spooky

You know what these little buggers are?

photo courtesy of CDC

These little nasties are giardiases - protozoan parasites that wreak havoc on a kitty's intestinal tract.

6 exuberant kittens + zillions of giardiases = nasty mess

I spoke too soon yesterday, Belle and Ranger's homecomings have now been delayed while we work to eradicate this parasite. Seven days of administering bitter medicine, twice a day. And since the kittens have been mingling with the adult cats and using their litter boxes, the adult cats are all being treated too. Oh joy!

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On a less spooky and completely unrelated note, it's halloween!  To celebrate, Laura made these chocolate cat cookies filled with peanut butter filling. Yum!

Happy Halloween!!

homes

The kittens have been spending a lot of time outside their cages lately. It's hard to get good pictures of them because they are always running! It takes about 3 hours of running around before they finally crash.

Felix, Ranger and Rori

Belle and Ranger (could be Rori)

They love turning the cat tree into a kitten tree!

Doc and Rori

Felix and Diva

Doc

Ranger and Belle go to their new homes today. They're both super sweet and I'll miss them.

Belle

Ranger

These feral born kittens were found huddled up, shivering on a woodpile, but that was not to be their destiny - they will forever be spoiled inside kitties! Please join me in wishing them well in their new lives. Each are going into homes with existing kitties, so no chance of them being bored! Hopefully they don't drive their new kitty pals nuts with their non-stop desire to play. 

Now to find homes for Doc, Rori, Felix and Diva...

family bonds

Even Pierre and Oliver are getting in on cuddle season.

Meanwhile, Belle will more than likely go to her new home today and Ranger hopefully will go to his home on Wednesday. It occurred to me that as I adopt each kitten out, they will probably never see their siblings again. That feels awful. I know they will have plenty to enjoy in their new lives, but it makes me really sad knowing they will lose relationship with their biological family.

Before I pack Belle up, I'll tell her to say goodbye to darling siblings for the last time. Makes me cry just thinking about it. I don't think this fostering thing is for me, too emotionally hard.

nap time

What's better than a nap?

A nap with four kitties!

special furs

Humans have the potential to create many amazing things. Over time there have been many great inventions that have forever changed the world.

The wheel	Printing press
Engine	Fake mousie
Interwebs	Fire
Box

Which invention is the best of all time? That's a tough question. Which would you say?

I'm going with what's in this package.

Can you guess what it is?

Before I tell you, let's take a moment to talk about kitty furs. They are super soft, provide an attractive appearance, and keep kitty toasty warm. Several different layers of furs make all this happen. So how come humans don't have furs like these? Humans tend to wear uncomfortable furs - like dress furs or business furs and they freeze in the winter. They later change into more comfortable furs for lounging around the house or sleeping. Silly humans! Why not take a lesson from the kitties and wear your warm snuggle suit all day?!

I must confess, I was one of these silly humans too until I found this life changing discovery.

These are flannel lined chinos from LL Bean!!

This means I now get to secretly wear my soft, snuggle furs on the inside and my business furs on the outside! And I stay toasty warm! This certainly is the best invention of all time! 

dumb humans, kitties discovered this eons ago, now who's the copy cat?

And it gets better - they even make these flannel lined furs with different types of outer furs for different occasions.

I can even get flannel lined upper-furs with business furs on the outside. I don't have any of these yet, but hopefully Santa Paws is reading this.

photo courtesy of LLBean.com

I'm gonna stay toasty, snuggly warm this winter, just like my super soft kitties! Come on winter, I'm ready for you now.

Special thanks to Oliver for assisting with the photo shoot.*

*full disclosure: Oliver was compensated with treats for his participation.

Pet Finder

Exciting news to share - we now have our own shelter page on PetFinder.com! I'm branching out to informally start my own small cat rescue. For now I'm sharing the name Fourwhitepaws, but in time I would like to find a new name that uniquely fits the rescue side of things.

