a new photo of Sugar and Spice

Fosters come and go

The three I got in October went back last Wednesday and were promptly adopted over the weekend! Not many kittens available now, and these got to be Christmas kittens.

Bye-Bye Tess (left) and Tyler!


Bye-Bye Trisha (and Tess again)!


Hello, two little tabby females, as yet unnamed!
Just got them today. They are the same age as the ones who left, and are here to be socialized. As you can see, still hiding under the bed. But they did eat some wet food off a spoon from me and I could pet them.

Fosters going on nine weeks

Wow that first three weeks went fast! Colds are better overall, and these scamps are back to eating well and are full of fun! They are still little for their ages and need to gain about a half pound each to be ready to go back for adoption.

Here they are on Tuesday, two days ago, when Trisha's eye was still pretty bad. Antibiotics didn't help--she just has to fight off the virus. The shelter did give me some anti-inflammatory drops, which helps with swelling.



Here she is last night, and the eye is looking better:


Tessie also playing in the papers last night:



And finally little Tyler:

Fosters at seven weeks

My "T" fosters, Tess, Trisha and Tyler playing in the sun yesterday. They are all there--a bit hard to see in the glare: (the hawk feather is a gift from my pet sitter to my cats--we are suburban and she finds them while walking her dogs.)


They are still underweight due to their URI's. We are working on fattening them up! They seem to be feeling a little better and playing more. I used to sometimes have kittens in my laundry room on the north side of the house, but this is an upstairs room on the south side and gets the sun. I was using it only for older kittens or large litters or those who needed quarantine but I'm going to use it for all of them from here on out. It's so much nicer for them. There are plans this year to take out that carpet and put in a vinyl floor in this room when we redo the upstairs carpeting and that will be much more practical. So I don't care much what they do to this carpeting!

Finally got me some new fosters!

There haven't been a lot of kittens at my shelter this summer, and I haven't had any since I turned the last litter in at the beginning of June. These three would be summer kittens, from the second kitten wave, born around the end of August. One black one and two Tuxies turned in as strays:






They are Tyler, Tess and Trisha. We've done ear mite treatment with Revolution, and they've had their first distemper and deworming. A few sneezies and watery eyes, but nothing serious. It does make them a bit picky about eating so I have to sit with them and keep them at it. They are around six weeks old, maybe six and a half by now. Tyler, the one male (with pink nose), has an injured tail, not sure how that happened. The fur was off it in the middle and it looked scabby and thickened, but the fur is starting to growing back now so it should be fine.

Skin allergy in my cat

My 13 year old tabby has been scratching her head between eyes and ears and making it raw. Went to the vet with her yesterday and was persuaded to have her given a corticosteroid shot. This is supposed to relieve the itching and allergic reaction in a day or two. But I am very concerned about giving too many steroids and don't want to continue it long term.

Other options would be oral steroid medication, working down to a pill every other day. I've also read that antihistimines can do some good?

Still wondering about the cause: might be seasonal pollens: she's an indoor cat but twice recently we went outside with her and let her roll in the grass. She also is a chronic herpesvirus sufferer, and has had an outbreak in her eyes the last few weeks (red and swollen) which I've treated with antibiotic eye ointment and the eyes are looking better. Steroids suppress the immune system, which might be really bad for her herpes resistance. So we want to suppress the immune system because of allergic reaction, and then encourage it to resist the virus! Oh dear.

The vet discussed a hypoallergenic diet that we could try, involving eight weeks on nothing but the special food (Hills Z/D.) I will see what happens to her symptoms before going there. The shot should last several weeks and she is going to be rechecked in mid-July. If it is only spring pollens, we will only have to treat for a few weeks during the year.

Just wondering what others have been through with allergies. Could the eye thing have been allergy related rather than, or on top of the herpes symptoms? She has been itchy and miserable and has spent more time hiding under the bed, poor kitty. But today she's out in her normal sleeping spot, which is encouraging!

Fosters at two months

Highlights of a typical day with two month old kittens!

Eight week portraits!

My fosters are eight weeks old and will be going back to the shelter soon, so I tried to take some nice pictures of each. Depending on how many they want of if they want the group to be together or split up, some might go back on Wednesday.

Desiree:


Danielle:


Dora:


Dolly:


Diana:

Foster kittens at seven weeks

Saturday with the fosters

They had their six week boosters at the shelter this morning and are happy to be home and having a long nap. So I'll catch up on some photos .

Three weeks old:


Four weeks old:


Are you lookin' at us?


We luvs our sheepskin bed!


May 13, just about six weeks old. Getting long legs and very active. But so hard to take a good photo when they are running around at top speed!


May 13 sleeping in the kitten tree in the kitchen, which they can climb into all by themselves.