What a good week

Misti

Chocolate

Snickers

Miss Lady

Pictured from top: Misti, Chocolate, Snickers, Lady: my newest rescues and entertainment, probably the cutest kittens ever!

Before volunteering at Paw Prints, I had no idea what kind of people owned pets. Well, unfortunately I quickly learned that people adopt/buy pets who do not deserve them. Beth called me on Monday and said that the South Sioux City Animal Control had a mom cat and babies and could we help with them. Of course we could. I met Beth at AC in South Sioux. The ladies there were very nice and seemed like they really wanted to help the cats. The mom cat, now named Lady, because of the way she acts...like a true Lady, had been left in a house after the resident moved out. I assume it was a rental property and the people (I have another name for them, but can't use that sort of language on this- let's just say it's spelled like this: &*^%#!@#) left the cat and kittens there. Evidently, she was left for a few weeks. She had been at Animal Control for a week or so and wasn't doing very well.

We drove her and another little 4 1/2 month old tabby named Milo, to our vet for a check and emergency care. Milo checked out great and is looking forward to being adopted!

Lady and her three kittens, on the other hand, were not so great. She was tested for feline leukemia/AIDS and came up negative, thankfully, but was severely undernourished and dehydrated. Lady was so tired or hungry or dehydrated or sick that she just laid on the exam table and didn't seem to give two hoots about anything. Very strange for a mom cat for sure. The vet gave her fluids and we got a few cans of the super vitamin rich soft canned food for all of them. I took them home and got them all set up in my "momma/baby" room, which is the small half bathroom in my basement. It's perfect for kittens since it's warm, small, and easy to clean. Lady seemed brighter later that evening. It was such a rewarding feeling. She ate quite a bit too, which wasn't that great after I had to clean up her barf the next morning. Too much too soon for her, but that was the end of the barf thankfully. She started purring immediately and even meowed the next day. She loves to be hugged and petted. I'm so glad she's here and safe.

They all seemed to be doing better, especially Lady, until Thursday.

I was playing and cleaning with my son and noticed that one of the babies, named Snickers by my son who always wants to name kittens Snickers, was just not acting right. He seemed like he was just scooting instead of bounding around like the other two were. My radar went up since I recently had a foster baby who seemed ok except for a limp and come to find out, he was extremely sick with fever and dehydration! Anyway, I took Snickers to the vet Thursday afternoon. I almost cancelled the appointment because when I went to get him for his appointment an hour later, he seemed fine. I decided to take him anyway.

The vet determined that Snickers had a LOW temperature and was borderline dehydrated. Kittens are so suseptible to anything at this age and since they had already been compromised, they were more at risk than normal. He got some fluids and sent him home with me with instructions to make the room very warm and be sure to give them more liquids. He seems to be doing fine today, thankfully, so I am glad I paid attention to my instincts and took him to be checked out. Thank you Dr. Merritt!

I am truly enjoying these kittens. They are so adorable, it's just such a pleasure to be a part of their lives. They are so little and innocent, yet they bound around and act like they are going to show YOU who's boss! Unfortunately, they are VERY hard to photograph. I'm working on it though. I've heard them purr a few times, but most of the time, they are trying to climb my jeans. The black one is Snickers, the black one with white is Chocolate- named by my oldest son, and the grey one is named Misti, who was my horse when I grew up. She was a grey quarter horse and I could do anything with her and loved her so much, so I decided to name a kitten after her.

The Paw Prints website is really coming along too. It's been hard to find the time to take care of the baby kitties, my human babies, do all my running this week (30 miles in 4 days), paperwork for myself and Paw Prints, and maintain my sanity. Yet here I am on Friday night, sitting here with my sanity~maybe not the full tank, but at least it's not empty. It can all be done, just not all at once. Patience.

I am running my first of three 20 milers tomorrow. Hopefully it will be the last one at the gym as the snow has shrunk a ton this week. There's a lot more to go, but thankfully the temps weren't ten degrees colder this week. What a mess it could have been!

Well, I think I shall go eat a little more. Ocean's 13 is on so will probably catch a little of that before going to bed.