Secret Paws

It is that time of year...we packed up a box and sent it out. And then the man in the blue shorts pants brought us a box too. Mom locked it up for a few days but finally broke it out and let us open it.

There were lots of wrapped packages - one with each of our names on it. And a card - it was from the kitties at 15 and Meowing THANKS so much....we love it!!!

 package inspectors

the kickers were awesome - probably the biggest we have ever seen

treats, a treat ball and a crinkly cat sack

there were even toys included for the foster kittens

mom put those aside for the next group to come along

presents for mom too - a calendar and a lovely scarf

We are loving the kickers. Still checking out the the cat sack.....

Pet Bloggers Gift Exchange

We heard about this on facebook and were interested. It isn't presents wrapped in a package and sent in the mail. Rather, it is bloggers taking the time to get to know each other and do something nice....talk about each other. It was started and sponsored by Something Wagging this way comes and we thought we would like to participate this year....

We were paired with Emma from My GBGV Life. Now, we don't know much about dogs, but mom does and she thinks this breed is ADORABLE. We have to admit, she may be a woofie, but she is pretty cute. She has woofie sisters and a kitty bro-fur too!!  And holy moly....she even wrote a book:

She sure is smart...and even talks about taking classes to use her nose. And here we thought dogs knew how to do that naturally.  MOL

What mom found very interesting is how she talks about safety when walking. Mom says she doesn't think that gets talked about nearly enough. And she does tend to dress up some....  She also talks about pet health and walking and food - you know the important stuff (ok - except the walking, but mom says that is important for dogs).

You can find her all over the place: YouTube Facebook (with even more cute pictures of her) Twitter and some place that involves pins....

But here is what we like best - her blog is about a glimpse into her life. And isn't that what blogging should be about? A snippet of what we are doing and the things around us. ok...and being cute

a nice surprise

Kahlua and Daiquiri are still here with us. There isn't space at the adoption center but mom took them to an adoption event on Sunday and they are on Petfinder. They have had all access to the house since last weekend and are having a blast. Running all over and playing like mad. They have even been well behaved at night.

Daiquiri has always been very lovey and looking for attention. Kahlua not as much - she is ok if mom would pick her up to love on her but wouldn't come looking for attention. Well, on Saturday Kahlua was sitting on the arm of mom's chair and mom scratched her head. Kahlua thought about it and then moved over and sat on mom's lap for a while. Daiquiri came up...and then a wrestling match broke out. MOL

Since then, Kahlua has come up to mom asking for more attention and has even slept with everyone at night. Those breakthroughs are wonderful to see....

HAPPY Gotcha Day

Ivy and Spud

Hard to believe this was 6 years ago.

Don't let the pictures deceive you - they don't spend time together anymore.

Ivy was here as a foster with her mom and her sisters and Spud had been found by a neighbor of our grandparents. Spud fit right in with the girls. While there was no intention of adding to the family, Spud and Ivy never really left.

Santa Kitty Toy Hop

Cats across the blogosphere this year are doing something a little different. We are each picking a local charity and giving back. Summer from Sparkle's blog is organizing it and has a link set up for all the blogs participating.

We thought long and hard about who to donate to around here. We live in a large with with lots of rescues but wanted to pick a smaller one that may not get a lot of support.

We decided to donate to Hospets. (they are on facebook too) They are a group that does several things:
      1. Provide food and vet services for elderly and hospice patients
      2. Provide transportation to vet appointments
      3. Provide respite care for those individuals that are going into nursing care and need short term placement of their pets
      4. Help find homes for animals displaced by the death of their owners or for owners that are no longer able to care for their pets on their own or with help

 Mom took food, litter, treats and toys.

We have a dog park near us and they were set up on Saturday and Sunday taking donations. Mom checked their facebook page on Sunday and it appears to be a huge success. We think this group is doing good work helping those that need assistance to keep their pets.

Random Friday

This is how WE plan to spend the weekend......

Mom said something about taking the kittens to another adoption event on Sunday.

And mom said something about cookies....we feel we should warn the fire department just in case....
       oh wait - she said there is NO baking involved....good, we are safe


Oh - and Savannah's mom is having something done to her knees....so she asked for some guest posts. We wrote one about Uncle Tim and him helping mom socialize kittens. You can read it here today!!

Throwback Thursday

Mom was going through some pictures and found these of the state kittens from September of 2010 and they cracked her up.....

Nevada in the back

left to right: Bug, Carolina, Utah, Georgia, Main and Dakota 

(and yes, mom had to refer to her foster list to get that right)

 Maine sleeping on top of Utah

Utah was the tiniest of the bunch so mom would give her extra canned food

Bug was the clean up crew 

this cracks mom up every time....

Chiclet and some of the kitts

Remember, mom found Bug under some steps that Labor Day weekend and then took in Chiclet and her kittens in hoping that Chiclet would adopt Bug. No such luck, but at least Bug had someone to grow up with. Hard to believe it has been four years.....

Another 4 word Wednesday

We hate Santa hat!!!

Opt to Adopt - Winnie's Wish

If you have never heard about this small private rescue, you need to click and read. Chrystal lives in Southern Illinois and does her best on her own. With the help of her dedicated followers, two cat houses have been built on her property to house the cats that need her help. But, like all pets, they would love to have a home of their own....

Peter Pan

Slate

You can find the entire list of available cats on the Petfinder list. And don't think Illinois is a haul....we have helped them place adoptions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, California and Canada!!

Exciting News

Sangria and Stoli were ADOPTED!!! TOGETHER!!!

