I got a kitten (last year)!
Jan. 11th, 2023 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaThe other thing I did in 2022 (other than read game manuals, and consume good media, and also we bought a house) is that I followed through on the "as soon as I have a house, I'm getting a third cat" threat & got a kitten.
This plan was the light at the end of the house-hunting tunnel, and I'd planned on a kitten in order to maximize the odds of Toby bonding with the new cat.
But the actual act of adopting was impromptu, a desperate bid to feel joy and invite new life into my world after my sister died in July. Was the house kitten-proofed? No! Were we remotely finished unpacking, ahahaha no.
For reasons related and otherwise, it was a stupidly stressful adoption process. The starting point for me is easy: search for DMH black cats in my area and be happy to drive multiple hours. (This time it was only 70 minutes.) I contacted the shelter multiple times via both email and phone with no response; finally got through to the world's least enthusiastic/most phone-shy volunteer (mood, I mean, but still), and then rushed down in person fearing "what if someone takes my cat, kittens go fast!!"
She was in the kitten room at the humane society. There's so many ways to pick a cat/be chosen by a cat, and this was none of them. She was pleasant, cute, amenable to being handled, but a little overstimulated: an unremarkable example of a normal cat in a mildly stressful situation. So I picked her for her aesthetics, and for her bio: "My favorite thing is to get pets and to fall asleep in your arms. I am as sweet, loving, and snuggly as they come! I get along with other cats too!"—knowing full well that a kitten's personality is subject to change.
But Toby was a blind pick, too—I wanted a shy black DMH, I didn't even get to see him properly on our first meeting, I brought him home anyway, and now he's my best boy. So I just pulled the trigger and did the thing.
I've adopted before! I've rescued from the street! I've done month-long quarantines in the bathroom, I'm experienced, etc etc, but we could not quarantine this small, adorable, exceptionally social kitten that screamed whenever locked in the bathroom alone. And then August broke quarantine ~3 days in to steal kitten food. And then the kitten, and then August, got gunky eyes.
And then Toby, stressed after the move, and then Devon following us up, and then the new kitten, stopped eating. And while I was losing my mind over Toby & therefore undersocializing the kitten, the kitten stopped eating. She got dangerously skinny (looking back at her baby pictures is upsetting.) I was losing my mind.
A vet prescribed eye cream and handled the prolonged wave of "can you do yearly checkups on my cats; also are they going to die from New Kitten Is Here disease??". I figured out how to fix Toby: enforced, uninterrupted 1-on-1 time, an endless variety of novel snacks, and kitten kibble, which was calorie-dense enough to keep him going when he would barely eat. But really, cuddles were the key; I felt literally like I was licking him into shape, like my touch was rearranging his features, putting Toby back in to his true self. I haven't taken that for granted sense.
Oh and I figured out how to fix the kitten, which was a million tiny servings of wet food a day so that food was fun and social, instead of bad punishment time; and we furiously unpacked and kitten-proofed the house, forgoing all attempts at quarantine and acknowledging that she desperately needed to be around us at all times.
At the tail end of this, August stopped eating for like 18 hours, but I shut that down immediately with love & kitten kibbles.
Meanwhile, I named the kitten November, called Vivi.
Here's Vivi's backstory: Named Kait at the humane society, her original listing is here. She was born to a pair of feral mums who were co-parenting, and had AFAIK one biological sibling and three? non-bio siblings, although the volunteer said they weren't sure who was born to whom. She was fostered by volunteers, and put up for adoption (spayed) at 11 weeks; I grabbed her a couple of days later. This puts her approximate birthdate at May 16, 2022.
So. I wanted a kitten to make the house feel alive, and certainly she did that! In a horrible, frenetic way, at first! I also wanted to be happier, and after those initial weeks, guess what: Vivi is perfect.
Despite the odds, she's just as her bio claimed. She gets along great with the other cats, and has impeccable cat manners despite occasional little-sibling behavior (is this annoying? is this annoying? when I poke your face, is that annoying?). August tolerates her with enthusiasm—August's special way of cohabitating, "I would be lonely without you, but please don't touch me". Toby is absolutely enriched by her—they're not best-friend snuggle-buddies, but they'll co-sleep and play and he bullies her just a little, but not too much.
But her truest joy is people. August is a die-hard lap cat, Toby apparently literally stops eating without cuddles, but Vivi is a monster for companionship. For a long time she only wanted to be held (head over the left shoulder) and would throw a hissyfit if put down; she now has expanded her repertoire to include laps (!) and various forms of co-sleeping. Every morning she wakes me by lying on my shoulder/neck for cuddles. She purrs for hours, hours; nothing about Vivi is an exaggeration: the sweetest, most loving cat I've ever met.
