Kittens, kittens, where are the kittens??

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you know that when I walked into the kitten room yesterday morning two of the kittens were outside of the basket I am using for a nest for the family. It was so funny watching the two of them swim around the room because they were unable to get their feet underneath them that I had to run back upstairs to get my phone to take some photos and video that I shared on Instagram.

I picked up the kittens and gave them a once over, they seemed totally fine and I put them back in the basket and went off to work.

I brought up the dropcam website and scrolled back through the night to see when the kittens got out of the basket. I was expecting to find they climbed out, but it turns out Mina pulled them out of the basket herself.

I cobbled the video together of what happened. It started at 8 AM and I first went into see them at 8:30ish, so they weren't out for long so I was even less worried. The fact that she attempted to take The Kraken out and got distracted while doing it made me think she simply wanted out of the basket, possibly because I hadn't changed the bedding and it was really starting to smell like her and the kittens - a dangerous thing when there are predators about. I made mental note to change it out when I got home.

Then sometime in the early afternoon she ended up moving all five of them out of the basket and put them under the couch where she hung out so often when she was pregnant.

When you share things like this on social media, you often get advice as to what is going wrong and what you should do. I was told more than once that there must be something wrong with the two kittens she "kicked out" of the nest. One person even stated that I should remove them and hand rear them before Mina smothered them. There was also some speculation that the basket was just too small for the growing family (this has actually been speculated on several times over the past couple of weeks)

I share this as a starting point of a discussion. As you can see by my archives over there, I've been fostering since 2002.  I have no idea how many mothers I've fostered nor how many cats have given birth at my house (I do need to go back through my archives though because I have wondered that many times) but I know it has been a lot.

In my experience, cats do not abandoned kittens because there is 'something wrong' with them. I have had a few younger mothers with larger litters have issues but more because they were overwhelmed with the number of mouths to feed. They have a tendency to move the kittens they want to keep to a new nest while leaving some others behind. When I find that happening I will get some goat milk and feed mom as well as do a feeding with all of the kittens once or twice a day. This is simply a supplement to the nutritious milk that mom provides, and gives her a bit of a break. I would also double up on the monitoring and making sure they are well fed and are gaining weight to try to head off any serious problems.

I have also experienced mother cats care for and protect kittens that had no hope of survival. I had a mother cat continue to love and care for a kitten that had 'something wrong' and who had no hope of getting past her 12 week.

So to simply assume that a kitten outside of the nest has something wrong is a pure myth that needs to die; people need to stop making and sharing that assumption. If I were new to fostering and I had listened to the woman who said that Mina would smother her kittens I would have deprived them of several weeks of the nutrition that mom provides and would have put them on a milk replacer, many of which are made with sugar based and or GMO ingredients. It would have also deprived them of critical socialization time with their siblings. Yes this happens to orphan kittens all the time and they grow up 'just fine' but we really do not know the long term effects. Kitten milk replacer is so very helpful when there is no other options, but in this - and many other instances - we have the option to leave the kits with the mom.

As for the not having enough room, when given choices, mother cats often choose small spaces for their families. I've had a few mothers choose to move their families from where I have them to smaller spaces. They like to keep their kittens close.

So in this case, where were the kittens?? &When I got home from work Mina was sitting in front of the empty basket (see first photo up there at the top of this post)

this cat bed was peeking out from under the couch

Mina apparently isn't very good at the hide part of hide and seek

LADY!! we was sleepin!

The Kraken really does make me laugh

the space they are in vs the space they were in

and they are back in the basket.. but with new bedding

As you can see I changed out the old bedding and I also turned the heat back on in the room. I had turned it off because we have been having such warm weather, but apparently it has been getting cold at night, so part of me wonders if she didn't move them for reasons of warmth. If she moves them again overnight, I will just move the camera to wherever they are and deal with it and maybe I'll set them up in the cage over the weekend and see if that helps.

What cat myths do you wish would stop being spread

Go ahead and squee, I won't tell anyone..

