2010 Archives

7

Hi Efurryone! It’s me, Cookie! As regular readers know, my sister Caramel and I were Mommy and Daddy’s first two fosters ever! And then we became Mommy and Daddy’s first two failed fosters ever!

The “problem” with failed fosters is that sometimes foster homes decide not to foster again, because of the risk of “failing” again. After Mommy and Daddy adopted Caramel and me, the nice people in the animal rescue group (PAWS) asked Mommy if she would be willing to foster again. They asked Mommy if she would foster “just one” kitten.

Mommy said no.

She said it would be too dangerous to foster “just one” kitten. So she asked for a lot of kittens – and that is when Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Joann became fosters. All four babies got adopted into terrific furrever homes!

Since then, we have fostered lots more kittehs – Daisy, Bo, Luke, Niecy, Trish, Antoinette, Beyonce, Kelly, Michelle, Winnie-the-Pooh, Kanga, Hidey, Mr. Bibs, and Dakota. We will tell you stories about them some other time. This time, I will tell you about Mama Rose, and Her Babies. There is so much to tell that I will break the story up into several posts.

This past July, we began seeing Mama Rose in our yard – a calico kitten about 9 or 10 months old. She was usually carrying a mousie in her teeths! Then one day in August, we saw two bebbeh kittehs with her! And then another time, we saw Mama Rose with six or seven bebbehs! So Mommy got busy on the phone, borrowed humane traps, and started feeding Mama and babies in the traps. Dad made sure the traps would not close by using a hanger wire to keep the trap doors open. This was so the kittehs would get comfortable going in and out of the traps.

Mom asked our nice next-door neighbors Penny and Bob not to feed the Mama or the babies, even though they really wanted to! The reason they did this was to ensure that Mama and babies kept visiting us and eating from the traps.

In the meantime, Mom contacted people in PAWS about appointments for Mama to get her ladygardenectomy, and for the babies to have their ladygardenectomies or hoohaectomies. So the original plan was to keep feeding Mama and babies until the day before their scheduled surgeries.

However, the scheduled appointments were still about three weeks away. Mom and Dad were concerned that the older the kittens got without human contact, the harder it would be to tame them. They had learned from fostering Hidey and Mr. Bibs that by three months of age, feral kittens are REALLY hard to “flip” and may not ever decide to trust humans.

It was really hard to guess how old the kittens were since Mommy and Daddy could not get close to them. So, on Saturday, September 18th, when our nice next-door neighbor Penny called Mom to tell her that the kittens were hanging out on the deck in their back yard, Mom knew what she had to do.

She and Daddy brought the two traps and some cat food next door, in hopes of trapping as many babies as they could.

To be continued …

9

Hi Efurrybody! It’s me, Cookie! First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to our furriends here in the U.S.! We hope that you all get as much turkey as you can eat! Just remember, no onions! Onions are toxic to us kittehs. So we won’t be able to eat the stuffing since it has onions in it. Mommy and Daddy are busy cooking, so I thought I would take this opportunity to fill you all in on the next part of the story of Mama Rose and Her Babies.

When we left off last time, Mommy and Daddy were headed next door, armed with humane traps and cat food. They wanted to start trying to trap bebbeh kittehs before they grew up and decided to be scared of people.

When Mom and Dad got next door, Penny and Bob showed Mom and Dad where they saw the kittehs go under the deck. So Mom and Dad put cat food on paper plates and put the plates of food into the traps. But this time, they set the traps to trigger the doors to close when the kittehs stepped on the thingy in the traps.

Mom and Dad went back home and waited nervously. Would the bebbeh kittehs go into the traps?

Just a few minutes later, Penny called Mom. Two kittehs were inside one trap! Mom and Dad raced next door, and found two adorable bebbeh kittehs, frantic to get out of the trap!

At the time, we had four fosters living in the kitten room – Kelly, Michelle, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Kanga. So the new (feral) kitties needed to stay in the room where The-Room-That-Moves sleeps. Mom and Dad call it “the garage”. Mommy had a large cat cage that the people in PAWS refer to as a “condo” that would be a safe place for the feral bebbehs to stay. The condo belongs to someone else in PAWS, but gets loaned out for situations like this.

