Kittens: Part 3

Surprise! There is another segment to my “Kittens” story and I promise this one has a better ending.

We put Storm down about a month ago, and that day we poured hot water on the snow and dug through the permafrost ground to make a small grave for him in the back yard. Shadow spent some time looking around the house, searching the empty cat carrying and trying to sniff out his friend. After a couple days he abandoned his search and found himself a spot on a shelf to sleep the day away.

We knew we wanted to get Shadow a new friend but we weren’t sure how long we were supposed to wait… how long do you grieve for a cat? How long do cats grieve? How soon is too soon to get a new one? Why does it feel like I’m replacing Storm? How do we know they will even be friends? All of these questions were going through my head, but Jim assured me it was the right thing to do.

About a week after we buried Storm, we went to the shelter and told them our story, hoping they would be able to help us somehow.  They agreed to give us a new kitten for free, but at the time there were no kittens available for adoption.  Apparently there is a “kitten season” at adoption shelters, and this wasn’t it. They promised they’d contact us when new kittens arrived, so we went home and waited patiently. Meanwhile, Shadow was starting to show symptoms of only child syndrome. We bought him some solo-play toys, but he preferred to follow me everywhere, and meow (very loudly) when he was bored or lonely, often at six o’clock in the morning.

Shadow also started sleeping extremely close to my face

February came with more snow but no contact from the shelter. Jim and I were out running errands one morning and stopped for lunch at a restaurant down the street from the shelter. After lunch, Jim suggested that we stop in and see what’s happening, maybe they had heard some chatter about a new shipment of kittens.

When we arrived, I snuck into the cat room and saw a little kitten in the first crate, but there was a sign on the crate saying someone was interested in him, so I moved down the line. I started playing with another little kitten but before long a volunteer came by and told me that one had already been adopted and was getting picked up later that day. I continued to look around and saw another kitten with a “someone’s interested in me” sign. At this point, I was a little irritated. We never been contacted, but here were all these kittens—that we should have had first dibs on—that had already been adopted. I found a few other kittens, one a tuxedo cat that I wasn’t too fond of, and another that was so shy she wouldn’t play with a toy through the crate.

Jim found me around then and I gave him a look to indicate that I was furious. At least five kittens had come in while we were at home twiddling our thumbs waiting for an email. Shadow was bored out of his mind and driving us crazy, and nobody had bothered to contact us. We went to the lobby and Jim talked to the staff because I was afraid I would yell at someone. They apologized profusely and I calmed down why I remembered how many office-space communication errors I had seen or been involved in.

They had three kittens still available for adoption, the tuxedo, the shy kitten, and a calico kitten. We went back into the cat room, and the woman who worked there told us about the calico kitten, picked him up and let me hold him for a bit. During this time, there was a young woman sitting there, obviously interested in the cat. The employee explained to us that the woman was interested in the kitten, but basically, they weren’t going to give the cat to the woman because she said she would be moving to a new house soon. She told us all of this in front of the woman, while I was holding the cat that she had obviously already grown attached to. At one point, the young woman tried to explain that she wasn’t moving for another few months, but to her that seemed “soon.” It got a little heated for a minute, all the while I was holding this kitten that all the controversy was about.  We said we’d have to think about it, but Jim was more interested in the shy tabby kitten. Jim followed the employee back to the lobby, and I put down the calico and told the woman I really had zero interest in stealing her cat.

Back in the lobby they told us about the shy tabby. A few days before they had tried to take her out of the crate so someone could play with her, and she was so skittish that she had ran under a file cabinet and the couldn’t get her out for hours. Finally, they had to take out the bottom drawer from the file cabinet and pick her up out from above. We said we would think about it and they gave us a letter from the former foster parent and we were on our way.

Jim read the letter to me as we drove home. It said that although she was very shy, once she got used to a new home, this kitten was very playful. In her foster home she had played with the other kittens, even though she was skittish around humans. Jim had already had his mind set on taking her home, and the fact that she was playful with other kittens made the decision for us. We agreed that we’d give her a couple more days to get used to humans in the shelter, and then we’d go back for her.

That weekend the power went out and we had a fire going for hours just to make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. Why not get out of the house for a bit? We headed back out to the shelter and got to know our new kitten. The shelter put her in a fluffy swaddle type bag so we could hold her without her running away. We pet her for a little while, just long enough to confirm we were going to fall in love with her. Jim did the paperwork while I did some cuddling, and then Jim got to cuddle on the drive home while we brainstormed some new names.

One day and 200 possible names later, we had electricity, a name, and a decent picture. Our newest member of the family, Sequoia. 

Kittens: Part 2

Last post I wrote about my adorable additions to the family.  But that story has a sad side.

The week before Christmas, Storm started sleeping more, and playing less.  Now I know what you’re thinking—cats sleep! That’s like, their thing, they sleep all day. And it’s true that kittens sleep about 18 hours a day. But during those other 6 hours, my kittens were very active little guys. So we noticed. Whenever Shadow tried to play with him, he would just walk away and go lie down somewhere else. When we dangled a fun toy in front of his face, he barely raised his head. I rolled a yarn ball (his favorite) past him a couple times, and he slowly watched it pass by without moving his body.

We hoped it was just a cold or something, but after a few days, nothing had changed. We noticed he wasn’t eating very much, so we called the vet to make an appointment. Of course, this was Monday of Christmas week. Two of the vets were out on vacation, and all the other slots were filled up. But the Vet-tech promised she’d call if anything opened up.