"A kitten is the rosebud in the garden of the animal kingdom."-- Robert Southey

"If only cats grew into kittens."-- R. D. Stern

"A meow massages the heart."-- Stuart McMillan

"Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement,
and love without penalties."-- W.L George

"Happy is the home with at least one cat."-- Italian Proverb

Do you need a breather from all this squee?  Here, inhale deeply from the neck..
It's called kitten huffing, and it is not in the least bit addicting ;)

"Meow is like aloha - it can mean anything."-- Hank Ketchum

"They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription.
I say: Can he name a kitten?"-- Samuel Butler

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."-- Joseph Krutch

"Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow."-- Monica Edwards

"Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched."-- Cervantes

"Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed behavior, that they are so united to creative people."-- Andre Norton

"A cat can purr its way out of anything."-- Donna McCrohan

The Kraken is totally not judging you, not in the least.. 

The Teddy Paw.
What was once seen, can not be unseen

"To gain the friendship of a cat is a difficult thing. The cat is philosophical, metholodical, quiet animal, tenacious of it's own habits, fond of order and cleanliness, and it does not lightly confer its friendship. If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend, but never your slave. He keeps his free will, though he loves, and he will not do for you what he thinks is unreasonable. But if he once gives himself to you it is with absolute confidence and affection"-- Theophile Gautier, 1850

As an aside, kittens are not born with the ability to retract their claws.  That skill comes at around a month of age, so in a couple of weeks they will start being able to pull those little things in. Until then I will just make sure I don't put them on my bare skin.

I do hope you will stop by my giveaway and enter to win a copy of the book "The Good, The Bad and The Fury" We are giving away five copies and right now your chances of winning are very very good.

Oh the life Mina must have had

I have mentioned that Mina's front paw pads were a mess when she got here. Well her feet were quite chapped and covered in dead skin, and now her back feet are really starting to show the damage too. I wonder if she didn't have frost bite at one point. Then the tips of her carpal pads came off after massaging them (and her foot pads) with coconut oil. The rest of the pads are still covered in dead skin so I'm sure she wasn't even aware that they came off.

Every time I rub oil on her feet I come away with multiple flakes of her foot on my fingers, so I know I'm doing some good, but we still have a long way to go. She is also incredibly tolerant of my playing with her feet. I can tell when she is getting annoyed, but all she does is lick me.. LICKS ME! I mean seriously this girl is so sweet she is giving me cavities!!

In the mean time I've come to realize her ears are really bad as well. She has a small divot in one ear and right on it (or under it) she has a small bump. Around that divot the fur came off pretty easily, which concerned me but the ear itself seemed to be in good shape. Well while taking care of her this weekend I notice fur coming off the other ear as well. I took some time and gently rubbed the right ear and quite a bit of fur came off. It was a bit disconcerting, fortunately the skin that is now bare seems in good shape. Sadly my camera has a very hard time focusing on Mina's head when I am up close as it is all black, so this is the best I could do.

This poor girl has been through quite a bit. It is so nice that she is so loving and people orientated and is doing such an amazing job with her kittens that I really haven't had the need to change out the bedding in over a week. Mommakitties are generally just a means to an end here.. I mean I always like them but I rarely bond with them because I know they are moving on, often sooner rather than later, and because I'm spending time getting to know the kittens and helping them understand life with people.. but this girl has such personality and charm.. and trust.. I find myself wishing I knew more about her past and wishing that an amazing awesome home comes along for her.

Sponsored post: Book review: The Good the Bad and the Furry

I was contacted a while ago regarding Tom Cox's new book "The Good, the Bad, and the Furry" (set to be released today).  Having read one of his previous books and recently becoming a fan of My Sad Cat on twitter, I said yes.

And then kittens happened.

But now that the kittens have settled down and are doing well I sat down to give this book a good read - well that was after I wrestled it away from Eli.

Tom Cox has written three books now; he has a very conversational manner, taking you through his life and the intricacies of owning multiple cats.  This one was no different, and was a nice journey with him and The Bear, Ralph, Shipley and the addition of Rosco.

I did have some issues with this book. One is that the tag line is "Life with the world's most melancholy cat" so I kept waiting for the book to start to focus on The Bear, which it never did which to me was very distracting. The Bear does shows up very regularly in the book and often sits on the outskirts of the story, much like you would expect a cat to in a book not focused on cats. I just kept waiting for the focus to shift to The Bear, which was... distracting. My second 'issue' is that there is a pretty heartbreaking death of a kitty on page 27.  Page 27!  I was sitting in my living room just starting this book and had tears running down my cheeks.  It took me a few days to gather up the courage to continue on after that (the rest of the book is pretty safe from tears). Lastly, despite the cover, this is a book about Tom and his life. His cats are a part of that life and he quite often talks about his cats but he also talks about his house, his garden, his thinking about adopting an alpaca, his parents, his girl friend, a frog in a shoe, a guy who stops by to visit and talk about gardening, a stray cat that comes into his home and every other page or so a short story about one of the cats.