Mommy and Daddy transferred the two kittehs to the condo and brought the trap next door again and put more cat food inside. As soon as Mommy and Daddy got back home, the phone rang again! Bob called to say that two more bebbeh kittehs had been trapped! So Mommy and Daddy went to get them, and transferred those two bebbehs to the cat condo in the garage.

Mommy and Daddy were very happy to have caught four of the bebbehs so easily! So they brought the trap back next door and set it again. They wanted to catch the rest of the bebbehs before dark. Because after dark, the possums, raccoons, and skunks (!) come out to play. Mommy and Daddy did not think that Penny and Bob would be very happy if a skunk got trapped in their back yard!

So Mom and Dad set the trap and went home again. When Bob and Penny called the next time, the news was not as good. The Mama had gotten caught! Oh noes! They really did not want to trap the Mama until much closer to the scheduled surgery date. Now what would happen?

So Mom called her contacts in PAWS. They said to keep the Mama rather than to release her, because she might never go into the trap again. More cages were needed because the one condo would be too small for everybody. The whole point of trapping the bebbehs was to work with them to try to tame them. There was NO WAY that Mama was going to let her bebbehs get handled if she was in the same cage. And there was NO WAY that Mommy or Daddy was going to put their hands into the cage with the Mama to try to reach for a kitten!

So Mommy and Daddy borrowed three more cage condo thingies to house the feral fambly. Luckily, the weather had not gotten too cold yet, so it was comfortable in the garage. At least it was safe from wind and rain.

The kittens were scared.

Mama was NOT PLEASED to have been trapped. Not happy at all. In fact, she tried to break out of the trap, and hurt herself on her lip and nose.

(Oh, and those are NOT ears growing out of Mama’s butt.  Those ears belong to one of the bebbeh kittehs in the next cage.)

But there were still more bebbeh kittehs out there! So after CAREFULLY transferring Mama to a cage, Mommy and Daddy set the trap out once more in Penny and Bob’s back yard. And waited.

By dark, the other bebbehs had not been trapped yet! Mommy and Daddy were worried. What happened to them? Were they hiding under the deck? Had they run away when their Mama got trapped?

Mom and Dad were very sad, but did not want to risk trapping another animal, like a skunk. So they left the traps in Penny and Bob’s yard, with food inside, but set so that the doors would not close.

More next time …

21

Today is Mom’s Birthday. So we are taking a quick break from telling the story of Mama Rose and Her Bebbehs to show you what we got Mom for her Birthday. We will continue their story this weekend.

We Furry Bambinos got together and decided to give Mom a wicked cool present for her birthday this year. This is when we got it home from the store and are inspecting it for defects. Cookie is on the top shelf, Caramel is checking out the enclosed part, and I am snoopervising:

Next, Padre and Caramel gave it a good sniff:

Then, Padre gave what was left of the dangly toy a thorough workout from the front:

And then from the back, sneak attack style:

After his thorough inspection, Padre declared the birthday present acceptable.

I really don’t think that there is room for the both of us. I think Padre needs to get down.

Since it’s Mom’s birthday, I decided to be nice and got down instead. (Note that Mom reattached the dangly toy.)

After passing inspection, we put it where it is going to live. This is Caramel showing Mommy how to use it properly. I am snoopervising.

In this photo, I am demonstrating to Mommy another way to use her gift:

Happy Birthday Mom!  We hope you like your present!

Mom Here: I would like to thank the Bambinos for their thoughtful birthday gift. It will allow me to have my computer chair back!

On my birthday, I like to phone my parents at the time of day I was born, and wish them a Happy Mother’s Day and a Happy Father’s Day. Luckily I was born at a reasonable hour to call! Happy Mother’s Day! Happy Father’s Day!

8

Hi Efurryone, it’s me Cookie! First of all, Mommy asked me to say thank you to all of you for the birthday wishes. She especially enjoyed the comments requesting photos of her enjoying her birthday present. (We are working on that.)

Second, if you would like to exchange holiday cards with us, please email us at TheFurryBambinos AT gmail DOT com.