Storm got his appointment and the Vet said he had a slight fever, and had actually lost about a pound since we got him. He took a blood sample and said he would run some tests. 250 dollars later, we had no answers for what was wrong with our kitten. They gave us an appetite stimulant and sent us on our way, and the vet called every day to check on how Storm was doing.

The day before Christmas, nothing had changed, and the Vet asked to bring him in early the day after Christmas to do some more tests.  Christmas was wonderful, and we got lots of toys for our new kittens. Unfortunately, Shadow was the only one to play with them. The next morning I woke up early and got to the animal clinic ten minutes before they opened.  We went in and found that Storm has lost another half a pound, and still had a fever. An X-ray showed that he had fluid in his abdomen, and when the vet extracted it, they discovered a straw like color, which could only indicate one thing. He told me that Storm most likely has FIP, and he seemed so sure that he said we probably didn’t have to do a test. FIP, he told me, is a fatal disease for which there is no treatment.  It’s a disease where the kitten will slowly waste away, sometimes days, sometimes longer.

I called Jim and of course started sobbing on the phone with him.  He said to do the tests, just to be sure.  A few days later, the tests came back.  Storm was diagnosed with FeLV, basically Feline Leukemia.  Although the test came back inconclusive for FIP, the vet assured us that it was the only thing that could cause the straw liquid in his belly.

But Storm didn’t seem like he was in pain. He wasn’t enjoying kitten life as much as Shadow, but he would walk upstairs and eat some tuna juice or chicken broth.  He stopped jumping into the sink. In fact, he stopped jumping anywhere, instead opting to slowly crawl onto the chair, or walk from the couch over my dresser and onto the bed. But some days were better than others. The Vet called to check in, and Jim told him with a pinch of hope, that he seems like he’s doing better today.  But the vet chalked that up to the fever dropping, and that it would probably spike again soon.

Shadow kept trying to play with Storm, wondering why he didn’t want to wrestle. He seemed to be going crazy not having anyone to play with. Storm continued to walk slowly around the house, following me upstairs just to go back to sleep again. Whenever I would pet him I would lean in close and look him in the eyes. “You tell me when you’re ready” I’d say… knowing it would have to be my decision.

He continued to lose weight, and last week he wet the bed. I didn’t even notice it until I got ready to go to sleep. Jim and I stripped the bed and did the laundry, and Storm slept on the couch that night. The next morning, the blanket on the couch reeked of cat pee.  Maybe he couldn’t feel it, or maybe he was just too weak or too tired to get up to go to the bathroom. We started putting a towel under him and trying to get him to sleep on the small (machine washable) cat bed. But sometimes Shadow wanted to sleep in Storms bed (he’s gained some weight from eating all of Storm’s leftovers) and they didn’t both fit, so Storm would move back on the bed and the next day we’d be stripping the bed and overworking the washing machine.

“I keep telling him to let us know when he’s ready,” I told Jim. “Maybe this is his way of telling us.” We agreed that it was time to let him go, and I called the Vet to make an appointment. Tomorrow morning we are taking him, and hopefully sending him to a better place… whether that’s cat heaven or reincarnation, I don’t know.

So this is my public goodbye to my kitten storm, all of seven months old. I hope those three months that you were with us were wonderful. And I hope you will be happy wherever you end up.

Kittens

Back in October, Jim-the-boyfriend and I adopted two adorable little kittens.

We had been talking about it for quite a while, more than a year, but the timing never felt quite right.  Finally, after moving back to Massachusetts, we agreed that we should just take the plunge and see where it takes us.

We disagreed on a few things, I wanted to rescue an older or middle aged cat, mainly because I’m afraid of commitment and ten years already seems like a long time to commit to an animal (and sharing the animal with another person)—and some cats live past twenty!  Jim wanted to adopt kittens. So we went to the animal shelter to see what we could find.

Sure enough, when we got there, two little kittens on the bottom shelf stole Jim’s heart.  We looked at a few others, but Jim kept getting drawn back to those two. The sign on the cage said that the two were rescued together and wanted to stay together. It also said they were four months old and six pounds.  Not exactly the *one* middle-aged cat I was hoping for, but Jim was in love. Plus, it had already taken a year of convincing to even look for a cat, so I compromised. Two kittens, instead of one, for twenty-plus years, instead of five or ten. That’s double to adoption cost, double the food, litter, etc, for twice the length of time.

But they are soooooo cute!

We brought them home the next day and gave them a little time to adjust to their new owners and their new home. At the shelter, they were named Happy and Pepper, but Jim didn’t like those names, so we did some brainstorming and came up with Shadow and Storm.

“That sounds too video-gamey.” I said, “Too much like a comic book superhero.” And I was right, Storm and Shadowcat are both names of Xmen characters.

We changed their names again to Ash and Jet, then I changed my mind back to Storm and Shadow, and within a few days, we were a little family. I was yelling at storm to get off the counter, and stop drinking water out of the toilet bowl, and get out of the bathroom sink. 

Shadow was climbing on my laptop keyboard and watching movies with me.  In the morning, Shadow likes to lick my nose to help me wake up, even when I do not want to wake up.  He also has a tendency to climb into small places... like the refrigerator. 

These kittens have brought a new happiness to my hum-drum life. They give me something to come home to when Jim works the late night shift, and someone to talk to when no-one else is around.  It's only been a few months, but I have fallen in love with these two. And all of the snuggles!