Bob and Kathy's Adventures with Ferals, Part IV
August 11, 1998
Hi Again Everyone,
Ready for another chapter of adventures with Kathy and Bob?
When we last visited the hapless Rude Ranch, the situation was:
Maggie, the first kitten we trapped this year, was settling into the lifestyle of a Rude Ranch Kitty. (insert "spoiled rotten" here). Tia, Billie Jo, Ashley and Ghost were a little annoyed with this development, after all now they had to split the treats five ways, instead of four.
Goldie and Grey, the first of Mama kitty's kittens were romping around the second bedroom.
Hissor and Hissetta had just been relocated to the powder room.
Hissor and Hissetta in the powder room
Brownie was still with Mama kitty in the third bedroom. Mama kitty was madder than ever, and even more determined to do the evil humans (Bob and I) in.
Here's what has transpired since then.
Maggie Mae has been officially adopted by the Rude Ranch. We bought her a collar and ordered her an ID tag. She also had her first visit with our regular vet. Thankfully she was somewhat timid at the vet's, we only had to chase her around the examining room once, and she never even tried to bite the vet. The final diagnosis: Healthy 3.5 month old kitten, has some worms and ear mites. So $96 later we are on our way with 2 syringes of worming stuff (yeah, the yellow goop) and instructions to clean out her ears everyday and ear mite medicine twice a day for the next two weeks.
As soon as we got home, we tried to give Maggie her worming medicine. Due to the fact that she was not entirely happy with us for taking her to the vet to begin with, lets just say she was less than receptive to the idea of taking the medicine. At least I think we got a little of it into her. We also found out that this stuff would make great mousse for both cat and human hair.
As for the ear mites, lets just say that cleaning out a kitten's ears is not a job for the squeamish. Giving ear mite medicine to a kitten isn't either. We started with me gently holding Maggie while Bob slowly put 2 drops of the medicine in each ear. On the next try, I held Maggie a little tighter. For the third try, we wrapped her in a towel. We finally settled on Maggie wrapped in a towel, scrunched between my knees, with Bob squirting some of the medicine at her and hoping it hit its mark. After that we only had 27 more doses to go. It also would have been helpful if Ashley, Billie and Tia hadn't been snickering in the background.
We also made considerable progress with the other kittens. Hissor and Hissetta were still less than happy to see us in the powder room. However, they soon realized that Bob and I could make the ping pong ball go and they liked that. Then they figured out that they could bat the ball around by themselves, so they thought they didn't need us anymore. Then it happened: I found the "kitty G spot" you know that spot on a cat's back between the shoulder blades? Anyway, whenever I scratched both Hissor and Hissetta on that special spot they would purr. Then they would turn around and realize I was touching them. Did you know that kittens can purr and hiss at the same time?
In the mean time, Goldie and Gray were getting more and more playful upstairs in the second bedroom. They were busy studying the rules of being a cat, and were learning well. They were doing especially well at flinging kitty litter outside the litter box.
In the third bedroom, Brownie was getting restless. After all, his brothers and sisters were gone, and Mama kitty was usually too busy glaring at Bob and I to play with him. Even when he did try to play with her, all she did was bop him on the ears and go back to glaring at Bob and I. Finally Bob got him to play with an old telephone cable, (hey it looked like a piece of string to Brownie). Brownie seemed to enjoy this, however, all the while he was playing, he kept pouncing on Mama kitty. We're sure this did nothing to endear us to her.
On the trap/neuter front we hit a few hard times. We knew we still had to catch Maggie's mom, but she wasn't cooperating. So we still diligently kept setting the trap, hoping she would get tired of seeing it and go in just to get rid of us. Instead, we started catching baby raccoons. We're not sure if Maggie's mom was conning them into going into the trap or not, but we wouldn't put it past her.
Finally, a few days later, Hissor and Hissetta had gotten to the point where they weren't hissing at us anymore. They were acting like they were looking forward to our visiting with them and playing with them. (Yeah, I know they were just playing us for the food, but hey, we were buying it.) So finally Bob and I decided to reunite them with Goldie and Grey. (Actually we just wanted the powder room back) The reunion went well, and ended with all four kittens sleeping in a pile under the bed. (Once again, the Rude kitties were just happy they weren't ones being toted around in the kitty carriers)
Hissetta launches an attack from under the bed
Soon all four kittens were happily playing and learning together. It seemed their main goal was to see who could come closest to sounding like a herd of elephants when running. We're not sure who won, but the kittens are still practicing.
So now we had four kittens who were getting pretty tame. We still had to try to find homes for them. We called several shelters and placement groups. The ones that would call us back said that they were all full, and pointed to other groups. We thought we got lucky when a lady called. She had been referred by our vet, and she was interested in one, maybe two kittens. We arranged for her to come over to see them. I think she would have been far more impressed if the kittens had come out from under the bed to see her.
At this point Maggie and the Rude cats were beginning to feel that Bob and I were spending entirely too much time in the second and third bedrooms. (At least we were spending too much time in these bedrooms with out them.) They began to express their displeasure with this situation, mainly by picking on Ghost. All Ghost had to do was to walk by Ashley or Billie and that was enough to get her butt smacked by "the bullies". Ghost is big enough that she could easily send either one flying, but instead she would come to Bob or I with a pathetic look. Being the softies that we are, we immediately would pet Ghost and make sure she got treats.
Come to think of it, that's probably what her plan was all along....
