After his surgery on Friday, Bill’s eye is looking much better. Sookie didn’t even seem to realize she’d had anything done – when I got them home, I let them out of the carrier, and she raced to the food and ate, and then jumped on one of her brothers.
I want to get Hoyt and Lafayette to the vet tomorrow. Their eyelids look like they’re trying to peel away, but I might just be paranoid. With Lafayette, with all that black fur on black, it’s kind of hard to see exactly what’s going on. I’m taking all six to the shelter to get their vaccinations tomorrow, so I’m going to see if I can run the two by the clinic and have them looked at.
Someone asked in my comments just where these kittens came from. They came from a woman in a small town on the other side of Huntsville. I’m not sure whether the momma cat showed up in her yard, or if she actually owned the cat, who got pregnant and had the babies. I do know that she’s keeping the mother cat (she had to agree to have her spayed before Challenger’s House would take the kittens, I believe – and after we found out that these kittens all had eyelid issues, Susan called the woman and strongly recommended that she have the mother spayed as soon as possible). I’m not sure we’ll ever know the reason why all of the kittens have this eyelid issue – whether it’s something that happened while the mother was pregnant, if she came into contact with something, or if it’s a genetic thing.
Someone at another cat rescue organization emailed Susan to tell her that they’d dealt with several kittens with eyelid agenesis in the past few years, but they came one at a time rather than an entire litter with the issue. She hypothesized that there are more kittens born with the issue than we realize, but they tend to be eaten by predators or hit by cars because of the eyesight problems caused by the condition, thus the reason we don’t see that many of them.
I think the True Bloods are lucky little babies, is what I think.
How about some pictures of Sam?
I told Fred the other night that if we were going to keep Sam (which we’re not), I’d have to rename him Tigger, because he bounces! all! over! the! place! 9/10ths of the pictures I take of him are blurry because he never slows down – he goes and goes and goes and then he collapses for a ten-second nap before he’s off again.
A brief rest atop the cat tower.
Contemplating the difficult issues. How many bounces would it take to get to the food bowl?
Just about to leap for that toy…
As energetic and bouncy as he is, Sam is also a lovable sweetheart. When I pick him up to kiss him (rest assured, every one of these kittens get twice their daily requirement of kisses and then some!) he purrs and purrs, he licks my nose, he rubs his cheek against mine and then he puts up with being kissed before he politely asks to be put down. He’s got places to bounce and siblings to jump on!
Sam adores the way the ribbons on this toy rustle.
Sensing an oncoming intruder who might possibly steal the awesome toy away…
Pretending he doesn’t know that Sookie is back there and wants to play with the awesome ribbon toy tooooo….
Watching out of the corner of his eye as she gives up and walks off.
Smug little brat.
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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Later, when I relayed the experience to Fred, he said “You realize that during your entire story, the Benny Hill music was playing in the back of my head, right?”
2006: Meeting Maddy.
2005: What is it with kitties loving to chew on wet hair?