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Debugging Norton

Long story short: we have 6 new kittens and one of them had a botfly. A what? A botfly. A nasty bug that lives under some mammals’ skin. It’s gross. It’s repulsive. It’s disgusting.

One of the kittens we got two weeks ago, at two weeks of age, started having some blood around its neck. I thought it was from its collar, so I removed the collar. The wound did not disappear. After a closer look, I saw a hole in the skin. An absolutely round hole. Strange. Whatever. A couple of days later, the hole is still a perfect circle. I google “hole in kitten skin”. As it happens often when you google stuff, you find the worst. And the worst it was: a thing living under the skin in my baby’s neck.

Off to the shelter we go. They look at it, confirm it’s a botfly, but reassure me that they looked and it’s not there anymore. Gone. Matured and went away. We just need to keep it clean.

Home we go. And wait. And wait a few more days. And clean the hole. And the hole is still there, still round, and growing. Stuff is oozing out of it. Kitten doesn’t want to eat. One day. Two days. I go back on google and get the flashlight out (the mega flashlight). And right there, the bug is staring me in the face. I swear. That thing had two beady eyes and looked at me, and rolled onto itself back into the hole. But the vet staff at the clinic told me it is gone. I am seeing things. I don’t know what I am talking about. Yet I have this nagging feeling that there’s a monster in my kitten’s neck.

Off to our vet we go. The one we pay for! The one who’s super awesome. Of course we arrive not long before they close, because emergencies (or what my nerves convinced me by then was an emergency) never happen at convenient times.

And I was right. There was a bug there. Dr. Karen Burlone, veterinarian extraordinaire, got the monster out. After removing it, she came into the room and asked us, with a glitter of pride and disgust at the same time “wanna see it? It’s huge!”. She brought the thing back into a little cup. The nastiest thing you have ever seen. A black bug, about the size of a normal olive, still wriggling in the formaldehyde. With two little beady eyes at one end of it. Yuck. Yuck. Yucky.

img_1257-1 — The monster. The botfly. GROSSSSSSS.

My baby is saved. And he (we now believe it’s a male kitten) fell asleep on my shoulder.

Back to home we go. And like a champ he ate. We call him Norton. Because he got debugged!

June 14, 2019June 15, 2019 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, bottle, Cat, foster, Karen Burlone, kitten, name, orphan, parasite, rescue, shelter Leave a comment

Eenie Meenie Mineymoe

We are up to 8 cats in the house. That’s a lot of cats. Three residents, two fosters and now three temporarily Buckaroos.

Three mini cats were brought to the shelter today. I don’t know their story. They are about a month old though I have not looked at their teeth carefully. All are black. Their eyes are still blue. If we were to keep them, we would learn to differentiate them by we only are fosters until Sunday. One has white fuzz on its tummy, one is a shade more brown, and one is very tiny. For now, for us, they are indistinguishably Eenie, Meenie, and Mineymoe. Gender unknown!

I was told they can feed themselves. Big lie! That’s a bait and switch! I was promised carefree kittens but was given little piggies who step in their saucer of milk and leave little sticky paw prints all over my bathroom floor. They’re adorable!!! They will spend the next two days in my bathroom, with a heating pad, a stuffed bear with a beating heart, a saucer of kitten milk and one of wet food, and a litter box. I doubt they will know what to do with the latter, and expect to find litter everywhere tomorrow, as well as poo everywhere except in that box. I feed them with a bottle. Since I have no clue who’s who, once they’re fed, hop, I toss them in the bathtub.

Who’s not getting much sleep tonight?!!

August 3, 2018February 24, 2019 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: bottle, bottle feeding, Cat, feeding, gender, kitten, name, nursing, orphan, rescue, shelter, wet food Leave a comment

Rocky’s a girl!

Rocky’s a Rockette! A little girl in pink! A sweet pea. And here we thought she was a tough little tumbling boy, the little bitty aggressor, always winning the wresting matches with her brother.

I had her neutering scheduled for Monday and we took both kittens to the shelter clinic for their shots. I mentioned tomorrow is “loose your nuts” day, and the vet tech looks at me funny and says “You know Rocky’s a girl, right?” Oh boy, we felt dumb!

So, on Monday I dropped off a kitten for spaying instead of neutering, and paid the fee for spaying, and not neutering. Ouch!

She couldn’t care less either way. The surgery didn’t affect her one bit. She’s alert, running around, and does not seem to be in pain.

And just like that, Rocky became Rockie.

rockie

July 31, 2018June 15, 2019 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, Cat, gender, kitten, name, naming, neutering, portrait, shelter, spaying 1 Comment

Meet Henry

Rocky needed a playmate. He loves playing with Kodi but I, a human who is fairly new to orphan kitten behavior, decided he could benefit from having a buddy his age to wrestle with. Kittens are aplenty in the shelters, and after a few days of placing the request, I got a photo of a tuxedo cat. And off to the shelter I go. But not without first asking my big guy if he agrees. He does of course.

They handed me a wild little thing! It screeched all the way back home, trying to claw its way out of the carrier. Not a happy camper!

I let him roam around a bit in the bathroom before giving it a bath. Have you ever given a cat a bath? That in itself should be its own reality show. Cats do NOT like water. And cats have claws, which explains why I now sport all kinds of injuries on my wrists! But I think I got 90% of the fleas out.

