Tag Archives: cat

how he adopted us

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In addition to the photos of our new kitten, I would like to tell the story of how he adopted us.

On Saturday evening, we were at our friend’s house for a barbecue. Around 10pm, our friend Kevin came inside and asked his wife (Suzy) and I to go in the garage and try to find this kitten he kept hearing meow. Their son saw an orange tabby kitten earlier in the morning and Kevin thought that the meowing he kept hearing was this orange kitten. We searched and searched and could not locate him.

I squatted down to pet one of their cats when I heard Suzy say, “Liane! Liane! It’s right there!!!” Looking at where she was pointing, the little furball came out of hiding and was right between my legs under my knees! I quickly scooped him up and we attempted to place him with Suzy’s mama cat who had a litter of three 1-1/2 week of kittens. Mama cat rejected this lil’ guy (in retrospect, it was probably because he’s a lot older (5-6 weeks old) than we initially thought (3 weeks old)) so we warmed a towel and started syringe feeding him some milk replacement formula (Suzy buys it by the 5-gallon bucket). Boy was he hungry!

Over the next hour, he slept in my arms, only waking to eat and fall right back asleep again. The kids fell in love with him and my (slightly intoxicated) husband actually agreed to let us take him home. Kevin washed out the old rusty carrier they had, gave us a foil pan that we were using for our barbecue (makeshift litter box), and packed up some litter, powdered milk replacement, newspaper, and some dry kitty food.

That night, he slept, only waking once to throw up a little milk (I think he drank too much). I inspected his teeth to try to determine how old he is, killed some fleas, and researched online how to care for an abandoned kitten. The next day (Sunday) he slept until about 3pm. I kept trying to wake him to eat as I was concerned about his hydration and the fact that he hadn’t pooped or peed yet. At around 3pm, he drank some water and formula, which gave me some relief.

That afternoon, we went back to Kevin and Suzy’s house for some pool time and dinner (again). When we got there, Suzy suggested we try feeding “kitty kitty” again – this time, he ate like how he ate the night before. But this time after he was done, he came to life! Bouncing, pouncing, hiding, playing, skittering from here…

*HAHAHA! HE JUST JUMPED UP ON MY LAPTOP AND SUBMITTED MY POST BEFORE I WAS DONE!*

As you can see, he’s wanting some attention now. It’s quite difficult typing one handed while shooing this lil’ guy away with my other. Anyways, to finish up… took him to the vet yesterday evening and everything is great! Vet thinks he’s about  5-6 weeks old and healthy as can be… well, she couldn’t assess his heart since she couldn’t hear it through the racecar engine of a purr that he has. They infused him with some fluids, cleaned out his ears, trimmed his claws, and gave him a mild dewormer. We go back in three weeks for his vaccinations, so until then, it’s still handwashing everytime we touch him to prevent the transmission of worms (which he may have since he was feral).

Last night, he learned to use his litter box (after peeing all over my husband first) and drank water from his dish for the first time, and ate his first wet food this morning. He’s crunching away at his dry food right now. I’m so enjoying watching him achieve his kitty milestones!

So now we are a family of 6! We just gotta name the lil’ guy (my kids like Mr. Mittens).