Is it Caturday yet?

No, not yet?

Wake me when it is Caturday...

Me too.  I hope Caturday gets here soon

A boy, his ball and the bell

Apparently that didn't go as well as it looked like it did since he put on his floof suit when the ball actually got away.  Or maybe he just thought he'd try it out and intimidate the ball.. who knows what goes on in the marshmallow fluff that is between kitten ears..

And admit it, you heard that bell as you viewed these photos

Btw, Belladora has a bone to pick with me..

She would like you to know that it was not her in the photos yesterday. She chided me for getting that wrong (and sends purrs towards Dee for noticing). In my defense after I put my camera down after taking the photos I spent quite a bit more time in the kitten room and she did go after her mother's tail as well, and I left with visions of her playing, and by the time I put the blog post together it was late and I was tired.. which really is no excuse, and she is surely going to demand quite a bit to make up for it.. a price I am sure I am more than willing to pay.

Wordless Wednesday - Belladora vs Lovey's tail

So who do you think won?

A Tuesday Toesday tail

How do toes that white stay that white when kittens eat like this

Like this..

Naming Day for the kittens

Naming kittens is always difficult for me. For years I have tried to name kittens on their personalities, which makes group naming (picking a theme and just assigning names) something I am not fond of doing. I did it once early on and interestingly enough their personalities developed and reflected the names I gave them. I'm not sure if I was just lucky, if I was just seeing what I wanted to see, or if their personalities grew to reflect what I was expecting them to be. That last idea kinda freaked me out, so I went back to naming on their personalities. I started throwing names around and waited to see what stuck. Sometimes the names come easy, sometimes they don't.

This group started out with a proclamation on Facebook that the tabby boy should be named Minnow. I did kind of like it, but it didn't seem the right name for him. He is a popular boy, because pretty soon there after there was another proclamation that he should be named Winston.  The little girl, the kitten who will not be contained, was declared to be Dora,  These names and a few others were bandied about until we ended up where we are..

So I would like to introduce:

Flynn

Winnow

Ethan Errol

The boys were enjoying the Halloween theme.. well some of them..

BOO! Racoons say boo, right? (Flynn)

What does the fox say?? (Winnow)

I don't wanna.. they'll think it is silly (Ethan Errol) 

Okay, fine, Who.. who.. whoooo.. (Ethan Errol)

I am as dainty as a flower - Belladora

who does the angry eyes better??

Momma is now officially Lovey

For those of you who need a cheat sheet to tell them apart, Belladora has far more white on her than Winnow.  Flynn also has a much stronger blaze of white across his face and he has long white hairs on his black legs which makes him have the appearance of having hair on his arms. Ethan Errol is mostly black with only a small thin line of white on his face.

Belladora REALLY likes people. She was the first to climb out of the nest, first to climb back in, first to eat, first to climb up on my lap, first to eat solid food, first to play with toys, first to climb up on the couch and first to use the litterbox. She probably has a whole lot more firsts, but those were the ones I noticed.

Winnow is a bit slower in the mental capacity department. He was the last one to learn how to climb out of the nest, and he is still peeing next to the litterbox and not in it. He takes this information personally thought. I once told him his sister was much brighter than he was and he looked hurt, so I had to tell him that there was nothing wrong with him, and assured him that he was awesome.

Flynn is the more outgoing of the two black kitties. He loves curling up next to me and playing with my fingers, and he even doesn't mind when I boop his nose. He has a goofy streak in him that is adorable.

Ethan Errol is a bit more serious. He was the one that was least likely to take supplemental milk from me. He spends a lot of time investigating his territory and learning what he can and can't do.. I'd call him a scientist if, you know, that was a personality trait..

They are all prone to licking us, and attacking toes, and flomping up against us, which is incredibly adorable.  I spend way too much time with them, and I take WAY too many photos.. I swear I have like 20 of Belladora in that collar

Please consider donating canned food to your local shelter

I have been fostering for my local shelter for over a decade now, and one thing that seems to ring true year in and year out is that fall is a very hard time for kitties. Mother cats who are nursing kittens are often nursing their second litter of the year which makes things even harder on them. Giving birth and nursing kittens is very draining on the body's reserves, and to become pregnant again means there is less nutritional reserves for everyone. Mother cats are thinner, kittens are smaller and both become sicker more easily. It is very sad.

On top of this, many people don't think about donating food to their shelters this time of year. A lot of fundraising awareness is done in the spring in the face of kitten season starting up, and Christmas often brings a second influx of donations to a shelter, but late summer and fall kitties are often feed whatever is left in the pantry - which is generally dry food.

Dry foods are often donated to the shelters because they are big and cheap and make a good show. Walking in with a 20lb bag of food feels better than walking in with 12 cans of food despite the fact that the cost is usually equivalent. And while that 20lb bag of food will feed healthy pets for longer periods of time, pets that have any health issues could use the nutritional boost that only comes from a diet that is higher in animal proteins.

Nursing mothers tend to need it even more. My current foster mom is now eating six 5.5 oz cans of food per day. Her babies are starting to help her so I wonder how many cans I will be going through in the upcoming weeks.

I went into the shelter the other day to stock up on some canned food for my fosters and they had run out. Even their dry food supplies were low and they put out a call for donations from their wishlist. Hopefully the call helped and there will be some food when I go in this weekend, if not I'll have to go and purchase some myself. If you would like to help out, you can purchase from their Amazon wishlist or my own. If you prefer to support your own local shelter, please consider donating some canned food for them this weekend because I have no doubt they could really use some.

Someone was saving a little bit for later #nowislater #fosterkittens

A video posted by Connie (@tfkblog) on Oct 21, 2015 at 4:39pm PDT

LcL Cool DH (aka Lady Cats love my husband)

My husband spent about five minutes poking the little girl's belly, and she seemed to really love it. With me she usually wants to go off exploring, but she was very content to sit there and play with him, and then this happened..

What is it about him that all the 'lady cats' love so much??

Wordless Wednesday - we want out