I don't like kittens because they look dumb & because even year-old cats are too much energy for me. But Vivi is a miracle. Her play is enthusiastic but ridiculously low-effort, much of it self-directed. She never went through asshole phases.
Also, she's about 8 months now and still so tiny. 6.5-7 pounds? She makes kittenish meep-meep sounds instead of meowing (she can meow! it's tiny, too. she only does it while playing) and a lot of her other vocalizations are small, like soundless chattering. It's possible her voice could change, and she'll certainly continue to fill out into an adult. But she's my only kitten and feels very much like a perma-kitten; a kitten with all the good and none of the bad parts of a kitten: tiny, very silly, curious and joyful, unbearably sweet, so cute it physically hurts my body.
Devon loves her—the other cats are mine but Vivi feels more like ours, like she wouldn't chose favorites between us (except she would) (it would be me: I feed her).
I've lived in a four-cat household before, I've been effective-caretaker for three cats at once, but something about this combination—three cats, an aesthetically pleasing odd number, all black DMH which I find so, so beautiful; all so different despite this similarity, complete individuals, completely unique ... I'm over the moon; I love her and I love them and the house, which I also love, feels complete in a soul-satisfying way. Three is the perfect number.
Vivi wasn't a secret kitten on purpose. I just haven't wanted to talk to people—the move was a lot of work, aesthetic changes to the house consume a lot of my time ... but mostly it's that, after my sister died, I just didn't want to reach out to anyone. Vivi can't fix that; it's a huge burden for very small shoulders. Nonetheless she is a miracle. The mythologization of cat adoption stories truly happens after the fact: despite that it was a truly horribly time, she was the right cat. She's only been here five months, and already I couldn't imagine life without her.
Anyway, who cares! Kitten pictures, in approximately-chronological order. There would be more, but it turns out I'm in most of my Vivi pictures, as she prefers to be On Person at All Times. Images are labeled for my records, as temporary hosting will doubtless nuke them.
(november 001)
(november 002)
Those were the pics on her adoption listing!
(november 005)
(november 006)
3 months. These were her earliest beauty shots, before the eye infection/weight loss. Straight from the humane society, she was pretty skinny and with her naked tummy and wild-ass fur was independently dubbed scraggamuffin/ragamuffin by me and the vet.
(catsplural 103)
Almost 4 months. August on the left. Vivi was so tiny.
(catsplural 105)
Same age. October on left. Vivi got so skinny. :(
(november 029a/029b)
4 months! In retrospect the "skinny, dying orphan" phase was brief, however horrible. (White flecks on her feet because this was the age when she ran through a paint tray. Q_Q)
(november 037)
5 months and...
(november 043b)
6 months! The baby got bigger. Also I painted a wall.
(catsplural 128)
7 months. October on left. I would say "he is so patient" (and he is) but Toby also likes to push other cats exactly one step past their comfort zone when he plays, so he repays annoying behavior in kind.
(catsplural 125)
7 months. Vivi left; Toby top right, August bottom right. I present this blurry-ass group photo because this is now my average evening: three cats who must touch me at all times. And sometimes! They touch each other!!
(november 025)
7 months! Imagine you're walking past the hall and you see this crime-baby sitting on your scarves and she's seven months and she's still this little! It makes me want to cry.
This plan was the light at the end of the house-hunting tunnel, and I'd planned on a kitten in order to maximize the odds of Toby bonding with the new cat.
But the actual act of adopting was impromptu, a desperate bid to feel joy and invite new life into my world after my sister died in July. Was the house kitten-proofed? No! Were we remotely finished unpacking, ahahaha no.
For reasons related and otherwise, it was a stupidly stressful adoption process. The starting point for me is easy: search for DMH black cats in my area and be happy to drive multiple hours. (This time it was only 70 minutes.) I contacted the shelter multiple times via both email and phone with no response; finally got through to the world's least enthusiastic/most phone-shy volunteer (mood, I mean, but still), and then rushed down in person fearing "what if someone takes my cat, kittens go fast!!"
She was in the kitten room at the humane society. There's so many ways to pick a cat/be chosen by a cat, and this was none of them. She was pleasant, cute, amenable to being handled, but a little overstimulated: an unremarkable example of a normal cat in a mildly stressful situation. So I picked her for her aesthetics, and for her bio: "My favorite thing is to get pets and to fall asleep in your arms. I am as sweet, loving, and snuggly as they come! I get along with other cats too!"—knowing full well that a kitten's personality is subject to change.
