weaning

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

How do you call the foster coordinator to tell her you’ve lost the nursing Momma?

I imagined the conversation would go something like this: “Don’t worry, it happens, she probably had an infection, or a heart attack due to all the stress. No, we lost her. I know. No, lost. She’s not dead, we cannot find her. You let her outside? No. We let her loose in the house to stretch her paws and she’s been missing for 8 hours. Do you live in Buckingham Palace? No, Fort Knox. We have cameras everywhere and alarms on all doors and still cannot find a trace of her. Not a shadow, not a sniff, not a meow. She has never meowed once anyway. She’s like a ghost.“

That was yesterday. We looked in every nook and cranny of our house. Under beds, inside pantry and cabinets, behind bookcases and appliances. Inside the armchairs and suitcases. Panic sets in. We have to feed the kittens. Oh no, we have to bottle-feed the kittens again. Will they take to a bottle now that they’ve had Momma for so long? Look, they like wet cat food! So we slowly fed them wet food by hand.

Around 2 am, Kodi started pawing at the drapes, and there was Duchess. Starving. Not a hint of guilt or remorse! We have no idea where she had been hiding all day. She’d been cooped up in that playpen for 3 weeks now and she’s a very dedicated mom. But she has to be going crazy so we decided to let her roam around. I am not sure we’ll do that again!

And she’s getting a collar, of a fluorescent color, with a bell, and a Tile™ on it!