About two and a half years ago my friend tells me that she's moving into the city and that Kitty won't like the concrete jungle since she's used to the outskirts of town. Kitty came up to my friend when she was little with a collar on her that was too tight. My friend snipped it off her and it was like the lion with the thorn in the paw and the mouse who pulls it out, instant love. She named her Kitty so everyone would know her name since she's an all black kitty cat. She came fixed already so she became the indoor/outdoor cat. The ONLY cat. When my friend moved I had mentioned that I was having troubles with mice and rats and I was putting out strictnine to solve the problem. A cat would be a more environmentally fit solution to my problem and since Kitty came pre-trained and acclimated to the area, I took her in. Things were fine for the first couple years. She was the only Sheriff in town and she let it be known to the other rodents. Step out of line and you end up as a trophy on my floor next to my bed. :) After she brought home the first rabbit, we had to have a little chat. NO MORE BUNNIES!
Fast forward to last fall. Where I live is served by buses every day of the week except Sunday. It's the only downside to living in an oh-so-picturesque part of town. It's like waking up to vacation scenery every day. On Sundays I have to walk 2 miles to the nearest bus stop that has service. Usually takes me about 45 to 55-ish minutes. One fall Sunday evening I'm walking home and I get to the bottom of the street where it meets back up to the highway. In the ivy on the right side of the road I hear frantic meowing. At first I thought it was Kitty who had tracked me this far and lost my scent when I crossed the highway. OMG Let me rescue her and take her home. When I found the source of the meowing, Kitty's face didn't pop out. Instead it was a greyish tabby with coffee-stains and some tan like she has some Calico in her. I scooped her up and tucked her under my arm just as a truck passed by and she wriggled loose and dove back into the ivy. Another search revealed her again and I made sure I had a good hold on her since I still had about a 10 minute walk home. She screamed the whole way home since I had to walk on the busy shoulder of the highway and at one time she pooped on me! I got her home and the first thing I did was shove a dish of food in her face. It took a few seconds but munch munch munch occurred. When Kitty came in expecting to find her supper dish waiting for her, she found another cat instead. I tried to explain to Kitty how I found this one on the side of the highway and how some dumbass had dumped her out but Kitty wasn't having any of it. I rounded up the little one and fed Kitty since I knew she would disappear into the night for her night time activities. The little one can hang out here with me and get acclimated to things.
I had planned on taking her to the vet and getting her checked out but since I grew up on a farm and Brother wanted to be a Vet Tech for awhile, I knew pretty much what to look (feel) for and everything checked out OK. She wreaked of perfume so I know she had been to a groomer and when I looked at her front paws I noticed her claws had been clipped SUPER SHORT! If I hadn't of found this cat she would of died since she had no claws to be able to hunt with! It took about a month for them to grow back out and she didn't do any of the normal scratchy things cats do. More or less everything seemed OK and since I live on a fixed income, I have some time before she hits a heat cycle and wants to have bootie-secks. I found out the hard way that cats don't show a heat cycle like dogs do. I'm used to dogs when they hit a heat cycle, their butt will swell up and stink, they'll start bleeding, etc etc etc and I never saw any of this so I figured she had been fixed already. At one point I noticed she started putting on weight and I figured she must be feasting on animals she's hunting in the woods. I remember her plopping on my bed one night and making her way under the covers and I turned over and went back to sleep. I woke up the next morning after I rolled over on her and she mewwed to let me know that I had and when I reached down to pet her I felt something small damp and fuzzy. Pull the covers back and there's three (count 'em, one two three) three brand new babies. I had two black and white ones and one brown tabby. Daddy must of been black and white and the little tabby tiger comes from Mama. daddy must be semi-feral-ish since I had a little bit of trouble socializing the two dairy cows (my black and white ones, one boy and one girl). After a couple weeks of me petting and playing with the whole bunch they started to warm up. I also knew I wasn't keeping them since I cannot make up my mind which one I would keep so they all gotta go.
