Our Duchess

Not much to say here.  All is good with Momma and her kittens.  I want to brag and show you the most precious 12 day-old kittens in the whole wide world.  

Momma cat has a new name, temporary since we are only fostering her.  She is Duchess, named after the protective mother cat in The Aristocats.  She is the sweetest, most devoted mother ever.   

She came to us so traumatized.  For days she would only eat if I fed her.  The camera confirmed that she didn’t get out of her cardboard box.  Now she sometimes sleeps away from the box, in the playpen, on a towel, sometimes even letting all the munchkins away from her.  

She likes me a lot!  She doesn’t know what a hug is, but she’s a lap cat.  I comb her everyday, to get the filth off of her and as a trust-building activity.  I now get kissed and headbutts from our Duchess.  

She has no problem letting us her handle her kittens.  Feeding is pretty much all she does all day.  She has to be bored!  She likes when she sees me walk into the room and climb into the playpen with her.  I keep promising that I will grab a book and spend time with her in there, but I haven’t been good at that.

The only unpleasant thing about her, is that she has to idea what a litter box is for.  I don’t know how to litter train an adult cat.  I followed the advice found on the internet (place poop in there, placing her in the box and showing her how to scratch) but she doesn’t understand.  

It can get smelly in there…

 

Advertisement

The naming game

We have names for The Floofs.

Let me introduce you to Tango de la Floof, Kodi de la Floof and M.C. de la Floof.

Kodi is the little black cat. He looked like a bear cub last week, all chubby and with claws that should be registered as dangerous weapons and would not be allowed on a plane! Bear, grizzly bear, Kodiak bear, Kodi. It suits him perfectly.

M.C. is the baby white kitten. She went from Madame LaFloof, to Mini Floof, to Floofito, Yoda, E.T., and finally M.C. It stands for Mini Cat, Mighty Cat, Martian Cat, MC Hammer, Mountain Cat (she’s climber). You pick. M.C. she is.

The orange one never really had a name until this morning when my husband suggested “Tango”. And for no apparent reason, that cat is a good “Tango”. It’s supposed to be derived from “tangerine”.

We had their second photo shoot last night. I thought it was time to introduce them to the world of books and the writings of Cleveland Amory on cats is a perfect choice.

.

 

 

Staying aliiiive

We almost lost Madame LaFloof on Saturday. She had been a finicky eater for a day and then went limp. She had no muscle tone. She was breathing and opening her little mouth to cry but no sound came out. It was heartbreaking. Since it happened around midnight, I went online and diagnosed her (wrongly) as being a “failing kitten”. Prognostic: very bad. The Montgomery County Animal Shelter doesn’t have a 24-hour clinic, so I tried to locate a private facility where I could take her. Thanks to Hurricane Harvey, the Humble clinic is closed, they were flooded. The closest is in the Woodlands, 45 minutes away. That was very bad news, because, in all honesty, I was so tired, so dang tired, and in a panic, that I was not capable of driving there. I wasn’t going to put everybody in jeopardy. Minimize the risks. The next best option is to wait, give her a reiki massage, and go to the shelter the next morning at 9.

Wouldn’t you know, that little Floof proved me wrong, and I love her for that. We brought her to the shelter in a shoe box and she was lifting her head. The vet listened to me and figured out it was hypoglycemia. Little Floof got a shot of something or other, a prescription for Karo syrup (not a paper prescription though!) and off we went. But not before showing the staff that we are capable of raising healthy kittens, by showing off the other two Floofs we had brought along in the carrier (they came because I wasn’t sure how long the visit would take and didn’t want them to miss a feeding).

Yeah for White Floof!

I know I am only her caregiver, not her mommy, not her forever family. She’s not mine to keep. She will go to a good home in a few weeks. But for a few hours, I was heartbroken. I was acting half on crisis mode (what are the immediate needs and solutions) and half on emotions. I was planning her little burial, deciding what to wrap her in. My husband and I agreed that if the worse happened at the vet, we were bringing her home.

Two days later, she’s adorable, a feisty little bundle of wiggles, who already has lost one of her nine lives!

Day 5 – I think

I have lost track of time.  I am so tired.  So so tired. Yet there is a feeling of accomplishing something nice.  Waking up every 2 hours to feed the Floofs, without a night break is exhausting. Hubby is helping a lot.  He takes over some feedings and is the cuddler in chief.  He’s awesome.

All The Floofs are alive.  The little white one was very much underweight but has shot up yesterday, putting on a full 14 grams in a day.  She has been named Madame LaFloof.  I had a dream that she had died due to constipation, so now we check them all very carefully for poop.  And seeing poop is a victory, even if you have to manually extract it.  Yuck, yet Yeah…

The other two kittens are still nameless.  Wendy didn’t stick.

Yesterday, after weighing, cleaning and feeding, we had their first photo shoot.  I think I heard one whispering “I am ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille”.

Madame LaFloof
Madame LaFloof
The Black FloofThe Orange Floof

Meet The Floofs

1pm. I get a text: “just in” with a picture of a kitten.

Run to the car I go. Drive off. Come back to the house I must because I forgot the cat carrier.

Get to the animal shelter. And I meet three “rats” in a box. Tiny rats. Much smaller than I expected.

Boom. My soul is happy. I am going to be a kitty mommy.

I started feeding them while the paperwork was being filled out. Honestly, I have no idea what I signed. I may very well have given my house away!  Who reads those things anyway? Damned lawyers 😉

For now they are “The Floofs”. No reason why. A white one, an orange one, and a black one. Don’t ask if they are male or female. I checked. No clue!

I named the orange one Wendy, because I went to Wendy’s on the way back and stacked up on burgers since I will be house bound for a while. The black one has become “Goulu” which means “one who eats a lot” in French. The white one doesn’t have a name yet. I have decided she’s a girl. And she’s the smallest of the litter, at 65 grams, which is about the weight of 2 fun size Snickers. I will have to monitor her carefully since she didn’t eat well. But she’s got a set of lungs on her!

Bye bye sleep!