Kitten puddle!

Yes, it is possible to cuddle half a dozen kittens at once. All it requires is flexibility and no dignity.

It's a tough job ...

... but someone has to cuddle a big puddle of purring fur:

Just to make sense of the photo, I was sitting in the kitty cage, a cube no more than 3 feet square. Black-and-white kitten was tucked into the left side of my jacket (the gray fleece), and gray-and-white kitten #1 was tucked into the right. (That's his head in the middle.) Gray-and-white kitten #2 wanted his own space up close, so I leaned back so he could settle atop my torso and neck, and let my legs dangle out of the cage. My head is barely supported by a mylar shelf, and I took the photo myself with my cell phone. It was incredibly awkward, but warm, cuddly, and full of loud purrs. Like I said, a tough job, but I'm willing to do it.

The Feline Anti-Literacy Brigade, Part 4

Wait a minute, you may be thinking. Didn't you say a few posts ago that you had a limit to the felines in your household? Didn't your other half swear up and down that "Three Is Enough," that we now have a replacement-only policy? So what gives? You didn't bring another feline home, did you?

No, I didn't. I respect the house rules, and besides, Agents 1, 2, and 3 would not be pleased to share their duties with a fourth feline. But if I can't bring the kitties home to me, I can certainly travel to meet them. And that's exactly what I do once a week: I travel to the Humane Society of Huron Valley and volunteer a couple hours as a "Cat Comforter." The shelter does great work, but it's old and cramped. It's stressful for the kitties, and a stressful kitty isn't as friendly and appealing as a happy kitty. My job is to go in, give the kitties attention, help them relax, and hopefully make them more adoptable. And if I can't convince the kitty to come out from the back of the cage, sometimes I'll go in to meet them:

There were actually four kittens in this cage. The black one with white paws was being curious and crawling on top of me—and on top of her brother, who was trying to sleep on my lap. (You can see his white forepaws sticking out in front of his black head.) What you can't see are the two grey ones that were sitting behind me, occasionally trying to crawl up or behind my back. One of the hazards of comforting a cage full of kittens is that they regard you as their personal jungle gym, and you can end up with itty bitty kitty scratches on your back and arms.

Right now we're in the middle of kitten season. It starts around Memorial Day, and lasts most of the rest of the year (although there only a few kittens in November and December). Last year, we had almost full kitten turnover every week. I'd go in, and each of the 10 cages would have a new set of kittens in them. (Replenished by the numerous volunteers who foster litters until they're old enough or there's room enough to be adopted at the shelter.)

This year we seem to have an excess of black and black-and-white kittens (a couple kitlers among them). Some of them have been there for almost a month, which can't be good. They'd much rather be with people, from the way they snuggle and kiss me when I take them out of their cages.

So procrastinating by volunteering at HSHV is a win-win all around: the kitties get some attention, while I get kitties who are actually grateful for attention and a great excuse not to start working on Chapter 17.

The Feline Anti-Literacy Brigade, Part 3

I was going to write a post today about why I like writing for children—my inspirations and all that stuff—but then Gigi walked into the room, said "Mrrrow!," rubbed against my hand, and allowed me to pick her up and cut her claws. This is a rare honor, indeed, and is her way of telling me that it's her turn to be featured in this blog. And actually, I may write a version of Gigi's story for kids some day, so maybe it's not such a distraction after all. It's a rough draft, that's it!

This was Gigi when we first met her, five years ago. After we returned from London to our house in Michigan, we discovered that during the year it lay vacant, feral cats had discovered the deck was a nice, quiet, protected place to have kittens. The first litter we discovered managed to escape before we could trap them, but a few months later we did capture another mother and her older kitten (too wild, unfortunately, to be tamed). The next summer we saw yet another litter of three, and managed to trap them all. Not really knowing what I was in for, but determined to help the baby kitties, I stuck them in the bathroom and tried to tame them down. They freaked out whenever I came in, but they were small enough that I could catch them and handle them. I hoped I could get them used to human contact by feeding them and petting them.

As you can see from the photo, the Gray Growler (as she was first known) did not like that idea at all. She cowered with her siblings (a blond brother and a tortie sister) and growled and hissed every time I came near. She also made the other kitties growl and hiss, despite the tasty food my wondrous Opposable-Cat-Food-Can-Opening-Thumbs produced. You really don't want to know what she did to the tub to show her displeasure. (The tub, thankfully, has since been replaced.)

I was calling shelters and rescues all over the place, seeing if they could tame the kittens. They were all full up, but gave me lots of useful advice. The first was to separate the three kittens, as that way they would get lonely and tame down more quickly. After redecorating a couple of bedrooms with tarps and cages, we had each kitten in its own room. And lo! Blondie and Trixie (the tortie) were soon trotting up to me when I entered the room, eager for food and petting. After a few weeks they were ready for adoption, and found new homes within a week.

The Gray Growler, however, ran away from me when I entered her room. She would sit on my lap and eat from a dish on my knees, but she growled the whole time. (This produces a very amusing nyow nyow nyow sound.) And unlike her siblings, while I could pet her, I couldn't get her to purr. Finally my friend Barb (another feline devotee) suggested I purr at her first. So I tried it. I sat her on my lap, let her growl through dinner, and then petted her, making little purring noises with my throat. I felt silly, but after a couple of minutes I was rewarded with a return purr.

Over the next couple months our Gray Growler turned into a Gray Geiger (she has a very LOUD purr), and thus into GG aka Gigi. My other half graciously allowed that we could keep her, seeing as she was still way too skittish to easily find another home. We introduced her to Callie and Clio, she explored the whole house, and she discovered that it is fun to sit on research packets and prevent me from working!

So that is Gigi's story. I know you're not supposed to have favorites among your kids, but with cats it's probably okay. While all my kitties have their lovable sides, I have to admit Gigi is my favorite. She is so skittish that I feel really special when she decides to sit on the back of my chair or allow me to pick her up. Plus, she is the only one of my felines who actually sleeps on my bed—almost always awakening me upon arrival with her loud purring—and every night we play "milk ring hockey" on the staircase. Plus, she has a really great story.

[getting on soapbox] As much as I love my Gigi, stories like hers wouldn't be so common if people would spay and neuter their pets. Nowadays there are even Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) programs to deal with feral cat populations and prevent more litters of unwanted kittens from inundating shelters. So please take care of your animal friends by sterilizing them! [/soapbox]