When we last left off telling you about Mama Rose and Her Babies, four bebbeh kittehs and Mama Rose had been trapped in humane traps in Penny and Bob’s yard next door. Mommy and Daddy transferred the feral fambly to cages in the garage. But Mommy and Daddy knew that there were more kittens – another two or three by their estimation. When it got dark, Daddy rigged the cage so that the door would not close, in case another animal such as a raccoon, possum, or skunk got hungry and went into the trap.

Mommy and Daddy were very worried about the other bebbehs. They worried all night about where they might be, if they missed their Mama and siblings, and what they would eat. It was a sad night at Casa de Furry Bambinos, despite the fact that four bebbehs and Mama had been trapped.

The next morning Penny called Mom. She said that there were two bebbeh kittehs in one of the traps! The wire that was holding the trap open must have broken! What good luck that more kittehs were trapped, and not a skunk!!! Mommy and Daddy were very grateful to have caught two more bebbehs!

When Mommy opened the door from the house into the garage, the sound must have startled all the feral kittehs. So much so that two of the kittehs were squeezing between the bars of their cage to escape! Mommy got there in time to push the dark orange kitteh back into the cage, but there was one itteh bitteh calico kitteh on the loose in the garage!

Luckily Mommy saw where the calico went, and was able to pick it up by the scruff of the neck and put it back into a different cage. (Mommy thought that maybe she should separate the two genius kittehs who figured out how to escape.) So then Mommy grabbed some bricks from the back yard and blockaded the bottom of the cages to prevent any more escapees.

Finally, Mommy went next door and brought the two kittehs in their trap to the garage. Mommy put them into the cage with the orange kitteh who tried to escape.

At this point, Mama and all the bebbehs were very very scared, so Mommy did not try to touch any of them yet. These two bebbehs were trying to hide between their litter box and the cage wall.

Look how frightened they look!

Mommy and Daddy were not sure which bebbehs were girls or boys. Mom had some guesses, though. Orange tabby (striped) kittehs are usually male – Mom read somewhere that 75% of orange tabbies are boys. One of the bebbehs was a dark orange tabby with white toes and a white bib. (He’s the one huddling with the silver tabby in the two previous photos.) Mommy guessed “boy” for this little one. He was also the biggest kitteh in the litter.

Another kitteh was a dark orange tabby – the one who tried to escape with the calico. Mommy also guessed “boy”. His markings were very pretty – bulls eyes and swirls instead of striped lines on his sides.

Another bebbeh was a buff (light orange) tabby, with white toes, a white bib, and a cute little white strip on his nose. Mommy also guessed “boy”. He was one of the last two to be trapped.

As you may know, calico kittehs are ALMOST ALWAYS girls. The Mama was a calico, and since she was the Mama, they knew she was a girl.

One of the kittens was a calico – the one who escaped the cage – and looked almost exactly like the Mama. So Mommy guessed that the bebbeh calico was a girl.

However, calicoes can be males – at the time, one of Mommy’s friends was fostering a MALE calico. It is estimated that only about 1 in 4000 calico kittehs are male. To be calico (or tortie for that matter) a kitteh needs to have two X chromosomes. So male calicoes are XXY – a genetic mutation. Enough science – back to our story.

So that left the silver tabby and the brown tabby. Since both of the silver tabby Furry Bambinos (Angel Clyde and Padre) are boys, Mommy guessed “boy” for this little one. He was also pretty big compared to some of his siblings.

The brown tabby was tough. It was so tiny – must have been the runt of the litter – so based on body size, Mommy guessed “girl”.

However, until Mommy could pick up and handle the bebbehs, she did not want to assign names yet. She started thinking up names though!

Originally, Mommy had thought she had seen SEVEN bebbehs with the Mama. So she and Daddy tried for several more days to trap the remaining bebbeh. They don’t for sure if there were seven since they all moved about so quickly – it was very hard to count them. Mommy thought there might be another calico kitteh – but maybe when she was counting, she thought the Mama, who was very tiny herself, was a bebbeh. They never did catch a seventh bebbeh, and we’ll never really know for sure if there was one.

Next time, we will tell you about naming the bebbehs!

