So, Jenn now allows Dora (the kitten’s new name, as given by my mom, who will be the designated adopter if no one responds to the Found Pet ad in the Daily Press and the Star) out of the nursery for a few hours at a time while shutting the other cats in the master bedroom.
The first day, she explored all over, but now, she’s pretty mellow. She sat under my feet last night as I was beating my head against the wall running through Sethekk Halls on Heroic mode in World of Warcraft, and she chilled out with us on the sofa while we were watching three-quarters of the final Sopranos season on DVD this weekend.
She’s been out with Lucky once or twice, on the theory that he’s the most mellow of the two Hesperia Yarbrough cats. They kept their distance and hissed a little bit at each other. I’m told — via text message — that they’re no longer hissing at each other, but each doing their own thing in the house currently.
The nursery is very musky, and I suspect that Dora is not only not fixed, but she’s in heat. She’s still underfed, though — it’s impressive to see how she eats for such a little kid — so she hasn’t done all the yowling normally associated with cats being in heat. We’ll get all vaccinated up once the Found Pet ads run their course. If she’s moving to Oakland, though, it’s probably better for her to get her operation up there and recover in her new home.
She still doesn’t meow, just squeaks like a squeak toy. She’s allowed me to trim one paw’s nails. After the school board meeting tonight, and writing up the subsequent story (or stories), I’ll work on paw number two.
She’s a good kid. My folks are getting a good deal here.
The found pet ad for the kitten will run from Saturday to Saturday in the Daily Press (combining the found pet package with my free employee classified ad package) and next week in the Hesperia Star. My guess is that the kitten is not going to be claimed, but I have to try; I’d want someone who found Lucky or Hanna to do so.
If she’s not claimed, it seems like she may have a family ready to adopt her. And good thing, too, since Hanna and Lucky seem ambivalent at best and uncomfortable at worst with her presence in the nursery. Still, she’s sweet and friendly. This weekend, she gets her nails trimmed.
James rolled over for the first time today.
Today, rolling. Tomorrow, crawling. The day after that, “Dad, can I borrow the car keys?”
So, we took the stray kitten to the vet yesterday. She is not, in fact, two months old, she’s seven months old, according to Dr. Ahmed, based on her teeth. And that means she hasn’t been hungry for a week; it’s been a good long time since she’s had good access to food. The two young work kittens at Ellis Truss, Lucy and Ethel, are about her age, but probably weigh half again as much as Coyote.
She got an antibiotic shot for her battle wound and we get the fun of giving her kitty penicillin for a week — we’re old hands at this, after having an elderly cat for years — which she fortunately doesn’t object to strenuously.
I’m placing a Found Pet ad in the Daily Press/Hesperia Star. We’ll see if anyone’s looking for her. Given how long she’s been hungry, I’m skeptical.
In the wake of last week’s fires, the adoption channels are currently filled with animals that either escaped or were outright abandoned by Lake Arrowhead residents. It’ll take months at least before things return to normal.
In the interim, I think we’ll just hold onto Coyote and find her a home, if we need to, later on.
She’s still staying in the nursery — and is doing fine — until we get her vaccinated next week. I also want to get a chance to see if she’s got any health issues.
So, we’ve got a house guest staying in the baby’s room. (James sleeps in his Pack & Play bassinet in the master bedroom and sometimes sneaks into the big bed.)
This little tortoiseshell cat first showed up last Monday after the school board meeting, hungry and desperate for affection, trying to dart into the house when Jenn opened the door to the Domino’s Pizza guy. Our best guess is the cat is about two months old. We figured she’d gotten lost after being let out of a neighbors’ house. Jenn fed and watered her, and the kitten left around midnight.
Saturday night, she showed up at our back door, this time with a cut over one eye, filthy and dirty and missing a patch of hair where someone had decided to claw her. She was starving and trying to get in through the back door or the master bedroom window. Clearly, she hadn’t been home since we last saw her, and given how she wolfed down a can of cat food, and then tucked into dry food and then gulped a whole bunch of water, hadn’t been sleeping, eating or drinking well, either.
Given that there’s a big stray tomcat in the neighborhood who looks like he’s won more than a few fights in the neighborhood — not to mention actual coyotes in the area — we brought her in the house. Not wanting to expose Hanna and Lucky (not to mention James) to fleas, ticks or worse, we put her in the nursery, along with her own litter box and food and water. (The tomcat stopped by our back porch about 90 minutes later.)
Today, after I attend the opening of Canyon Ridge High School, we’re going to take the cat (code-named Coyote) to Hesperia Animal Hospital, get her cut cleaned up, get her the basic shots and have her checked out, flea-dipped, et cetera. Then we’ll look in the Daily Press and on local utility poles for ads looking for a missing tortoiseshell cat. If that doesn’t work out, we get to figure out whether we want to try to integrate her into a house with a pair of two year old cats and a baby or place her with the animal foster system that we originally got Hanna and Lucky from.
Jenn’s trying hard not to get too attached to Coyote, although she was the one who figured out (or guessed) that the cat showed up on our doorstep on Saturday, two years to the day Motley Sue passed away, which is certainly a weird sort of coincidence.
The cat’s very sweet, and I’ve already brought Lucky in to check her out briefly, which went off without incident, but it’s too soon to know what we’re going to do here.
In any case, she’s a cute, sweet kitten. If you know who she belongs to, let me know.
|
|
