‘Daddy’ is back in town!

Day 102

After 2 weeks of business travels, ‘Daddy’ Wim is back in town. And this morning he observed the kitten’s father walk by on the sidewalk as well. So in fact, both Daddy’s are back 🙂 We were a bit apprehensive about the feline reactions to his absence. We have read in several books that kittens have a very shallow short term memory: after 2 weeks, they do not remember you. Long term memory: if you were part of most of their lives, kittens probably will have a memory of you.

To our relief, the latter was the case. The reunion was very endearing. The twins ran towards Wim with their high tinkling meows, and Mitsy walked right up to him and let herself be caressed. Such progress! It was a true homecoming for Wim.

Video snippet of Wim’s homecoming, being greeted affectionally by Mitsy.

Stipke is doing well and is ready for adoption

In the meantime Stipke is doing well after her visit to the vet. It seems that she indeed had some stomach pain or acid reflux and the injection must have helped because in the evening she started drinking her kitten milk again and even, clearly hungry, ate some kitten kibble. She is still not a big eater so we are being creative and offering her a self-made mousse of kitten pate and salt-free margarine. That is a paste that she seems to really like and we will try and add more and more wet food and less and less margarine to her. And in between meals, we hope she will turn to kitten kibble. She is happy enough, certainly not in any kind of discomfort anymore, so she is in fact ready to be adopted.

How do we know she is (they are) ready?

New situations are less and less frightening to her. And to her brother, for that matter.

We have opened up the landing for them (supervised only), and they find it super interesting. Give us regular frights by climbing the railing, but it does show how well their balance is getting. Mitsy calls out to them when they do that, but she has not been up there. She has been on the landing for a bit and it is obvious that the cat room is her safe basecamp to which she knows to return when she gets frightened or spooked. Suzi, during all of this, is just sleeping downstairs and seems unaware of what is happening upstairs. For now…

Video snippet of Stipke doing her balancing act on the railing…
Mitsy seems unbothered and stays in Basecamp…

All of this makes it hard to search our hearts for the best solution for Mitsy though…

Her spaying date has been set and, unless we find homes for the twins before that date, they will move to the Ninth Life Cat Rescue Adoption Centre to find a new forever home. We have a temporary address where Mitsy can recuperate from surgery and if all of this happens, our feral/stray cat project is coming full circle, converting our house to a single-cat home again. We truly expected the feline family to hiss at Wim when he came back, but now that we see yet another proof of trust in Mitsy, it makes us rethink our plans.

We are still unsure about our living situation, but we might be able to squeeze in an extra month or two with Mitsy. The only thing that will require her to be rehomed is when Suzi and Mitsy will be unable to live harmoniously in the same house. Suzi has priority in this matter and although they are both aware of other cats being around, we have yet to see a true direct encounter.

We have been told that, after spaying, many cats really calm down and settle into a quiet indoor life. This often also results in an easier relationship with other cats in the house. All those ‘ifs’ are sometimes driving us crazy. What decision will we take? What are the options and possibilities?

We still have 1.5 weeks to think it through, before the spaying date. By then we need to have made up our minds…