I'm also not a fan of his anthropomorphising how much his male cats cared about losing their testicles.  As an advocate for the homeless cats, and running across this attitude as reasons why people don't neuter, I just wanted to grab Tom and shake him and tell him that cats are not like humans and are actually happier without them.

But, that being said, please don't let this deter you from reading this book.  It was very lovely journey through a period of Tom's life. His relationship with his cats and his parents is so sweet and it is so nice to see a man who appreciates cats and enjoys their company, to the point of writing a book about it.

My favorite part of the book starts on my page 209 in the chapter "It's Ralph's World - The Rest of Us Just Live in It":

Nowadays, though, Crazy Cat Lady is entrenched in our psyche. Like all stereotypes, there's a grain of truth to her, but she's a million times more present in that flippant but damaging thing 'Internet banter' than she ever could be in real life. Jokes about Crazy Cat Ladies seem harmless enough, but at their core is a disturbing echo of the hysterical witch superstitions of the late Middle Ages. I've known several women who have wanted to get a cat, or an additional cat, but have hesitated or decided not to, because of 'what it might say about them'.

Personally, I'd like to see the Crazy Cat Lady's name never mentioned again: for the good of the male-female relations, for the good of feminism, for the good of the human self-esteem, for the good of cats - particularly rescue cats. 

Yes yes yes and yes.. thank you for saying it.

I was offered five copies of the book to give away to readers in the USA and Canada. I thought I would do a comment giveaway instead of running another rafflecopter. If you can not or choose not to comment publicly on this post, feel free to email me.

If you don't want to wait, you can buy your own copy on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or iTunes and most likely at your favorite bookseller.

You can also check out Tom's facebook page or on Google+


Comments open for the contest from 4/14/15 to 4/21/15

Catching up with the kittens - two week mark

I am in serious love with these ears

We have had a couple of developments here over the weekend. If you follow along on Facebook, you know I took one of the kittens to the shelter this weekend. Little Zilla was having some discharge from her vulva. In 12+ years I have never seen a kitten have puss discharge from the vulva before. To me this was something that warranted a vet visit, so I took her into the shelter to be seen. As I considered how and when to take her, and reviewing her history in my mind I realized she has had a bit of discharge on her tail now for a couple of days. I originally chalked it up to stool, but considering how well Mina is caring for the kittens that really was my not paying attention. So I brought her in and they were swamped with puppy adoptions so I had to wait to be seen by someone and when they did they were a bit distracted and said that they were okay with a 'wait and see approach'.  I picked off the bit of dry discharge that covered up her vulva again (I had cleaned it off not more than half an hour before) and several more drops oozed right out, so I asked for a second opinion. This time I saw my foster coordinator and she took Zil out back several of the staff who deal with medical issues looked at it and were more concerned about giving her antibiotics at her age than the discharge.

Now I need you to know that Zil has been eating well and putting on weight and acting completely normally. I was okay with 'wait and see'.. even though I REALLY wanted to do more. Another foster mom who has been fostering as long as I have came to see her and said she might put her on Clavamox. That was my opinion too. My foster coordinator who was in the wait and see camp said if it got worse then that is what she would do, so I asked for the antibiotic so I wouldn't have to trek back to the shelter and I was given a bottle with the promise I wouldn't use it without permission. Well yesterday she had more discharge covering her vulva so I sent a message to my coordinator and I got the okay to put her on antibiotics. She is still not showing any outward signs of illness. Her eyes are no longer sealing shut, she is still eating well still putting on weight, still doing well.

So.. I'll be watching her and hopefully this is the worst thing that happens to them in the next few months.

Now.. On to the photos..

The Kraken

Sully

I so do love Sully's face coloring

Zilla

Nessie

Zookey

Zilla. The kittens are starting to realize there is an 'other side' to the basekt

Walking practice