Kitty!

As you may or may not know, Kevan has been volunteering at our local Humane Society for awhile now, socializing cats. Basically that means grooming and playing with them so that they are sweet and friendly and adoptable. Here he is (with his friend Doug who was visiting) in the kitty room.

So the Humane Society called us yesterday afternoon with the following sad story. A lady named Christine just moved into a new (to her) house last week. They smelled cat urine in the sunroom, so they realized there was a cat living underneath the house. They had a dog, who soon chased the cat out and they boarded up the openings. Soon afterward she started to hear kittens mewing. She opened the openings again, and waited for the mama cat to return, but she did not. The dog had chased her away. Christine found the kittens (two of them) and put them on the porch hoping the mama cat would come get them there. One of the kittens died waiting. She thought both kittens were dead, but one of them was still hanging on. She heated him with a heating pad and purchased some kitty formula and bottles, and then called the Humane Society. She had two small children and could not handle caring for this kitten. The Humane Society can't take them in until they are eating on their own and litter box trained, so they asked us to foster the kitten until that time.

We went and picked it up from Christine at around 2:00.  It was mewing loudly and desperately looking for food.  Its eyes were still closed.  We took it home and started trying to feed it with the bottle Christine had already prepared and was using.  Turned out the nipple didn't have a hole in it.  Once we rectified that problem, the kitten ate like a pro and fell asleep.  Kevan and I read up on orphaned kitten care and learned how to stimulate her to go potty, and how often to feed her, etc.  She is sleeping in a pet carrier with a heating pad wrapped in towels (when we're not holding her that is).  She slept until evening (about 4 hours) and we fed her again.  Kevan and Ben slept downstairs by her box so that Kevan could feed her when she woke up in the night.  He said he woke up a few times, but the kitten never woke up and cried in the middle of the night.

I woke up early this morning (had a meeting at 5:30).  I got her out at about 6:00 and woke her up and started mewing, so we fed her breakfast.  Now she's sleeping again.