The more TNR I do, the more I will run across friendly homeless cats like Hershey and Simon, who need homes. Having something like Pet Finder as a resource will go a long way to help them find homes.

The Pet Finder shelter page itself is not all that thrilling to see, but the exciting part is that we can now directly list our adoptable cats.  Hershey found Mike (or was it Mike found Hershey?!) using Pet Finder (a friend posted him on their account).

The six kittens are currently listed and I have a few more cats to add for some fellow rescuers. You can see the listed kitties at this link: Fourwhitepaws' adoptable cats.

Handsome Hershey

We had the joy of having Hershey's dad, Mike, over for dinner last weekend. He got to play with all our kitties including the kittens! I think the kittens tuckered him out, they kept going and going! Mike delighted us by sharing many Hershey stories and even some pictures!

Hershey has taken to climbing! He loves perching atop the refrigerator!

He also has been practicing his food mooching skills. Any food left unattended is assumed to be abandoned and thus available for the cat. Unattended can be even for a few seconds. The higher perch gives Hershey a better view for unattended snacks!

Hershey loves hanging out in the cloth grocery bags!

It's always good to get Hershey updates - thanks Mike!

little Belle goes to work

all this play is a lot of work!

every kitty needs a nap at the end of the long work day

Community Cat Day!!

I'm celebrating Feral Cat Day with my former feral, Oliver.

Extra loves and treats for my special sweet boy. I have him to thank for introducing me to TNR, which in turn has helped many other feral cats.

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On a different note, guess what I saw last night? - yep, they were doing it again!!

Nahum and Theo must cuddle more frequently than I ever knew! 

I bet they're practicing for the next Cat Olympics - going for the gold!

Willow, cuddling with me

midnight treasures

Woke up in the middle of the night and saw this...

... makes me wonder what other beautiful sights I miss seeing while I sleep!

Simon's new life

Simon's very happy in his new home!! Yea!! Simon's mom sends me regular updates via text messages, which I'm immensely thankful for! For those that don't remember, on Sept 22, Simon found his new home, which consists of mom and her 10 year old daughter and 7 year old son. Here's the official word:

After Simon's first night in his new home, I texted Simon's mom and asked how things went and where he slept overnight.

Sept 23:

Sleep? Haha! He played, sat in the window for the longest time. but when he was quiet, he did lay on the bench, and the rug in front of the mirror. He came up on the bed for head rubs and purrs. Not a lot of sleep happened for either of us last night.

Sept 24:

Great day and eve.  Set an appt for a week from Sat to meet his new vet, do an exam and get his last shot.  He is surely getting more comfortable!  Slept well last night and is just snuggling in tonight.  He LOVES the feather you bought for him....and the kids have become quite skilled at it too!  

Sept 29:

Simons new kitty condo!  He is in love!!

October 6:

Simon went to the vet Saturday for his booster.  He did great.  He is loving the sunny fall!  His favorite thing is laying on the hardwood floors with the sun beaming through the slider.   Spencer said tonight....there couldn't have been a better addition to our family!

October 8:

His favorite place!

Uncle!

I let the kittens free in the house for a time. Oh boy!! Instant crazy!

The big boys had a good time playing with the tiny ones!

Willow's not impressed

Willow watches the madness from a safe place

Nahum, in his happy place

I am Mufasa!

Theo became quite the fun uncle! That really surprised me, I figured Nahum would be the one to romp and be silly with the kittens. Nahum did play but Theo really let his inner-kitten out and went silly with them.

Watching kittens run all over is got to be one of the funnest things ever. They don't quite have the running thing figured out, it's more of a hopping motion with their backend going way in the air! Too much power in those back legs, not enough weight. I haven't laughed that much in ages - such a delight! 

I think we'll be getting two of the brown tabbies back soon from their temporary foster home. Soon we'll have five! Then in another week, Diva will return and all six will be reunited! The crazy is just beginning...