Photo Day

The shelter has asked for photos of the kitties in quarantine so that they can network them at the shelter.. so I thought I would take my nice camera out for a spin and give it a shot.

Ash (Bowie) did pretty well, the camera didn't frighten him at all. Abigail (Crema) was not a fan. She has shown over and over that it takes quite a while for her to get used to new experiences enough to even investigate it.

Ash currently lets me pet him. If he is eating or is eating treats I can easily pet him. If I walk up to him, most of the time I can get my fingers in under his ear/chin area and am able to give him scritches. Occasionally, he gets a little worked up by it and I stop. 

Abigail will let me get my hand near her while she eats. I can pet Ash while he eats and she sits right next to him eating, but if she feels my hand near her, or if I touch her, she reacts immediately like I have touched her with a flaming hot poker and she is off and I get hissed at. She will sniff my hand if I walk up and offer it about 90% of the time now instead of hissing at me on sight, and I have gotten her to take treats from my hand. Most of the time she thinks if she just noses it I will drop the treat because that is what I did originally to get her to come towards me, but now we are working on making her work for them and she's not always on board with that. I will sometimes feed a smaller dinner and delay breakfast so she is very hungry in the morning to hopefully make her more motivated to work with me, but with minimal success. She is absolutely a challenge.

I was able to pet her a few weeks after she originally showed up here, and she loved it, but when she realized what was going on she got mad at herself for giving in to the luxury of it all and took many steps backward. I KNOW that if she could just get past the fear she would make someone a great snuggly kitty, but I don't know if she can get past that fear any time soon. She is going to need a home where the people are okay with a project, or maybe a barn. I just hope something comes up soon, because as much as I love these guys I am jonsin for some wee baby kittens and kitten huffing and doing regular photo shoots again..

My Unrequited Loves

Yes, Bowie and Crema are back. Previously I called them The Boy and The Girl but now I'm calling them Ash and Abigail.

They were adopted out by the shelter as "Spirit Cats" but the family that adopted them weren't quite ready for their nature. I give them immense amounts of credit for trying as hard and as long as they did but there were kids involved and I respect the decisions they made.

They were comfortable in the house, but still not comfortable with me. I tried harder and harder to make friends with them but I realized that was just making things worse so I started ignoring them. I show up, I give them treats, the wand toy gets waved around a bit..

and despite the looks I often get, as long as the grabby hands stay reigned in they are okay with me.

I love them so much.. even the looks they give me, even the snarling at me when I dare to offer treats a little too closely.. my heart aches to hold them and give them a good huffing.. but alas, that is not to be.

I thought I had a good placement for them, but it didn't work out, so these two are looking for someone who has it in their heart to hang out with a couple of really adorable kittens who like deli meat and do kinda want to be around you but have some serious PTSD when it comes to hands and towels.

Bowie and Crema are up for adoption

As you might have guessed by the lack of blog posts, caring for these two were difficult for me. There was a whole host of reasons; some big and some small.

I enjoyed every minute I spent being hated on by this girl

I can guess you can imagine how much I regret not being able to actually hug her or kiss her, but I did many times in my dreams. I sat in front of her and I talked to her about it and pictured it in my mind, but each time I did I got all mushy and my energy levels changed and in the end, all I succeeded in doing was freaking her out. I did my best to stop doing that but I am guessing you can imagine that was hard.



I will admit I spent a lot of time thinking about one set of fosters that I wasn't able to keep. If you haven't been with us long, meet Mia and Prince Charming. It was 2004 and I was in no position to keep another kitten at the time ad I so very much wanted to keep them both.. I mean seriously...

And while I am down four cats from my height of owning eight, I am not comfortable adding two cats to my household at this time. It would be nice, for sure. and I bet seeing Skippy love all over me and my husband might have helped them realize that not all hands are bad.

We have made huge progress with them. They went from completely cowering and unable to eat in my presence other than a small amount of spam that I bribed them within the beginning - that only worked when they were very hungry - from being able to eat in front of me, play in front of me and even be able to be closer to me. The boy climbed in my lap to play, he even flomped up against my leg a couple of times. If I groveled, and gave the right signals and went slow I could reach out and pet him and scratch his chest and his ears. From there I was able to pat behind his head. As long as I stayed above his shoulder blades he was fine. If I touched his back I received a major hissing and he immediately put an end to contact. He likes it, he just needs someone who doesn't come with the urgent need to get him to come around sooner rather than later and that will happen by being adopted.

The Girl is a tougher nut. The few times I was able to scratch her chin I could tell she clearly liked it but her fear of hands was overwhelming..

Both have an extreme fear of towels being held up by a human. One time I simply picked up a sheet and they both had a pretty extreme reaction to it, so I did my best to do it in a way that was not "coming at them" to try to desensitize them of it. Unfortunately, using a towel was the ONLY way to get them in the carrier to go back to the shelter. I was hoping I could use it to direct them to run into the carrier since I had hidden every other place for them to hide, but it backfired on me and they both stood their ground and hissed at me pretty fiercely. So, I then picked up the carrier and put it in front of them and thankfully each one decided to enter in it on their own power. It took all of three minutes to get them in and we were on our way.

I wanted to send along a few things to keep some continuity in their lives. I sent along the giraffe bed that I have had for a few years because it was immediately her safe space (see above). She spent quite a bit of time in the bed and I figured that she would appreciate having it with her.  I couldn't send the cat tree that The Boy spent most of his time in, but I did want to send along their favorite toy. .. which sadly was my favorite toy..

So I am totally going to have to get some more, especially after giving Cabana his favorite toy to take home with him, because I am out of wand toys now. (and if you want to donate I stuck them on my Amazon wish list) (mailing address if you choose not to use Amazon is 10 Willis Ave, #554 Grantham, NH 03753)

And while I hate the idea of returning them not perfectly tamed and I really hate the idea of not having found a home for them. There was a potential one for The Girl but not being handleable totally put a kibosh on it as it would require her flying and there is no way it would be safe for her to be removed from a carrier to be checked in not to mention the change of her never being a lap cat - it is a possibility depending on how bad her PTSD is - so that fell through. But I am going to hold on to what happened with a set of fosters in 2015. They were not 100% friendly either, but being in the shelter and seeing all the people and being exposed to all of the shelter noises (and being fed hot dogs) really helped pull them out of their shell.. I know the shelter has their best interests at heart, they will be fine.

If you are interested in adopting them, you can check out their listings on the shelter's website. My foster coordinator has told me that she will email me when they are adopted.

I will miss them terribly, I already do, but hopefully, there will be new kitties soon..

The owner of that foot

I know I know, I am so mean. if you happen to follow me on Instagram, you would have already met the newcomers.

I agreed to take on a couple of three-month-old feral kittens. They are really weird in how they communicate because their eyes say "snuggle me and tell me I am safe" but their body language and their reactions say "STAY AWAY FROM ME WITH YOUR GRABBY HANDS YOU WEIRD LADY YOU!!"

I did find that they like spam, so I am trying to show them I am a good thing with it. On a very superficial level, it works, but up until Wednesday they were stuck in this cage and I had to "loom over them to offer it to them so it was really hard.  They are now in the kitten room bathroom and I am hoping that giving them a little space will help. It is absolutely going to take some time.  Hopefully, paws crossed, I am able to reach them sooner rather than later.

Because I am having a very hard time resisting those "snuggle me" eyes..

Wordless Wednesday