Vote for Gracie! (Thank you!)
Y’all, put on your advising hats, please! I’ve got two questions that I know y’all can help out with. First, Lori:
I have a kitten question so thought I would go to the expert. I have had all ranges of animals, but I have never had a kitten so ignore my ignorance please.
Approximately a little over a month ago, I suddenly aquired a tiny kitten in my horse barn. He/She has never allowed me close, as she runs and hides but loves to hang out with my horses. I purchased kitten food and have been feeding it daily in a protected old grainery. I have no idea whether the kitten has another home and/or is provided food, but it is eating well, so I guess not.
If it is to stay, which I do not mind, what is your knowledge about if, and if so, how to get it to interact with me in the future? If it stays, I do want it neutered and vaccinated. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
(Lori, I’m posting this at Love & Hisses as well, so make sure you check the comments over there, too!)
I’m going to bet that the best way to make progress in interacting with the kitten is to use food. Work on getting closer to the kitten as he’s eating – if need be, you can use canned kitten food or Gerber chicken and gravy baby food to make it more enticing. Once he allows you get close to him, start trying to pet him and go from there.
It’s hard to know whether that will work or not, though, because of course we don’t know whether he’s been around people before and is just skittish, or if he’s feral. In a perfect world, you’d be able to trap him and bring him inside and work on socializing him from there, but I know that’s not always possible. Hopefully other people will have other suggestions!
I have a question for you & your amazing readers. My little boy, Vash (5 years old) has been very sullen lately. He lays around a lot (which cats do – but he seems excessive), and is whiny a lot. He also wants to play with Kairi (his sister), but most often she doesn’t want to play. Do you have any toy suggestions for him? He plays with lasers but gets frustrated because there isn’t anything physical to catch. He loves Da Bird, but breaks them quickly. We recently found some spring toys that he loves, but I was hoping that you (& your readers) could maybe suggest some more toys for him. I tell my husband I think he needs a little brother (a kitten) to play with, but that’s really NOT an option for us. I want to help my little Dude. If he spoke English I know he’d tell us what he wants, but he’s horrible at English and he can’t sign so he just MEOWS and MEOWS and MEOWS and we don’t know what to do!
A little more story – we thought he just might want more attention, but no matter how much attention we give him – whether we’re playing with him, petting him, or cuddling with him – he seems to get grumpy and sullen after a bit. I just want him to be happy!
Also – We don’t think he’s sick – he’s not losing weight & his diet hasn’t changed. He’s not puking or anything like that.
Oldcat suggested: Perhaps a kicker toy or suffed animal that he could wrestle with like another cat would help
And I said: I was going to suggest one of those toys that fits over a door, you know, with the toy that hangs down that cats can bat around and jump up after? We have one of those in the foster room and one in the guest bedroom, and they’re a big hit with the cats and kittens! The only down side is that eventually they chew through the cord holding the toy on and the toy gets lost, but I always just tie another one up there.
I know y’all out there have suggestions, too, so let’s hear ’em!
Edited to add: Doodle Bean said: Since he’s sullen and meowy, you might want to get him checked for a bladder infection. Neutered male cats are prone to that problem, and they don’t necessarily run a fever or show much sign of it until it’s well advanced. If it’s been awhile since he’s had a vet check, you may want to run him over to the stabby place.
“Ho hum.”
“Hey. Something’s missing. Where…”
“HEY!”
“What?”
“Get over here! I’m bored!”
::thlurrrp::
::leap::
“Go ‘way, lady. No one invited you!”
Brats.
I know that sometimes Molly looks brownish in her pictures, but here she is with Harlan, so you can see the difference in their colors. Also, Harlan’s going to be HUGE and Molly’s a petite little thing.
Molly shows Sally who the boss is.
Sally shows Molly how sharp her teeth are.
“What?” (They moved the fight to the other side of the bed, so they could tussle in comfort.)
Tommy, hanging out in his favorite hanging-out spot.
