Mike and Violet are suffering from diarrhea, I’m sad to report. I took them to the vet to have a fecal test done, and they didn’t find anything at all. I’ve started them on Slippery Elm and Forti-Flora, and if they’re not better by Monday, back they’ll go. I’m hoping that if things aren’t better by Monday, I can get a good fecal sample here and run it up to the vet, rather than having to put the babies through that trauma again.
Not fond of having a fecal sample taken, to say the least. Can’t say as I blame them!
Such a little worrywart.
Gus, contemplative.
Yesterday, after my run to the vet and back, I was eating breakfast, and I suddenly heard the Cookies get especially vocal. It sounded like there might be a problem, so I went and cracked the door to the Cookie room open, and saw the kittens in their cage just sitting there howling. But… there didn’t seem to be quite enough kittens in the cage. I did a quick count, realized that one was missing, and stepped into the room.
Skipping across the floor, super proud of himself, was Keebler. As it turns out, the Cookies are still small enough to squeeze through the cage bars. It’s a tight fit, but a determined kitten can do surprising things, and it appears Keebler had decided he had places to go.
I immediately became worried that one of them would try to squeeze through the cage and get stuck, or they’d change their minds and try to pull their heads back through the cage, and their head would pop clean off and go bouncing across the floor, spilling marshmallow fluff all over the place.
So we’ve started leaving the cage door open. At bedtime we did put them in the cage just because I feel safer with them contained (like they’ll be safer, I should say. Not that their wandering around the room at night somehow threatens my well-being. Just my sanity!) Most of the time, once we leave the room, they eventually end up back in the cage, curled up and sound asleep. When I go in there, they all spill out of the cage and come howling at me.
It’s rough to try to feed one kitten at a time when the other four are crawling all over you, trying to steal the bottle from whoever’s being fed, and clawing at your hand because they are STARVING. I solved that issue by taking them one at a time up onto the bed. The other kittens can’t get up onto the bed, so it works out pretty well.
I bought this Snuggle Kittie last year when it was half-price at Petsmart. It’s got a little “heart” that runs off two watch batteries that fits into a pocket on the bottom of the cat and sounds like (or is supposed to sound like) a mother’s heart beat. I figured sooner or later I’d have kittens who were small enough to appreciate it. The Wonkas were completely uninterested in it, except for Gus, who used it as a bed. The Cookies, on the other hand, loved it immediately. They snuggle up to it every night – in fact, when we first got them, they’d nuzzle up to the Snuggle Kittie, knead on it, and purr like mad. It’s a little sad, actually, but also very sweet. Every now and then one or the other of the kittens will flop across it and it’s so cute I can barely stand it.
Pink’s a loner. She spends a lot of time off by herself (though when I’m in the room, she seems happiest curled up in my lap). Everyone else was sleeping in the cage, but Pink was curled up on this cat bed in the middle of the floor. She needs her space, that one.
“Um, hey… Someone said there’s a bottle around here?”
Hydrox sometimes sleeps with his eyes open and it CREEPS ME OUT.
“Uh, hi. Did you say there was a bottle up here? Because I could use one. RIGHT NOW.”
I love it that even when they’re all grown up, Tommy and Sugarbutt still snuggle from time to time.
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Previously
2008: He’s part-physician, part-masseuse, ALL lovebug!
2007: “I tried to take it back, Boss,” he said. “But it was too late.”
2006: Meester Boogers, he hate you.
2005: No entry.