Happy Thanksgiving news!

Day 95

I just heard that our second pair of kittens has been adopted right before the weekend, via the Oakville Place Adoption Centre, coordinated by Ninth Life Cat Rescue Ontario. What great news and how appropriate to hear about it on Canadian Thanksgiving! I am so grateful to all the volunteers who work tirelessly for a better life for kittens like ours.

This post is a huge shout-out in particular to the new parents who now get to enjoy ‘our’ sweet kittens. Pumba and Kabiri, the two boys, one shorthair black tabby and one longhair grey tabby, now have new homes, after a 2 week stay in their Adoption Condo. And the two females Cheetah and Spooky went before them, after only one week in the Adoption Centre. That is just fabulous and such an answer to my prayers! A heartfelt thank you to all who were involved and congratulations to the new adoptive parents! I hope they will reach out to us and send us an update and some photographs as the kittens grow into adults. I have always been so curious how they would develop….

Bye-bye, beautiful Kabiri!
Bye-bye, sweet Pumba!

Remaining trio

So that means that only 3 of the 7 cat family remain. The twins Sipke and Stipke and mother Mitsy. Mitsy will be spayed this month and we are hoping to find a suitable foster place for her, where she can recover and continue to build trust in humans. We tried to create a good foundation for that, but we have always known that the process had an expiration date. For those of you who follow this blog, this is not big news.

Mitsy

Mitsy came to us as a stray/semi-feral cat that had lost trust in humans. She did remember that we were a possible source of food though. Her begging earned her a place in our home, only 3 days before her second litter of the year was born. We never saw the first (end of winter) and we are assuming they did not survive. In the 4.5 months that preceded her trapping, we worked hard to build a relationship with her. We invested patience and time in her and let her call the shots. We stayed on that course when she became an indoor cat and had her litter. I believe that this was detrimental to where we are now with her. She is responsive, though still cautious. She is discovering the joy of cuddles. And as she is weaning her remaining two kittens, she is slowly coming into her own.

If I had to characterise her, I would say she is a very friendly feline. She is not aggressive, she retreats rather than attacks in situations that frighten or displease her. But it is very clear that her trust in people was damaged. She is a powerful cat, muscular, but not really tall. The only thing that is big on her are her paws, strangely enough. As if she was meant to be bigger but it never happened due to what life threw at her.

We feel that she needs a patient, cat-loving home to continue her on her current course. A home without children, a home with peace and quiet. Going by what we saw when she was still outside, she is okay with other cats, although she would have to be introduced to them gradually. She does not like dogs. She does not like a lot of loud activity, so she probably does not like young kids. She is not used to having a whole house to her disposal, so starting her in a separate room would work best. Giving her the time and space to explore in her own time. She loves to play with stick toys! Especially when they are hidden under a cushion or a piece of carton. This really triggers her. Once she recognises you as a source of food and someone to play with, you will have found a way into her heart. She likes cuddles on her head and neck, not so much on her body. And she does not appreciate being picked up…

We would love to keep her, but our living circumstances simply would not give her the best chance for a happy indoor feline life. Let us know if you feel you can be her forever home using the Contact page of this website!

The Twins: Sipke

For the longest time we were convinced that Sipke was a girl. Don’t ask me why, we just did. Only recently was she exposed as a Tom cat, the little rascal! Sipke is a wonderfully responsive male kitten. He has a lot of character, will talk to you and play with you whenever you feel like it. After a good meal, he loves to hang out with you or he will just nod off and go to bed. He will not become a huge cat, is our impression. But you never know… he may yet have some growth spurts to surprise us with! He is very much a son of Mitsy. When you see the two of them together they are extremely alike. He is a jolly fellow that will do well with lots of play and attention.

The Twins: Stipke

Stipke is the female in disguise… She was a very small and slightly clumsy kitten for a while, but recently she is finding more balance and is now almost as big as her brother Sipke. She is slightly more timid than Sipke. She is the last one to be weaned and she still enjoys a good cup of KMR kitten milk. We mix it with kitten mousse by Tiki After Dark wet food to get her used to eating solids. Strangely enough, she is a big fan of kibble, but not of wet food. However, she is growing nicely and developing physically as well. She was not able to follow a stick toy for more than a minute not too long ago. But recently she is really enjoying play and becoming faster and smarter. She has a very girly way of hunting: she does little jumps with all four legs when she sees the toy move up and down! She has an adorably innocent face! We think she will not be a big cat, but she will be slim and charming.

Bonded twins

Cats do not often have real twins. We just call Sipke and Stipke ‘the twins’ because they are so similar that we were unable to tell them apart when they were younger. They are truly bonded for life. They sleep together, they will seek comfort with each other and they play together. That is why they can only be adopted as a pair. They would miss each other sorely if separated. The advantage of adopting two kittens in one go is that they don’t need to adjust to another cat. They were born together, they know each other well. In the picture below you can see how they seek refuge with each other when confronted with something scary such as the vacuum cleaner…