But Toby was a blind pick, too—I wanted a shy black DMH, I didn't even get to see him properly on our first meeting, I brought him home anyway, and now he's my best boy. So I just pulled the trigger and did the thing.
I've adopted before! I've rescued from the street! I've done month-long quarantines in the bathroom, I'm experienced, etc etc, but we could not quarantine this small, adorable, exceptionally social kitten that screamed whenever locked in the bathroom alone. And then August broke quarantine ~3 days in to steal kitten food. And then the kitten, and then August, got gunky eyes.
And then Toby, stressed after the move, and then Devon following us up, and then the new kitten, stopped eating. And while I was losing my mind over Toby & therefore undersocializing the kitten, the kitten stopped eating. She got dangerously skinny (looking back at her baby pictures is upsetting.) I was losing my mind.
A vet prescribed eye cream and handled the prolonged wave of "can you do yearly checkups on my cats; also are they going to die from New Kitten Is Here disease??". I figured out how to fix Toby: enforced, uninterrupted 1-on-1 time, an endless variety of novel snacks, and kitten kibble, which was calorie-dense enough to keep him going when he would barely eat. But really, cuddles were the key; I felt literally like I was licking him into shape, like my touch was rearranging his features, putting Toby back in to his true self. I haven't taken that for granted sense.
Oh and I figured out how to fix the kitten, which was a million tiny servings of wet food a day so that food was fun and social, instead of bad punishment time; and we furiously unpacked and kitten-proofed the house, forgoing all attempts at quarantine and acknowledging that she desperately needed to be around us at all times.
At the tail end of this, August stopped eating for like 18 hours, but I shut that down immediately with love & kitten kibbles.
Meanwhile, I named the kitten November, called Vivi.
Here's Vivi's backstory: Named Kait at the humane society, her original listing is here. She was born to a pair of feral mums who were co-parenting, and had AFAIK one biological sibling and three? non-bio siblings, although the volunteer said they weren't sure who was born to whom. She was fostered by volunteers, and put up for adoption (spayed) at 11 weeks; I grabbed her a couple of days later. This puts her approximate birthdate at May 16, 2022.
So. I wanted a kitten to make the house feel alive, and certainly she did that! In a horrible, frenetic way, at first! I also wanted to be happier, and after those initial weeks, guess what: Vivi is perfect.
Despite the odds, she's just as her bio claimed. She gets along great with the other cats, and has impeccable cat manners despite occasional little-sibling behavior (is this annoying? is this annoying? when I poke your face, is that annoying?). August tolerates her with enthusiasm—August's special way of cohabitating, "I would be lonely without you, but please don't touch me". Toby is absolutely enriched by her—they're not best-friend snuggle-buddies, but they'll co-sleep and play and he bullies her just a little, but not too much.
But her truest joy is people. August is a die-hard lap cat, Toby apparently literally stops eating without cuddles, but Vivi is a monster for companionship. For a long time she only wanted to be held (head over the left shoulder) and would throw a hissyfit if put down; she now has expanded her repertoire to include laps (!) and various forms of co-sleeping. Every morning she wakes me by lying on my shoulder/neck for cuddles. She purrs for hours, hours; nothing about Vivi is an exaggeration: the sweetest, most loving cat I've ever met.
I don't like kittens because they look dumb & because even year-old cats are too much energy for me. But Vivi is a miracle. Her play is enthusiastic but ridiculously low-effort, much of it self-directed. She never went through asshole phases.
Also, she's about 8 months now and still so tiny. 6.5-7 pounds? She makes kittenish meep-meep sounds instead of meowing (she can meow! it's tiny, too. she only does it while playing) and a lot of her other vocalizations are small, like soundless chattering. It's possible her voice could change, and she'll certainly continue to fill out into an adult. But she's my only kitten and feels very much like a perma-kitten; a kitten with all the good and none of the bad parts of a kitten: tiny, very silly, curious and joyful, unbearably sweet, so cute it physically hurts my body.
Devon loves her—the other cats are mine but Vivi feels more like ours, like she wouldn't chose favorites between us (except she would) (it would be me: I feed her).
I've lived in a four-cat household before, I've been effective-caretaker for three cats at once, but something about this combination—three cats, an aesthetically pleasing odd number, all black DMH which I find so, so beautiful; all so different despite this similarity, complete individuals, completely unique ... I'm over the moon; I love her and I love them and the house, which I also love, feels complete in a soul-satisfying way. Three is the perfect number.
Vivi wasn't a secret kitten on purpose. I just haven't wanted to talk to people—the move was a lot of work, aesthetic changes to the house consume a lot of my time ... but mostly it's that, after my sister died, I just didn't want to reach out to anyone. Vivi can't fix that; it's a huge burden for very small shoulders. Nonetheless she is a miracle. The mythologization of cat adoption stories truly happens after the fact: despite that it was a truly horribly time, she was the right cat. She's only been here five months, and already I couldn't imagine life without her.