Yesterday morning at 4:41, when I was sound asleep, I apparently moved in a way that Tommy thought meant I was going to wake up and pet him. Tommy gets VERY excited about being petted, and he throws himself on his back and writhes around, flailing his claws in all directions. One of his claws sunk into my arm, and that was an unpleasant way to wake up, believe you me. Then he jumped down off the bed and proceeded to barf up a lung on the bedroom floor.
It was not the best start to a day, if you were wondering.
Previously
2010: NOTES TO PAST AND FUTURE ROBYN FROM PRESENT ROBYN.
2009: We are far too amused by ourselves.
2008: No entry.
2007: I had NO IDEA Red Lobster was such a den of heathenry.
2006: The rags used on that closet: ONE MEELLION.
2005: And then the last straw came along and broke the fat woman’s back.
2004: Because he’s a skinny bastard.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Day One.
2000: So obviously I don’t know nothing’ ’bout picking out no paint.
To Lori: Before you do anything else, trap it, test it, fix it then worry about trying to tame it. If he’s a she all you need is 4-6 wild babies to deal with.
Why, why, why do they like to barf up whatever just as you’re thinking you’d like to snooze another 10 minutes? It’s like my (very unpleasant) morning alarm.
It’s better to hear it than not, and when you wake up you step in it. Surprise!
Yeah, there’s that. Can’t decide which is worse to step in–warm or cold. (hope you all are enjoying your dinner!)
To Lori: What Susan said! I had two ferals take up on my front porch a few years back, and before I knew it (literally about 3 weeks) I had a whole litter of feral babies plus feral parents & their feral friends – about eight total. Most important is to trap, test & fix! Robyn has a great link to the feral kitty website don’t you Robyn? 🙂 It gives great instructions on trapping, treating & taming ferals. Good luck!
OK here are a few feral cat links – there’s an organization that’s really good but I can’t think of the name or find the link right now – Robyn?
Feral Cat Coalition of San Diego
http://www.feralcat.com/taming.html
Stanford U – Great PDF tip sheet on taming feral kittens & cats
http://www.stanford.edu/group/CATNET/articles/infosheet_socialization.pdf
For the Love of Cats website
http://www.for-the-love-of-cats.com/TameFeralCat.html
Love the picture of Charlie and Patty together – so cute!
Also, I’ve been meaning to tell you that a while back, I read one of your old entries where you mention Andrew Vachss’ Burke series of books, which then made me check which ones I hadn’t read – which was surprisingly a lot. So for about 10 days straight I was obsessed with Burke and his family. Thinking of it again to thank you for the short lived obsession as I box them up for goodwill and someone else to enjoy.
It wasn’t until I read “isn’t anything physical to catch” that I realized Vash was a cat. I was honestly expecting that this was a “little boy” who was pretending to be a cat by behaving like one (lazing around, etc).
When I was about 3, I pretended to be a puppy for nearly a week, insisting my mom put a collar and leash on me and everything. I wouldn’t talk, would only bark, whine, or howl. I started this sometime during the workweek, so my dad was spared the bulk of it. By noon on Saturday he’d had enough. He held up the leash and asked me if I wanted to go outside. I “panted” and barked and acted like a happy dog, until he explained that I’d have to take my clothes off and leave them in the house, because dogs don’t wear clothes – oh, and I’d have to go to the bathroom in front of all the neighbors, just like all the other dogs do. That ended THAT game, RIGHT quick.
Oh, Elayne, you’ve got us howling here! Love your dad.
Would have been funnier if he’d dropped it when I did. Instead, he was irritated enough that he had decided I WAS going to go outside naked on a dog collar/leash and pee, no matter how tearfully I promised not to “be a puppy” anymore. My mom had to intervene because he was dead set on teaching me my lesson.
For the longest time, every time I’d see someone with a little dog wearing a vest or sweater thing, I was convinced that the owners’d had to put clothes on the dog to convince their kids to wear clothes, too.
OK, not so funny now.
What a big difference between girls and boys. My son seldom had his clothes on and often peed in public. He would have loved pretending to be a doggy. He wasn’t as creative as you were, though, mostly when he wanted to pretend he was a dog he just tried to sleep with ours in her dog house.
I love that Sally is looking at you while’s she’s casually chomping down on Molly.
um, that should be “while.”