Wordless Wednesday - three sleeping kittens

A last minute Cat Show

A few weeks ago I received a Facebook invite to a CCF cat show "Peace, Love & Cats" in Auburn MA, by Robin Olsen who runs the website Covered in Cat Hair.  She was asked to be a guest judge and was bringing her cat Freya to be judged. Auburn is just over two hours away from me, so while I thought it would be fun, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

At the end of last week I was talking with my husband and he had a list of things he wanted to do around the house. When he has such lists he finds that he is far more productive when I am out of the house, so we talked about my going.  I contacted Robin and told her I was thinking of going and she invited me to go to the opening of the Worchester Art Museum's Meow Exhibit This was also something I wanted to go to, but now I was faced with a night away from home, which immediately sent me into a panic.  Traveling is always taxing on me, but last minute travel.. I talked myself in and out of going about 100 times.  Finally, in a bid to convince myself to go I looked up how far Isaac Arnold and Smedley was from where I would be and found they were only an hour away.  I contacted Anne to see if she would be up for a visit, and she was, and it was settled.

I'll post about the exhibit and the visit later, but on to the cat show!

When I arrived at the show around noon, Freya had already been shown twice and was first and then seventh.  Robin was just about to start judging. I had time to say hello to her and her nephew who had stopped by to help out (you have got to love a cat man!) and then it was time. 

The ribbons she was going to give out

I was having a hard time getting good photos. There wasn't enough light to do it without the flash, and with the flash, I often ended up with washed out or blurry photos.

I have been to one other cat show and I have to say, cat shows are weird things, and cat shows for household pets are even weirder - well at least to me. I've often wondered if showing a cat might be fun, but considering how often you have to do it in order to make any 'progress' in it, I've decided it isn't for me, but it can be fun to see all of the cats and there are usually a lot of cat vendors there. Arubacat was at this show. They have some pretty impressive cat trees and if I had been there in a vehicle larger than my little convertible I probably would have bought one.

Back to the judging:

Robin had a hard time picking a winner - who wouldn't?  How do you pick one cat over another? There were a few cats that were getting frustrated with being shown and were getting hissy about being put in and pulled out of cages so their owners had to help. Some seemed to enjoy the attention. The dark orange boy really loved having his behind patted. She finally decided on winners and special prizes were given and her job was done for now. She did judge two more a bit later on.

Then Freya had two more showings.  She placed sixth and first again. She seemed to do much better emotionally than some of the other cats and came in and out of her cage easily.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her last showing because it was getting late and I wanted to get home before it got dark. I did have a pretty uneventful drive and I was so glad to be home. The cats were also very glad to see me and spent a lot of time on top of me.

Ready Player One Kittens - a new chapter

The time has finally come to separate Art3mis from her kittens. I wanted this to happen earlier than this as well as much much later. If I can, I like to keep kittens with their mothers because there is a lot they can learn that only a mother can properly teach and the additional nutrients she can provide are overly important. Unfortunately, Art3mis' attitude was rubbing off on the kittens and they not only had little use for me but they were also starting to fear me. While her mental health is very important, there are six kittens who need proper socialization.  I'm also taking some comfort in the fact that each time I challenged her she grew.  While going back to the shelter will be hard on her I am suspecting she will rise up to the challenge and surprise me.

(not that it doesn't freak me right out and I also fear that she will revert and be hard to place)

The kittens just passed the six-week mark and were due for vaccines and a general check in with the shelter.

Each one was weighed, vaccinated, dewormed and given a dose of revolution.

Art3mis was also weighed, vaccinated and dewormed, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it went.  She didn't growl once. She was obviously freaked out but we went slowly and she let us do what we needed to do. She will go up on the adoption floor to help her adjust and hopefully, her milk will dry up nicely and she will charm someone who has the patience to work with her. If they do, they will have a wonderful cat in their life.  I miss her already and lament that there wasn't more I could do for her.

The kittens were glad to be home. I had done a little cleaning and rearranging before letting them out of the carrier, so they were a little confused..

A few weeks ago I shared a cardboard slide on facebook that was made for kittens. My father saw it and thought to himself that he could make something like that, so he set upon a project to make a slide for me.

It seems a little big for kittens, but we will see what they think of it. If it is too much for them I'll see if we can rework it a little to be a little smaller, but kittens sometimes surprise me and maybe they'll love it at this size. I mean currently Evelyn thinks it makes an awesome bed.

As for the kittens missing mom, so far only Samantha and Parzival seemed to wonder where she went. Samantha called for her a few times but then went off to play with her siblings. Generally, cats and kittens expect that they are going to be separated and when the time comes generally seem pretty blasé about the whole thing. I have had kittens in the past that looked for their mom for several days - it was heartbreaking. Sometimes there are mother cats who bond hard with their kittens and do not want to be separated, just as there are siblings who are bonded, but on the whole, they accept separation as a part of life.

Update:

I stopped by the shelter Monday afternoon and dropped off an adoption card for Art3mis providing the information I have on her.  She was still there, sitting in the back of her cage. I reached in and patted her and she allowed it but didn't lean into it. I found some treats and offered them to her and she ate them which made me very happy. I offered her a little bit of food, and she stood up to eat it. I took photos of a couple of cats that were in the same adoption room that she was because they were flirting with me.  It is nice to see she isn't reverting and I am hopeful that she will come out of her shell a bit more and show a little better. A solid black cat who shoves herself in the very back of the cage is just so sad.