Mom was contacted via email before Thanksgiving by a family looking to adopt. They had seen these two during their brief stay at Petco and were interested. They have 4 kids and the 12 year old daughter had been begging for a kitten. They were in the process of moving into a new home, so mom agreed to hold on to them (what a hardship) until after Thanksgiving.

Saturday was pictures with Santa hosted by our rescue vets (we made over $900 woohoo!!!). The kittens were picked up then. Syd is the 12 year old and had a lego convention all day (they do that??) so the family came to pick up the kittens and were going to have them up in her room to surprise her when she got home. 

They have promised lots of updates so hopefully we will here all about it when everything gets settled. The oldest boy got to rename Stoli (you knew that was going to happen - MOL) and he is now Oliver. Syd will get to rename Sangria and we will let you know what that ends up being.

Concats to Stoli and Sangria and their new family!!!!

Random Fridays

'Tis the season and all that, so we are going to show you some things going around that allow you to give back:

First, bloggers are getting together to do a Santa Kitty Toy Hop lead by Summer

From December 12-19, bloggers are going to gather up donations for a rescue. And then blog about it and link to Summer's blog. What fun...and a great way to give back. Some are doing local rescues, some are doing rescues they know and love. Whatever works for you.
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On Saturday mom will be with other volunteers from the rescue doing Santa pictures at the rescue vet's office. If you are in central Ohio and want to come visit, it is 1-4pm at 1117 W. 1st Ave, Columbus OH

There will be something else going on that day, and we will tell you about it next week.
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Mom will be out on Sunday at an adoption event too....  busy weekend.

We hope you are staying warm (or cool depending on where you live) and safe this weekend. Take care - and take a good long nap.

And here is our e-card for Christmas made by the wonderful Ann of Zoolatry (we are sending others too but love this one).

test results of a sort

So Daiquiri and Kahlua were tested for FIV/FeLV and were spayed yesterday. Kahlua was negative no problem.

However....Daiquiri wasn't.

Here's the thing....the rescue uses an ELISA (or snap) test. Which can give a false positive. Every tiny variable has to be exact or it could come out wrong. Negative is negative, positive is not always positive. Once the test is started (snapped), it has to run for 10 minutes. At the one minute left mark, a VERY faint positive for FeLV showed up. [you can read more about FeLV in a Best Friends article here]

Mom spoke to the vet and they agreed to try something else. Normally the test is run with whole blood. But again, any infection could possibly throw it off (though Daiquiri may win the prize for the healthiest kitten to ever pass through this house). So the vet suggested spinning out the red blood cells and just running the serum. So they did that....another 10 minute wait (mom went to get coffee by this time - so much for a quick test).

This test was negative.

Now what???

The vet had the tech call the company that makes the test and explain what we did and everything else. They agreed that the second test was more accurate - not actually because it was serum based but because it had been out of the fridge longer (see - twitchy test). Enough blood had been drawn that the remaining sample has been sent to the company and they are going to test it as well.

But what about Daiquiri (and everyone else)? Mom said to the vet - if I take her home now, you are confident enough that she can be out with the resident cats and the fosters...and any other cats she comes in contact with? Yes - absolutely according to the vet.

This leads us to the rescue. And this is more an image problem than a test problem. Most vets are going to run a whole blood test (if they rerun it for some reason). If we adopt Daiquiri out as negative and an adopter has her retested and it shows that faint positive, regardless of other tests, the rescue looks bad. Very bad. And as anyone in rescue can tell you, bad PR is a very bad thing.

Mom decided to talk to the head of the rescue and leave it in her hands .....

Anyhow, mom spoke to the rescue lady last night: for now both Daiquiri and Kahlua are back with us due to lack of space at the adoption center. She agreed that for our purposes, yes, Daiq is negative. Once the company runs the test, if we can get the results in writing, then we will attach that to her records and she will be negative and our PR butts are covered.

And we know what some of you are thinking: why let them out if they aren't tested. Normally we don't but in this case it was a coordination issue - the older two were tested and were negative. Daiq's mom was later caught and tested negative. So, the risk was fairly small until mom could get it together with travel and the holidays and having them old enough to get them tested.

Now to get them online and get their furry buns adopted!!

four word Wednesday

Kahlua

Stoli

Sangria

Daiquiri

Opt to Adopt Mae West

It was back in July that we originally posted about our rescue girl Mae West.

Well, she is still at the adoption center waiting for a family to take her home. As you can see, she has superior snoopervision skills:

Unfortunately, when mom was up at the adoption center over the weekend, Mae was in the sick ward with a cold. For some cats, the stress of being there affects their immune systems. That seems to be the case for Mae. She is so sweet and lovey...and has been coming out of the quiet room and been seen roaming around. The volunteers all seem to know who she is when mom checks on her....between her looks and her voice, she is well known. We think she would do best in a quieter home but would be fine with other cats so long as she is given time to be properly introduced. And honestly, if you are interested, mom would help arrange transport cause she really wants to see Mae in a home of her own.

If you don't want to click the link, the video below is of Mae having quite the conversation with mom.

House Trashing

As most of you know, mom was gone from Thursday to Saturday. Sunday was pretty quiet around here. But....she came home to find this:

 We tried to tell her it was a natural disaster, but we don't think she believed us. But hey - there is no  video evidence, so what does she know.

Anyhow, she got out some packing tape construction materials and fixed the house back up.

Well, except for the missing chimney....no idea where that went.

As you can see, we are more than happy to have our house back and hopefully with the reinforced construction, we will be living in it for a while.