Mitsy goes solo

October, 2021

At the end of October Mitsy’s solo time began with spaying surgery. The twins found a new family to live with and the cat room was now Mitsy’s territory. She did not enjoy the beginning of this new stage in her life, because we were told it was best to have a cone put on her head, to prevent her from damaging the incision site on her belly. It is at times like these that you wish that you had already established a completely trusting and comfortable relationship with your cat, to give them comfort and live during her recovery. Fortunately, there was no relapse to feral behaviour in Mitsy when she came back from surgery.

On the contrary. Which amazed us. In the week leading up to the surgery and the departure of the twins, Wim had been ‘practicing’ with Mitsy to get her into the carrier that we were going to use for transport. The twins were the 2 smallest kittens of the litter and the female twin, Stipke, was not doing well with the transition to solid food. As supplement, we gave her Kitten Milk Replacement (KMR). Brother Sipke and mother Mitsy also loved that stuff. So Wim had been offering it to Mitsy inside of the carrier for days now. Every time he coaxed her to go into the carrier with the promise of some KMR, he touched her back-end so she would not freak if it would be necessary to give her a little push on the day of the operation. It totally paid off, because on spay day it took him less than a minute to lock her into the carrier. She did not even realised that the door closed until after she finished drinking the meal! The two kittens were easy to move into their own carrier and off we went.

When Mitsy came back home, she actually let us cuddle her, mostly on her neck and face and she started ‘making biscuits’ as we were doing that. It was a huge change.

We confined her to her room for one and a half week and then we started to leave the door open so she could venture out and explore the house, this time on her own, without the kittens. We believe that she barely missed the kittens – her recovery distracted her. It was perfect timing.

Wim makes a picture of recovering Mitsy, after a cuddle session on the window bench