5

Hi Efurryone, it’s me Cookie! We are very excited because Christmas is coming! We have been getting pretty holiday cards from our furriends, and that is so much fun!

If you would like to exchange holiday cards with us, please email us at TheFurryBambinos AT gmail DOT com. We can send cards overseas, too. We would love to send you a card!

When we last left off telling you about Mama Rose and Her Babies, six bebbeh kittehs and Mama Rose had been trapped in humane traps in Penny and Bob’s yard next door. Mommy and Daddy transferred the feral fambly to cages in the garage. Now Mommy and Daddy needed to start work socializing the bebbeh kittehs.

Mommy did not know much at all about working with feral kittehs. Feral kittehs are different than “domesticated house cats” (for lack of a better term). Not all stray cats are feral. Just because a cat does not have a home does not mean it is feral.

So what does feral mean, then?

Feral kittehs have not had contact with humans during their crucial kitten development time. If a kitten is not handled by people when they are very young, they grow up being afraid of people. They view people as potential predators, and are understandably terrified when a person tries to get too close.

Like most of your parents, Mommy has lots of books about kittehs. She looked through every single book, and found hardly anything at all about feral kittehs. So she asked her good friend Google for help. Mommy did some crash course reading online to try to learn how to work with and hopefully eventually get the feral kittehs to trust her, Daddy, and other people. There are some great online resources available – Alley Cat Allies in particular, but we will list resources in another post in case you are interested.

The whole goal of the process is to help the feral bebbehs learn to TRUST Mommy and Daddy, and other people too. Mommy was cautioned to make sure to let other people work with the feral kittehs, or else the bebbehs would be tame JUST FOR MOMMY. Which as you can imagine would defeat the purpose of taming the bebbehs so that they could be adopted to other famblies.

Mommy started off by not trying to touch the bebbehs for two whole days after they had been trapped. She read that it is best to give the kittehs some time to see that Mommy and Daddy did not mean to harm them. For those first two days, Mommy just reached into the cages to change the water and food. Mommy placed the food and water dishes near the doors to the cages so she would not have to reach too far into the cages. Mommy also removed the litter boxes from the cages, and Daddy scooped the boxes while the boxes were outside the cages.

The bebbeh kittehs would cower in fear every time Mommy reached into the cages. The bebbehs went to the far corner of the cage, and would huddle together. Their Mama was NOT HAPPY AT ALL any time Mommy reached into a cage containing her bebbehs. Their Mama would stand up and HISSSSSS and GROWWWLLLL at Mommy. Even inside of a cage, a feral Mama cat was pretty intimidating!

Mommy read that you should not try to come at a feral kitteh with your hand open and aim for their face. So next, Mommy began gently touching the feral bebbehs with the back of her hand. She gently stroked the bebbehs on their lower bodies – their hind legs area.

Mommy also read that it is VERY IMPORTANT not to stare a feral kitteh in the eyes for extended periods. Staring a feral cat in the eyes is a sign of aggression and will cause the feral kitteh to become even more defensive.  So Mommy and Daddy made sure to make only very brief eye contact with the feral fambly. Mommy would look at the kitteh, then look away, then look at the kitteh, and then look away again.

Mommy also read that feral kittehs are terribly afraid of human voices. So to help them get used to people, Mommy read that it helps to leave a radio or TV playing in the room. So Daddy found a radio, and then put it in the garage with the feral fambly, and turned in on low volume. Mommy’s good friend Dorothy told Mommy to make sure to turn the radio OFF from time to time, because constant NOISE is a form of torture.

After a few days of gentle touching, Mommy began to try to pick up the bebbehs and hold them for brief periods of time. When Mommy picked up a bebbeh, she made sure to “scruff them” – to pick the bebbeh up by the scruff of the neck. This does not hurt the bebbeh! When a bebbeh is scruffed, they relax and go limp! This is a natural reaction that they have so that when their Mama Kitteh picks them up, they don’t get all squirmy while she carries them in her mouth.

Mommy started by holding the bebbehs for very brief periods of time – like 20 seconds – and then returning the bebbeh to its cage and immediately feeding the bebbeh. This is so that the bebbehs would begin to associate getting held with getting food! At first, the bebbehs would not eat in front of Mommy when they were returned to their cages.

