Sunday, July 26, 2015

Snoozing sisters

First things first: Nala and Poppy have an owner, yay! From what I understood, a young woman had contacted the shelter looking for 2 female kittens, and after Poppy and Nala got placed online, the shelter contacted her to point her at Poppy and Nala. She was interested, so within a day or 2 after they went online, she had visited and it's a match! The impression that I got was that it's a nice match and these are 2 lucky girls :) They showed well what she can expect, but what they didn't show, is how they can be when they're sleepy. Of course they were wide-awake when she visited, haha! So below are some pics to go with that side of them :) I think she'll visit again before they're allowed to move, I hope they'll show that side then too, so she can enjoy them being more cuddly as well.

They will get their shots and chips next Thursday, and hopefully get the all clear from the vet, and then they're allowed to move the week after. This is because the shots could potentially give a side-effect, and moving is quite stressful, which can also lower their resistances, and we don't want them to get sick right after moving! So they're staying here for another week after those shots to make sure all is fine with them. Their ears are almost fully clean now, so I have good hopes that it'll all be fine! They're 8 weeks today, so that'll make them around 9.5 weeks when they move, which I think is a good age for kittens without a mum.

To give you an idea, according to Dutch laws you cannot take kittens away from their mum when they're under 7 weeks old. Unfortunately it still happens that people sell or give away kittens that are younger, and of course when they're found without a mum, there's not much you can do about it. In the wild, kittens won't leave their mum until they're a lot older (4+ months), sometimes much longer than that. And depending on the amount of resources nearby, females can stay their entire life with their mum. This is something you'll see on farms for example, groups of cats (usually females, depending on the size of the group there can be males as well) that hunt alone but also do things like defend their territory together and assist each other in giving birth and caring for the kittens. So a cat isn't an animal that always lives solo, it's a flexible animal. It can live solo and it can live in groups. Unfortunately, I'm currently not in a position where I can get the education to become a cat behavior expert, but that doesn't stop me from rambling on about this subject, haha! :$
Anyway, as you can imagine, removing a kitten from mum at such a young age isn't good for the kitten. For example, in a natural situation, a kitten can drink for quite some time with mum, and my 3 current sweeties didn't have that opportunity. What they're also missing, is a part of the 1st socialization period with their mum, and the entire 2nd socialization period. In that second period they'll learn things like how to play nicely, and what you can see with cats that missed that, is that they play too rough. They never learned from mum and siblings when they bite or scratch too hard. These kittens however, do have that option, albeit without mum. They have my Dewey and each other still :) And because they'll stay together, they won't forget the 'cat language' either, so I'm very happy for them! They're still improving every day, with an occasional step back, but that's normal. I think their owner will have 2 lovely cats ♥


Here's some less good pics (yep, front camera of my phone again!), but it does show how Poppy loves her cozy cuddles at times. Yesterday she was snoozing on me (she wanted to sleep but had Nala attack her face and Munchy at her legs, so I took her with me), and then she fell asleep and was purring in her sleep :L When she woke up it stopped again, but hey, at least she's comfy enough around me in her sleep, haha!



Sleeping in my elbow




Nala suckling on her own paw



I took her near my chest, I was wondering if hearing my heartbeat would help her, but she turned around on my hand and continued suckling. I guess that answers my question!





I often have kittens on my chest, so Sue can join on my lap if she wants (no matter how cute they are, that's her spot, and I don't want to take that away from her). Of course I have the kittens on my lap as well, but usually that doesn't give nice pics (just a kitten from above, that kinda thing), but Nala looked sideways here :)



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