foster update

Who knew kitten taming would be so much work?! Well, it's not so much the work as the time - time to hold them and love on them when I have to work and tend to the other cats. The cute factor is off the charts!

Little Belle overwhelms me with her cutes

All of them are darling cute. 

Some of them still hiss when I approach, but once they are being held, they settle in.

My friend who trapped the kittens, is what I would call a "kitten specialist". She had an opening in her house for some kittens, so I jumped at the chance to give these little ones some time with a "master" kitten tamer. In her care, they will soon be little fuzzy bundles of purr. I'm not sure how long she will have them for though as I heard something about some bottle babies coming her way - anytime they get with her will be greatly beneficial. Meanwhile, I'll be moving a large cage into my dining room for when they come back.

On the day we trapped the kittens' mom, we also trapped a small friendly young adult boy, who was unaltered and not microchipped. Trapping friendlies always caused me much stress because what do you do with them? So many people here dump their pet cats when they move, so there are lots of homeless friendly cats. This guy could have a home and humans who miss him. The last thing I want to do is take someone's loved cat and rehome them - but the opposite could be true too, he may be homeless. No way do I want to release a super-affectionate cat to be homeless again when I could easily find him a home.

Such is my dilemma with Simon.

Simon is a beautiful gray/cream and white super-affectionate cat. 

More than anything else, he loves to have his head rubbed!

How can I turn this lover boy back out on the street

 not knowing if he has people caring for him?

I decided to hang some "found cat" posters around where I trapped him, put an "found cat" ad on Craigslist and the person who's property he was trapped on talked with some neighbors who we thought he might belong to. It's been nearly a week and so far nothing. I'm thinking I will give his humans one more week and if they don't come forward or post "lost cat" signs, then I'll find him a new home.

soak it up

Enjoy every sun puddle

for the sun will not be around much longer

crazy cute!

Look what I got?!!

Six teeny tiny feral kittens! They were trapped by a colleague on Wednesday at a TNR site we are working on. She went to assess the site and found these six kittens shivering in a pile. 15 minutes later she had three in each trap!

We believe them to be 10 weeks old (dating from which teeth are in). We suspect they are undersized due to coccidia, a nasty intestinal parasite. Once that nasty bug is gone they should start growing like weeds!

The kittens are all staying in the feral cat holding pen I built as part of my TNR Operations Center in the garage. They LOVE the heating pad!

 

This little girl has goobers in her eyes, something we are treating as well.

There are four girls and two boys - three brown tabbies, one black and gray tabby, a solid black, and a black and white. Most of them are just over a pound and two are around 11 ounces. Tiny!

This is my first foray into kitten taming! They are darling cute! A few of them will hiss when I approach but none have tried to bite. Things will improve when they are more healthy (no diarrhea) and more consistently using the litter box. I've got a lot to learn about kittens, and I'm thankful to have TNR-friends who are eager to teach me.  Meanwhile, you'll find me hanging out in the garage...

A full weekend of cats

What a glorious weekend we had, filled with hundreds of cats and cat people! This weekend was TICA's Annual International Cat Show. I learned a lot about TICA at the show, they are the largest cat registry in the world. I was very impressed that they support spay and neuter by allowing altered pedigreed cats and altered household pets to compete in their shows. Each have their own category. They even were handing out a nice brochure promoting spay and neuter of cats.

I took a lot of pictures, but I didn't want to use the flash, so some are a little blurry. I tried to just pick out a few to share that would give you a glimpse into this awesome event. This was by far the largest cat show I've attended, with 12 rings and close to 500 cats. Judges were from all over the world and people came from great distances to enter their cats.

The venue was very comfortable and pleasant.

Lots of great vendors as always. 

I found a travel bag that fits Nahum, more on that in a later post!

This judge is starting with Bengal kittens first thing in the morning, which are 

very noisy and rambunctious! He noted he would have no trouble staying awake!

I love seeing the judges enjoy the cats!

One of the things I enjoy about going to these shows is 

getting to see so many different cat breeds.

There were quite a few Norwegian Forest Cats in attendance as well as Maine Coons. 

Even a bunch of Siberians too. A fluffy cat convention!

The judge from Argentina, enjoying a Maine Coon kitten

cages full of Nahum look-alikes

This judge was awesome, she really liked to get up close and personal with each cat.

She concluded her assessment with a kiss!

Oliver's stand-in

A large Maine Coon

With so many Maine Coons, Norwegian Forest Cats and Siberians in attendance, we were able to fine tune our best guess about Nahum's lineage. After looking at a lot of fluffy cats and talking with their owners, in the end, we think that Nahum most resembles the Siberian. The female Siberians even look a lot like Willow, Nahum's cute little sister.

A female Siberian, who looks like a fluffy version of Willow! 

This girl was for sale, and I sure wanted to take her home!

Fluffy Siberian

The Siberian has a fluffy coat like Nahum, a broad nose and large boned legs.

This was such a wonderful show. Well organized and the great venue made it super comfortable. It was fun to see so many spectators enjoying the cats. The cats seemed to be having a good time too.

TICA generously provided a huge exhibit space to the Community Cat Coalition, the TNR education group I work with. A team of volunteers worked the space and educated a lot of people about the importance of TNR. TICA even offered a discount on show admission if people brought cat food to donate to the CCC's "feral barrels", food that goes to feral colonies around the area. A lot of feral cats will be well fed thanks to TICA's generosity. 

Some TNR'ed rescue cats were available for adoption, many of which competed in the Household Pet category of the show! A sweet black and white, Ambrosia, was a show favorite, she took home quite a few ribbons! Several of these cats even found their new forever homes!

And if that wasn't enough cats and cat people for a day, we went home after the show and made the final preparations for the second annual Community Cat Coalition Labor Day Party, a social we host for the volunteers of the CCC.

Our yard (Oliver's yard) is not very big, but it's big enough for a party!

food!

When the volunteers who were working the cat show arrived with the rescue cats, 

everyone flocked around the table to see the prize winning cats!

Those who stayed later got a special treat. They got to see Pierre firsthand!

Pierre doesn't seem phased by the visitors in his yard, 

as he goes about exploring the new furnishings.

A wonderful cat-filled weekend!! We were all exhausted by the time it was over. Thankfully, it was a long weekend for us. Monday was spent chilling with just our sweet kitties.