It’s a rather big kitten, bigger than Rocky, yet its teeth are less developed. It’s a boy. And he hisses and screams like a feral cat when he’s not happy. But over the course of one evening, he became a very loving, happy, free kitten.

His name is Henry, to be pronounced with a stiff upper lip. He’s black and white. My relative Henry was colorblind. Hence Henry. More specifically, Henry Of the Poisonous Claws. Yes, we think that’s funny!

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July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, animal rights, behavior, carrier, Cat, claws, kingwood, kitten, name, naming, orphan, parasite, portrait, rescue, shelter 1 Comment

Rocky the Rock Star

Meet Rocky, our little RockaPoo, RockaDoddle, RockaRama and many others.

As can be expected, we love our new baby. He’s been through a lot (and so have we). He’s a fighter, a mighty cat, a survivor. Hence his name: Rocky. Because you know, the Survivor song, theme of the movie Rocky.

He’s a bit small for 5 weeks old, but has a ton of oomph in him. He has never learned to suck on a bottle, preferring instead to chew on the nipple to get the milk to come. Lately, he’s simply chewed the nipples off. So, he’s pretty much off the bottle now. It’s a bit early but he’s lapping the milk out of a bowl, which, in turn, is a bit early for a kitten to do. He also uses his litter box and eats wet food out of the can. He’s a big boy. He rocks.

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He doesn’t have a litter mate obviously, but Kodi is a great big brother. Whenever we take Rocky out of the playpen, Kodi comes running, and proceeds to annoy him. He knocks him down, paws at him, bites him, wrestles with him, and then gives him a tongue bath… We were a tad concerned when we heard some pitiful meows, but then saw the tiny one attacking his brother’s tail, so it can’t be too bad! We now let Rocky loose in the house for an hour or so, and if we lose sight of him (he’s so fast and tiny and climbs into crevices), all we have to do is look for Kodi, who, inevitably will be staring at that mini fur ball.

He’s the best. He’s simply the best. Better than all the rest…

June 25, 2018August 2, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, bottle, bottle feeding, Cat, feeding, kingwood, kitten, litter training, name, naming, nursing, orphan, portrait, rescue, shelter, weaning, wet food 2 Comments

Bye Bye Boo

Boo died today, at 12:35pm. He spent the morning on my chest while I was reading, making little noises, crawling back towards my neck before falling asleep. At noon, I got out of bed (don’t judge me until you feed bottle kittens around the clock) to get ready to take the whole crew to the vet. When I picked him up, he died in my hands, just like that.

Boo is the only one we had really named. He came with nasty flea bites on his tail. He had booboos on his tail, hence Boo.

He was the biggest of the three, strong and always hungry, the first to learn to latch on the nipple. Yesterday, he started being finicky, and had diarrhea. At midnight, my husband woke me up because Boo was refusing food. We got some Pedialyte to rehydrate him. We planned on being at the clinic when they opened at 1:00pm. Boo didn’t make it.

It was none of the common parasites. Kittens are fragile creatures and can take a turn for the worse in a matter of hours. I don’t even have a picture of him with his eyes open.

We are naming the other ones The Boos. You are gone Baby Boo, but you will not be forgotten.

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May 31, 2018June 6, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: bottle feeding, Cat, death, feeding, kingwood, kitten, name, naming, nursing, orphan, parasite, portrait, rescue, shelter Leave a comment

Bye Bye Fuzzies

Duchess and her kittens have found a new foster home. We will be traveling too much in the next few weeks to be able to care for them correctly. They have been “handed over” to a rescue organization, and now have a full room to themselves, that they share with two black feline siblings.

It’s all quiet in here. And it no longer smells of poo! I miss getting up in the morning, checking on them, and being welcomed by five balls of fuzz. But my job is to get them out of the danger zone (ta ta tammmmm!) and onto their new life.

5 fuzzies

Bye bye Duchess, Leia, Gracie, Gino, Cali and MiniDee. Have a great life.

April 8, 2018May 24, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, Cat, duchess, kingwood, kitten, name, nursing, orphan, portrait, rescue, shelter, the aristocats Leave a comment

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…

March 11, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, Cat, duchess, feeding, kingwood, kitten, litter, litter training, name, naming, nursing queen, orphan, queen, rescue, security camera, shelter, the aristocats 1 Comment

160 claws

My niece pointed out last night that we now have 8 cats in the house.

8 cats x 4 paws x 5 claws = 160 claws!!!

Because we have acquired 5 bottle babies yesterday evening. Plus our two girls, and Kodi.

As can be expected, they are super cute. They look like hamsters. They are about twice the size of the Floofs when we got them, and not much older but way more fluffy. Their eyes are closed, the umbilical cord still attached. Their mom was killed*.

The feeding schedule is very unpleasant of course, but I knew what I was getting myself into (did I?).

So, meet the …

We don’t really have a name for them yet. The Moops? The Moopits? The Moonpies? None of them sticks yet. And they don’t have individual name either, we refer them by color: light one, dark one, orange one, grey one and calico.

Once again: bye bye sleep!

* There really should be enforceable laws against people who voluntarily kill an animal without “good” reason.

March 1, 2018March 3, 2018 by Kitty Vindaloo Tags: adoption, animal rights, bottle, bottle feeding, Cat, claws, feeding, kingwood, kitten, name, orphan, rescue, shelter 1 Comment

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.