Happy Friday! We’re off to get groceries today, but I wanted to give you all a kitten update.
Peter (older outside cat) brought some kittens home a couple of months ago. They were very feral, so Bit’s been working with them, as well as feeding them since they arrived. She named the Black and white one Merlin, and was having trouble coming up with a name for the grey one. My mind went instantly to Gandalf, if she was naming them after Mages/Sorcerers/Druids.
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She’s been feeding them kitty treats, including some of those “kitty go-gurts” the Squeeze tube kind, to get them to come closer to her. Gandalf has let her touch him a couple of times now. Merlin is more skittish.
Merlin seems to be a couple of weeks older than Gandalf.
We don’t know where Peter finds the kittens he brings home, but he does this once in a while. Sometimes they hang around after, sometimes they seem to go off to have their own territory when they get older.
Marbles is the one who he ‘fostered’ who hung around the longest, but a few months ago, he found a home up the street. Peter often goes up to visit him still, and sometimes Marbles still shows up for breakfast. But shortly after Marbles found a new home, Peter brought home these two kittens.
Gandalf is actually playing with Bit now. She still gets only a couple of touches in here or there, but he’s being more sociable and playing. So we’re taking that as a good sign.
Peter has been showing them how to love on and play with the hu-mans. Peter is fixed, so we know they aren’t *his* kittens.
We often find the kittens curled up together on an old kitchen chair we have under the carport. They seem to be a bonded pair.
The kittens still aren’t sure about the dogs, who want so badly to greet them. But they don’t run from them, they just stay under the bushes where they can’t do more then snuffle at them. So that too is progress.
Our dogs are *very* cat friendly, so that’s not a problem. Peter comes right up and talks to them all the time, and we have our indoor cat Dori.
I’ve never known a male cat to bring home kittens to foster before. Peter is kind of an anomaly though. He also likes to ‘escort’ us out of his territory when we go to the store. He also used to escort Bit around the neighborhood when she went trick-or-treating, and wait for her at the end of people’s sidewalks, watching with an intent glare the whole time. He’s gotten between her and stray dogs in the past as well. Bit is HIS human (despite Dori saying that, no, she’s HER human). The two cats have come to an agreement, Peter takes care of Bit when she’s OUTSIDE and Dori takes care of Bit when she’s INSIDE.
I thought I’d share the new kitten pics with you all and let you know how things were going. These are the 6th and 7th kittens Peter has brought home to be fed and tended to. Just in the few years we’ve known him.
Bit says he’s trying to turn her into the cat lady, a nickname she’s already heard some of our neighbors calling her LOL.