While they were growing up and Mama is still milking them, I'm starting to litterbox train them. I saw a video on the Youtube from a crazy cat person called the Kitten Lady. She said to put an empty pan in their box to get them used to the idea of it. Perfect. The next time I'm at Safeway I'll stop at the hot bar and grab a couple of those To-Go dishes since they're kitten sized. When I first put one in the box, they thought it was a toy and had many fun times picking it up with their mouths and chewing on it. It wasn't until a couple weeks later that I put some shitty gritty into the pan (that's what I call cat litter!) and they all investigated it but were still sorta unsure what to do with it. One morning the dots connected and I woke up to poop and pede in the pan! I scooped it all out and topped it off with fresh litter and except for the occasional misfire, everything works out fine with all three of them. I realized they were interested in hard food when I fed Mama one night and I had kibble dust on my hands and I pulled the kittens out of the box to play with them while I waited on Mama to eat (I use the same pyrex dish to feed everyone with) they smelled the kibble dust on my hands and started licking it. I reached over in Mama's dish and grabbed a small handfull of kibble and put it on the bed in front of them and they went about investigating it. When the dots connected that this stuff goes in the mouth YUM YUM YUM SNARF SNARF SNARF down it went! When they'd finish a little bit I'd give them a little bit more and SNARF SNARF SNARF away it went! This means that I can start moving them over to solid food such as canned cat food and kibble! I put half a can of soft cat food in the dish and moosh it up with a spoon and grab a handfull of kibble and put on top and put the dish in the box with the babies. OM NOM NOM it goes and Mama gets to finish what's left along with another handfull of kibble for her. Another secret unlocked: eating hard food!
I try to play with them for about an hour each night while I'm sitting and watching videos on the Youtube. While I'm doing this I'm refereeing the demolition derby that's happening on my bed. All three of 'em will run up and down my bed and slam into each other like cars at a demolition derby. Every once in awhile I have to call a time out and we gotta stop so I can peel a stripe from the tabby or try to peel a black spot off one of my dairy cows. I'll pick one up and roll it over on the back and shove my face into the belly and OM NOM NOM growl growl growl and the expression on their little faces is priceless! I'll put 'em down and it's like a burst of energy and away we go! I'll grab the next one and eat some belly and send 'em on their way! The other thing I do is when they're all settled down and one is in my lap, I'll start playing and touching their paws. I'll take my finger and rub the toes, the pads, the claws, in between and everything. I'm doing this so that they're used to having their bellies petted (eated!) and if anything needs to be done to their paws, it won't be as much of a fight since they're used to it.
Yesterday I stopped by a pet store and picked up a small kitty carrier. I was gonna take them to a place that had emailed me and told me they were interested in my kittens yesterday but all I had was a paper sack. I got about halfway to the bus stop and all hell broke loose and I had kittens everywhere. I gathered them up and back home I went. Today when I got ready to leave, I fed them at their mostly-usual time (PTSD plays hell when you're trying to sleep and my insomnia is all revved up) and turned them loose out of the box to work off the energy and to poop and pede outside since they don't like the cheap shitty gritty I picked up the other day at the grocery. I just needed it to tide me over until now since Dolly (Mama) does her business outside. I rounded them up from laying in the cool dirt and brought them inside and put them in their box. They were a bit puzzeled as to why they're going into the box while it's still light outside but whatever. I sat down to kill some time for them to fall asleep and when it got time to go get on the bus, I eased the top open and put them in the carrier I got yesterday while they were still mostly asleep. They were more or less OK with everything until I got close to the loud busy highway from where I have to catch the bus. I tried to time it so I'd get there just about the same time the bus would but the bus was 4 minutes late. I turned the carrier around so they could see out front towards the noise and waited for the bus. I got on and put them on the seat next to me and they got quiet again and rode real nice. Everything was good when I got off the bus and got on the train. The only part that was confusing to them was when we crossed a bridge on the train and those weird vibrations started happening and as soon as I realized it I picked the carrier up off the floor. I got off the train and they were still mostly quiet until I got down the street from the place that is rehoming them and they started to get fussy and noisy. By this time I'm inside speaking to the nice ladies and one takes them in the back and does whatever they do with kitty babies in the back. I filled out some paperwork and gathered myself up and went outside to have a good cry. This morning we were playing in the briar and the weeds and this afternoon we're in this loud place with all this noise and you're nowhere to be found and I feel like a total asshole for abandoning them even though I know they're gonna find good homes and good people to take care of them. I'm dreading going home since I don't want to hear it from Dolly looking for her babies. She doesn't milk 'em anymore but I imagine she's still missing them. This is gonna happen for a few days until she forgets about them.
They called me and left a message to call them back since I had inquired about getting Dolly fixed. I gotta hammer out an email and I probably won't hear anything until Monday but I can't pay for it until next month. Hopefully I can get back to sleep and Dolly can get back to being Dolly instead of Mama.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/c0s32w/i_gave_up_my_babies_today_and_i_feel_so_horrible/
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