A tour of the kitten room at Casa de Gato

With the kittens sleeping off their latest round of mayhem, let me introduce you to the kitten room.

When the house was built it was built with a 'sun room' that is on both the upper and lower levels of the house. The upstairs one has a deck on both sides of it and sliding glass doors on both sides. The picture above is from the original house plans. The house was built for someone else so the plans differ from what we ended up with, but the dimensions are what they are. It is a 14-foot square room with the corners on one side 'cut off' to make it an odd six-sided room. Upstairs where the corners were 'cut off' there are windows. Downstairs, where the kitten room is, the window wall on the left side is up against a retaining wall and dirt, so there is no window there... It is where we hung the TV. (see photos below)

I seriously wish I could have running water in this room, but being the basement we can't have a sink that drains into the existing pipe work without a serious financial commitment, so no running water. We also only have one small section of forced hot water heater that runs when the heat runs in the upstairs great room, so this room tends to get cold in the winter, so I have a small portable heater in the room as well.

This is the wall we put up when we decided to make this area the kitten room. The drywall was in because it was going to be a musical practice area for the person who was going to buy this house (the financing fell through, so we are the first owners of this home).  This was open to the rest of the basement, so a wall was necessary. I found the window on the side of the road and brought it home so I could look into the room without opening the door. There have been a number of times I have been very thankful for this window. It is very helpful for distracting kittens intent on escaping from the room. The MeShare camera is on the wall there and the wall outlet it is plugged into is on the outside of the room.  Currently, my drop camera is on the arm of that futon facing Happy Bear and generally, it is on the far side of the room and it probably will be again soon.

This is the wall to the right of the door. This is the wall with the baseboard heating unit. Sometimes the futon is up against this wall, but with the addition of the wardrobe I was afraid of mother cats jumping from the couch to the ceiling joists, because (so far) we haven't put a ceiling in this room. The window points out to under the deck, which we recently semi-enclosed to store the wood pellets we use to heat.

The wardrobe is from Ikea, and is parked in front of the middle window. I don't like it there, but wall space is at a premium in this room. I have been tempted to put it free standing in the middle of the room but the side up against a wall, creating a space behind it for litter boxes, but I'm slightly afraid to do that on the off chance it falls over. I can screw it into the wall where it is, and I'm sure I could screw it into the wall on one side only, but I'm still afraid, so I haven't yet. On top, I store (in the green bucket) puppy pee pads and a few other random things, my small kitten carrier, the basket that I like to use for nursing mothers, and the laundry basket.  I'll address what is inside it in a minute. In between the wardrobe and the cage is a blue bin for recycling cat food cans.

In front of the third window, I keep the cage. I don't like it here, I wish there was more floor space in this room so I didn't have to, but there isn't so I do. I use the cage for kittens that are too small to be out in the entire room (when they don't have a mother) and feral kittens that need taming.

Here is the other wall (that has a window on it upstairs) that has the TV. We have also had it on the far left side of this wall before but putting it here allows us to sit on the futon and watch TV. Sometimes you need to ignore kittens to let them work up the courage to investigate you.

Under the TV is the trash bin, and the blue bin next to it is storage for litter. I like to bring home several boxes at a time, and emptying them out and putting it in the storage bin allows me to mix in less desirable litter with better options so I don't end up with only less than desirable litter. Also, this way my foster room doesn't look like an advertisement for any particular brand of litter.

To the left of the bin is my litter box box.  We made this years ago when we wanted to put a litter box upstairs in our previous house because our oldest cat had arthritis. There is no back on it to make it easy and less confining. We remade it last year so the base is easier to clean and so it can be a photo studio.

When you lift the padded top, there is a board there so I can put kittens and props on it. I bought a few large pieces of fabric to cover it to make it look a bit more professional. And when you lift up that board, there are litter boxes.. 

there is enough room for two boxes in the box, and then we extended the sides so we can put a third box in the back if need be.  When I have six kittens, I definitely need. Right now that third box is outside of the box near the futon because the current batch of kittens is using that area. In a week or so I plan on moving it in here to contain the litter spillage.  Kittens LOVE to play in litter and spread it around. Containing the boxes in this box keeps that down a bit.

And that concludes the tour around the room, as just to the left of the box is the futon couch again. On to the cabinet.

On the right side is a single door. Here I keep the food, bowls, extra water, paper towels, and day to day supplements or medications needed for the kittens. I keep a little extra space for dishing out the food. I keep towels for bedding when needed, the baby scale for weighing kittens, and the bottom usually has blankets in it, but I was using it for some extra food I had.

On the double side, I bought a hanging sweater organizer and a plastic chest of drawers so I could store the little things. The organizer holds face cloths, small hand towels, small blankets for bedding and more towels. the bottom bucket holds new and unused toys. On top of the plastic bins I keep a plastic bag filled with plastic bags for scooping litter.  In the bins are various bits of hardware and software necessary for fostering and upkeep of the room.  Some tape and scissors, etc. I keep medications and supplements in another drawer, random things like glucometers that I've used for caring for diabetic cats are in there. One draw has some old props that I intend to try to use again. The last drawer has trash bags for trash and recycling.  You can see a bit of a nursing scrub top I have in there when I have sick kittens and I want to try to keep contamination down to a minimum... also helps when I have very messy orphaned kittens.  Hanging up on the rod are a few sweaters I used for Charlotte in the past and I occasionally stick on kittens for fun (and socialization) 

Well, it looks like the kittens are up.. Time to play!