have some numbers:

33 total fosters this year. 

18 females, 15 males.

All but 2 adopted by end of year 

1 momma cat (Mochi)

1 death (Mondavi)

1 foster fail

I've now been fostering for 17 years. That's 450 cats and kittens.

I'm so thankful for everyone that has adopted, shared and supported this adventure.