Anyway, who cares! Kitten pictures, in approximately-chronological order. There would be more, but it turns out I'm in most of my Vivi pictures, as she prefers to be On Person at All Times. Images are labeled for my records, as temporary hosting will doubtless nuke them.
(november 001)
(november 002)
Those were the pics on her adoption listing!
(november 005)
(november 006)
3 months. These were her earliest beauty shots, before the eye infection/weight loss. Straight from the humane society, she was pretty skinny and with her naked tummy and wild-ass fur was independently dubbed scraggamuffin/ragamuffin by me and the vet.
(catsplural 103)
Almost 4 months. August on the left. Vivi was so tiny.
(catsplural 105)
Same age. October on left. Vivi got so skinny. :(
(november 029a/029b)
4 months! In retrospect the "skinny, dying orphan" phase was brief, however horrible. (White flecks on her feet because this was the age when she ran through a paint tray. Q_Q)
(november 037)
5 months and...
(november 043b)
6 months! The baby got bigger. Also I painted a wall.
(catsplural 128)
7 months. October on left. I would say "he is so patient" (and he is) but Toby also likes to push other cats exactly one step past their comfort zone when he plays, so he repays annoying behavior in kind.
(catsplural 125)
7 months. Vivi left; Toby top right, August bottom right. I present this blurry-ass group photo because this is now my average evening: three cats who must touch me at all times. And sometimes! They touch each other!!
(november 025)
7 months! Imagine you're walking past the hall and you see this crime-baby sitting on your scarves and she's seven months and she's still this little! It makes me want to cry.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 06:57 am (UTC)The no-eating thing is HORRIBLE. It sounds like a very stressful few weeks! When we got Selkie, she also decided not to eat, to the point where she was weak and I had to feed her warmed wet food on my fingertips. Pretty much the same trick worked for her as for Vivi: lots of little meals, attention while she eats. I'm glad everyone is fine now. <3
The pictures of Vivi inside the wooden wall square, so it looks like she's in a picture frame, are so adorable. <3
Is spaying younger kittens a common practice in the US? To be clear, no judgement from me, it's just a surprise -- we spayed our girls at 8 months old, and our vet still thought that might be too young.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 07:35 am (UTC)I was so surprised when I saw the posts about your kittens' spays! It also lead to some googling which turned up (paraphrasing rando pet website articles, none of this is like ... rigorously scientific): waiting until 5+ months is safer for anesthesia/healing, there are pro/cons (pro: developmental benchmarks, con: risk of cancer) for erring later, but spaying younger is an acceptable risk and the real thing is that owners Just Don't Do It so humane societies prefer to take that risk and fix every cat, including kittens. And frankly, I concur. In a better world, I might have picked a later date?? Who knows. But I would rather they rush to fix a kitten as soon as it's viable instead of trusting randos to make the responsible choice.
So I don't know if it's common throughout the US, but it is here (in a pretty progressive corner of the States).
I also had to wait a few days to adopt Toby because they were like "okay but let's chop his balls off rq;" he was a year old, so age wasn't the issue, but there was never even a possibility of me taking him before the procedure. (Again, I think this is a good thing!)
I'm going to toss you some Vivi pictures wherein a wild Juu appears via email!
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 08:28 am (UTC)It makes a lot of sense to spay / neuter before you give cats to owners. The shelter I volunteered for would adopt out kittens before they were spayed / neutered, but the owners could get them done for free there as soon as they were old enough. I think it worked 70% of the time, but clearly the method of fixing them before they're adopted out is foolproof. I guess US vs European vets have been interpreting studies differently, because my overall experience is that vets here advocate for spaying later.
I always LOVE talking about cats with you. <3 You understand in a way so many people don't.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-13 02:42 pm (UTC)A quick Google search says, on average in the states, 5-6 months old is a good age. My sister, a vet tech, claims it's done just before a female would go into estrus for the first time, which is (I think?) around 3 months old.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 09:45 pm (UTC)We also have 3 cats (including a gorgeous house panther) and they are the light of my life. Each are also snuggle monsters in their own right.
I'm over the moon for your furbaby! And I love the group shot of the snuggle pusses. <3
no subject
Date: 2023-01-15 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-13 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-15 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-15 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-14 09:09 pm (UTC)I'm sorry November's entry into your family had to be trauma, but it gladdens my soul that she has enriched your life so profoundly.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-15 08:56 am (UTC)