Cute Photo

I've been remiss in mentioning my other foster babies. They've grown quite a lot since they first came here in early June. They were barely a few days old at the time.

It took almost 4 weeks before I was able to handle any of them since their feral Mama was not going to let me. Once things settled down and the kittens were big enough to move on their own, I found ways to begin the process of desensitizing them to being around humans.

As always, it's slow going and along the way I fretted about them reaching their milestones—especially little Twinkles, the runt of the litter.

She was the last to eat big kitty food, the one who always seemed very fragile when I handled her. She's still quite the Mama's girl, but she started to trust me enough to rest in my lap and now she plays along with her siblings, though she is slower to make sense of toys than the others.

The time is soon approaching when this litter will get spayed/neutered, then hopefully adopted (Pixie may already be spoken for!). Mama will be spayed, then released back to her caretaker and her life outdoors as she is, if there is such a thing, extremely feral. She has shown no sign of wanting to warm up to me in the past 7 weeks. I've tried to offer her treats and kindness, but they are received with hisses. That's ok. Her offspring are safe. She is healthy and gaining back some weight. She'll be ready when the time comes.

I'll miss these guys a lot. Sprinkles and Twinkles drive me crazy. I think they're twins. I can only tell them apart by their behavior. Sprinkles is outgoing and nutty and Twinkles is more reserved and sweet. Both of them are going to be great companions to some lucky family-so is Pixie.

I've got too much more to update...I've completely left out my own cats, Bob, Nicky and Gracie! There's lots more news, but for now, a much needed break from writing, photographing, feeding, cleaning up and playing with kittens.

Good night!

Yesterday I posted a photo on Twitter of one of my foster kittens, Tweetie. He has an uncanny resemblance to The Famous Sockington, a cat so famous he has his own Army! Now, THAT is one cool cat.

Thousands of folks visited Tweetie's photo and visited my humble BLOG. Many were asking about adopting Tweetie, even though he's still a wild child and has a long way to go before he'll ever like people. It does my heart good to know about that support.

The sad reality for us, is that our rescue group is small and we don't have the luxury of time, to turn Tweetie, and those like him, into adoptable companions. This is why our group does TNR and we don't try to adopt out kittens who won't make good companions without months or years of work.

For those of you not yet familiar with TNR. TNR is "Trap, Neuter, Return" You can read this article on the ASPCA's web site

Tweetie IS adorable, but he's already bitten two people, myself included. Since he's been here, I've seen him soften a bit and I know I could turn him around, IF we had plenty of foster families or the money to open a shelter, since that would take the burden off me to foster more kittens.

That forces us to weigh the options. If I kept Tweetie for six months, I couldn't take any more foster kittens. That would mean, at least 24 to up to 50 kittens could have passed through my doors, who won't even get a chance to be rescued AND at the end of six months, there is no guarantee that Tweetie would be adoptable by then.

As I write this, I know of two kittens living in a car at one of the nearby town's dump. A very nice man is looking after them, but he knows if they don't get into a home for socializing soon, it will be too late for them, too. We can't help him because adoptions are down to nothing with the bad economy. Once we free up room, we take more. I hope to help these kittens as soon as mine are ready to go.

Alley Cat Allies also has something to say about this problem, too:

"Depending on your initial decision, you will end up with either socialized, well-adjusted kittens who you can easily adopt out, or a colony with fully sterilized, vaccinated feral cats and kittens. Either decision is correct because, as you have read, taking on the task of raising kittens or socializing them is no easy feat. Be secure that you made the best choice for your circumstances and don’t second guess yourself. Kittens can pull at our heart-strings, but in the end, doing what is best for you will ultimately be what is best for the kittens"

After all this, I want to assure you that we are working with Tweetie, in the time we have. We have to face this dilemma with kittens every year. There are always a few we can't turn around, no matter how hard we try. For those, the most compassionate thing we can do, is provide them with a loving caregiver and a safe outdoor home to live in. It's not ideal, but when you look at the figures of how many millions of feral cats and kittens are euthanized every year; a life lived outdoors, in comparison, is a life LIVED.

Quit being so cute or I'll have to adopt you! Then I'll have too many cats and be accused of being the crazy cat lady, but "they" never call people "crazy baby lady" if they have too many kids!

Life is so unfair.

I wrote not long ago that I felt like I couldn't do enough to help save these homeless kittens and cats. I think I'm about to a point where it's feeling like, okay, I can't do more than this.

Right now I'm planning an Adoption Event, going to design collateral material for that event, am fostering two litters of kittens, four of them get meds every day, plus caring for one nasty mom. I'm also networking and trying to find some folks to adopt the kittens we have or consider being a foster family. I have one friend from High School who's shown interest in fostering and another is making a donation to our group. I also wrote an article for the paper and am thinking about contacting the folks at the local tv news. They love animal stories and having 38 kittens who need homes is a story, if you ask me!

Fluffy (left) and Angel (right)

This is also an exercise in balance. My own cats are not getting what they need. One of the peed on a rug this morning. I caught her in the act. Good old Petunia-the one with territory aggression. She peed right between where the two foster rooms are located. If that wasn't a message, I don't know what is. I'm going to have to try not to kill her, first, then try working with giving her more attention. I've also got two sniffly kitties-Nicky and Bob and I need to be watching them more carefully, as well. I don't want them to get a secondary infection!

Honestly, this nuttiness is, in theory, just for another week, then I'm back down to one litter. That said, I have even more compassion for our Director since she takes on the brunt of the litters. It has to be a ton of work, keeping it all straight and still finding time to have a life outside of cat care. I need to work on some design projects and get back to writing my book.

...that said, there are really cute, fluffy and non-fluffy kittens upstairs and they need some play time. Who can resist?