Cats, Cricket, George and Kirby, Jeremy

On Cricket’s First Birthday: A Nice Long Post About One Of My Cats

Today is Cricket’s first birthday. I officially have only one kitten left (Jeremy is 9 months.). In fact, I just weighed everyone yesterday and she is officially the biggest cat in the house, one ounce bigger than Kirby and five ounces bigger than George. So… it’s not by much.

Cricket at 11 days old, the day her eyes opened.

Cricket came to me in my first orphan kitten foster litter. I was a first time foster mom, and she was a very very tiny sick little girl. All the girls in her litter had the same weird health issues. Two had passed away, not in my care thank god, I was too new to handle that. Nova was the biggest, healthiest kitten, her symptoms came on later and therefore she got on antibiotics earlier. But Cricket was struggling. You can see, in the picture of her at 11 days, she has no muscle or fat in her face, it’s shaped like a triangle, which is a sign of a kitten who is struggling. At one point, she had to be tube fed for two days.

But even with that, she was such a fighter. So much determination, she even tried to “nurse” when being tube fed. For a few weeks, I drove to Langley every day so she could receive subQ fluids. I tried to get as much food in her as possible, the vets wanted her to pee frequently. She was on antibiotics for the first 5 weeks, every time she would finish a cycle, she’d start to run a fever and become lethargic. Finally, at five and a half weeks, she finished a cycle and stayed healthy.

She spent most of her first several weeks tucked into my neck.

Then I had four rambunctious, healthy black kittens on my hands. And it was obvious we were not going to be able to let her go. So we didn’t!

She was always such a funny kitten.

She is such a love bug. She had zero fear of Kirby and George and would snuggle them whether they wanted it or not. They seemed fascinated by her. At this point, we hadn’t taken in Jeremy’s littler, they were still very patient and sweet.

George and his little sister.

So now I have the sweetest little love bug. She wants nothing more than too snuggle me. She has some orphan kitten traits, like her love of humans. She likes to suckle on my t-shirt. She puts her paws on my cheeks, or around my neck, and makes very very gentle biscuits. She “tucks” me in every night when I go to bed. She has fur like satin and will eat ANYTHING. She is what Wm calls “a garbage cat.” I am so happy we kept her and so happy she is in my life.

My little bug.

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George and Kirby, momo, photo, pru, William

29 Days of Blog – Kitten Parents


Under that blanket is Wil. He’s sleeping after working the night shift. The kittens are “helping” him. It’s an amazing picture because they were actually napping along side him, nice and quiet. They woke up when I came in to put away some clean socks.

Wil and I have different animal parenting techniques. Mine is influenced by my uncle Skip, who was a vet. He told me, when I adopted Pru, that I should never feed her immediately after getting up in the morning or she would learn to wake me up when she wanted food. So I used to feed her as I was walking out the door to work. Prudence had plenty of issues, but she was very patient and polite in the morning. I use the same strategy with George and Kirby. Wil does not.

Wil is a big softy. After Momo passed, Pru came out of her shell with him and trained him to give her treats every time he walked in or out the front door. Or when she just gave him a sweet look. He was so thrilled that she finally liked him, he was easily trained.

The boys have taken it one step further. They have trained him to give them treats whenever they annoy him. Kirby will sit on his chest, when he is sleeping and yowl. And he will GET UP AND GIVE THEM BOTH TREATS. To distract them. Do you see the flaw in this technique? They also like to annoy him when he’s playing computer games. They crawl all over the keyboard and sit in front of the monitor. He gets frustrated so he gets up AND GIVES THEM TREATS. He also gives them treats when he walks in and out of the front door. Or they meow sweetly, giving him cute kitten face.

Big softy. Big sleepy softy.

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