Next, Mommy would hold the bebbehs for longer periods of time – one to two minutes. Mommy held the bebbehs close to her chest with both hands securing the bebbeh so they would not escape. At this time, Mommy began to try to determine the gender of each bebbeh, and choosing names. Mommy’s good friend Christine (and advisor in PAWS) suggested giving the fambly “outdoorsy” names since they were found outside.

Mommy confirmed that the little calico was a girl! Mommy and Daddy named her Marigold.

Mommy confirmed that the dark orange tabby with swirls was a boy! Mommy and Daddy named him Rusty.

Mommy confirmed that the buff tabby with white bib and white paws was a boy! Mommy’s friend Christine suggested the name Hunter.

Mommy learned that the little brown tabby was actually a boy, not a girl like she had originally guessed. Mommy named him Woody.

Two of the bebbehs were too squirmy to hold and also check their gender, so those two would have to wait to get named. They were the silver tabby and the dark orange tabby with the white bib and white paws.

And to go with the outdoorsy theme, Mommy thought the name Mama Rose was appropriate for the Mama. Can any of you guess why?

Next time, teaching feral kittehs how to play with cat toys!

Merry Christmas Efurrryone!

13

happy new year, efurryone!

we purrticipated in Secret Paws this year and we received The Meezers as our kittehs to be Secret Paws for. The Meezers wrote about opening our gift on Tuesday. we’re glad they liked the presents! Nicky has been on a nip high for a few days. that’s OK, so have i!!! because …

we got a FANTASTIC package from Samantha, Clementine, and Maverick in Texas! Cookie read the label to see who the package was from. Panda Bear helped to open the box.

Panda Bear helped to take the presents out of the box.

Panda Bear sniffed some primo nip toys inside the stocking and gave the stocking a good bunnykicking.

when Panda Bear was done bunnykicking, Caramel and i joined him to check out all the wonderful gifts.

Padre and Cookie joined Caramel, Panda Bear, and me. i am taking a good long sniff of the stocking stuffed with nip toys!

nip fest! mmmmmmmm nip!

i took a break from my nip fest to look at the pretty card from Samantha, Clementine, and Maverick!

Panda Bear checked out the YUMMY Fancy Feast Appetizers! we ate them and gave them our highest rating: 20 paws up! thank you for the Appetizers!!!

Padre and Panda Bear are checking out the Crunch ‘n Clean treats! mmmmm! yummy! we had never tried these before, but now mommy knows to get these since we liked them so much!

just like a meerkat, i know how to stand on my hind legs! sometimes i hold onto mommy’s hand …

and other times i go paws free! just like a good meerkat!

nip! nip nip nip nip! bunnykicking with a fishy toy this time!

Panda Bear with a package of nip sardines! don’t you love their little smiley faces?

not to be outdone, Floofs (Caramel) shows that she knows how to get her nip on!

Floofs having a nip fest with nip peppermint stick. she looks really high in this photo.

nip fest with bunnykicking to show off her floofy feets and toehawks.

Floofs says don’t touch her nip peppermint stick!

Panda Bear really got into the nip peppermint sticks too!

Panda Bear likes to lick the really primo nip toys. ewww. then nobuddy else wants to touch them.

Padre likes the nip sardines.

Padre also likes the jingle balls!

Cookie is posing with the nip toys!

check out this neato toy mousie!

Cookie made friends with the toy mousie. they are shaking paws here.

Cookie and the toy mousie are having a conversation.

i don’t think the toy mousie wants to be friends with Cookie any more.

check out the great calendar! do you see the resemblance between Cookie and the cover kitteh?

ahhhh! relaxing in the debris field! you can also see the great tablet! it has a magnet so it is going on the fridge. i will see to it that it is used for catfood shopping lists!

Thank You, Secret Paws!!! Thank You Samantha! Thank You Clementine! Thank You Maverick!

And a Special Thank You to Sweet Praline for organizing Secret Paws this year!

happy new year, efurryone!  (remember, if you nip, don’t drive.)