About Me

My photo
There is always something going on in a multi-cat household. Erm 9... cats and counting...... Plus stories from the Sheffield Cats Shelter

Sunday 28 April 2013

The great escape

With the help of the vets and encouraging the kittens to eat, my little foster family is back to good health.
I've found that different food containers can make a difference. When the kittens have been reluctant to eat I've used plates and even tried plastic place mats. At times Willow still wouldn't eat, until I put food on the back of my hand! Bizarre.

Princess Willow being served her food

When you open the door to the 'kitten room' it is now rather funny, but very exhausting! Mum has jumped over the hardboard barricade from the start, then William got in on the act. Now Whisper can also make it over and Willow is almost there. This makes opening and closing the door like a scene from a Benny Hill sketch. You catch one as another jumps and as you put one or two back, there is another waiting to take a chance. Nightmare? Yep. Hilarious? Most certainly!

Two local tom cats have been regular visitors to our garden.  They sit waiting patiently by the cat flap. One looks very sorry for himself, possibly a stray, the other looks well fed, but any wounds he has don't look like they get attention. We have no way of knowing if they have homes or not. We've called them 'Ginger' and Boe (As in 'face of' due to his big face...)  Boe has been very interested in waiting for Abbie to come out of the cat flap.

'Boe'

Ginger

Last weekend Abbie started behaving very oddly.  It seemed she was in season.  We've had her and her sister Bella for 18 months and they were thought to have been spayed.  However, with the howling and strange behaviour it seemed that maybe that wasn't the case.  Strange though that she hadn't shown this behaviour before.

Billy and Abbie holding paws...
I couldn't risk her going outside with two toms on the loose.  I spoke to the Vet and made an appointment for her to be spayed.  The Vets explained they would check for a scar first and would perform the op if there was nothing visible.  They were pretty sure from my description, that Abbie couldn't have been spayed.

In the meantime Bertie has turned guard dog.  He sat at the cat flap and grumbled warnings.  This last week his behaviour has definitely improved.  He now joins us in the living room a lot of the time and his problems with the other cats have been less of an issue. This is good news.

Bertie sits with Daddy :)
Abbie went in for her op on Thursday.  They did find a scar, but they felt it was in an unusual place so they opened her up to check.  She had been spayed so there is no chance of kittens.  They did say there could be something left that could produce hormones.  The only way to check this would be to open her fully all the way down her underside.  I don't want to put her through that.  It was bad enough seeing how wobbly she was when we got her home this time.  The Vet did say that having the toms around could have had an effect of her too.  She now has to stay in for 2 weeks, which she is very unhappy about.  Maybe this will be enough time for the tom cats to move on.

I've been trying to give my little foster family more chance to play.  This week they've been spending time in the living room and had great fun on our giant cat tree.  I love this tree and the cats do to.  I'll admit it is pretty huge and people point at it when they walk past my house, but who cares??
The Cat Tree :)
Here are a few photo's of them all having fun

Whisper
Willow

Whisper and William

Sisters

William

Mum watches her babies



Proper little monkeys!

Wendy went in for her op on Friday (its been a busy week!)  Whisper and Willow went along too so they could have their jabs.  In contrast to Abbie, Wendy was as bright as a button when I picked her back up.  You'd hardly know she'd had anything done.  The Vet suggested that the kittens shouldn't be feeding from her anymore as her nipples were sore again.  I think one of them must bite :(  With that advice, the only thing we could do was to put Wendy in the cat room and the kittens have stayed in their room.

Wendy will be going back to the Shelter tomorrow.  I think I will likely shed a tear or two.  She is an absolutely lovely cat, so affectionate.  I really hope she will get adopted quickly.




2 comments:

  1. It's so hard to know what to do with visiting Toms. When it happens here, I take pictures, and put little posters up, ask at the vets and neighbours. It usually ends up that they have been around for a while and sometimes there is someone feeding them. If no owner turns up, I take the er, bull by the horns, and get them neutered. I know it's a risk if the tom is owned and I could in theory get into trouble, but so far, no owner has ever showed up and we usually end up homing them.

    Love the kittens! I can't foster kittens, because I would never, give them back hehe!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was getting to the point where I was considering trying to catch and neuter. Then the visits seemed to calm down. I haven't seen ginger for weeks now. Hopefully he's ok

      Delete