I love happy endings!

Well, it's been a while, but as it ALWAYS is around our house, it's been crazy and hectic and busy.  That's not a bad thing, I know I'd rather be busy than bored, but it does make it hard to find time for updates sometimes.

The beautiful miss Wind!

This was a weekend with TWO happy endings.  First off, the beautiful Wind went to her forever home... even before she made it into a store!  A lovely couple adopted a cat from Lori as a companion to their current cat who's companion had passed away.   Unfortunately, the first cat was not a match to the household, and they returned her to Lori.  Lori wasn't about to give up, and thought that Wind would likely be a good match to the family.  She was right!  They fell in love with her beautiful looks right away, and she's now getting herself settled into her new forever home with her new play buddy!  We couldn't be more happy, she absolutely deserves it. 

Another happy ending...Bianca!  This is the mother who was horribly ill during her pregnancy, as well as being vaccinated while pregnant.  It was a struggle for her and her babies, but she got spayed, got healthy, and we found her a forever home as well!  My BFF had a friend (who I also knew but not as well) who'd lived with a horribly aggressive cat for years with her ex, and was actually afraid of cats.  She got past that meeting my BFF's cats, and when I mentioned that Bianca would need a forever home and would make a cat lover out of anyone, the connection was made!  Bianca would go to this lady to be her princess!  It was something of a road trip to deliver her, but she is now firmly ensconced in her new home, and settling in nicely.  The lady fell INSTANTLY in love with the beautiful Bianca, and I know it's a match made in heaven!  Congratulations Bianca, you deserve it!

Gorgeous Bianca with her babies.

New updates:  Dusk and Dawn will be moving into the youngest's room.  Taking them to the vet for their spay/neuters set them back a little so we sort of had to re-start the program.  I normally like to wait until all trust is in place to do vetting, but these too were too close to the brink and had to be fixed pronto.  They are in the kitty room right now, and we do visit them regularly, but there's something to be said for them being around sleeping humans.  It seems like they get a lot out of people being totally non-threatening (to predators, another predator sleeping around them is a sign of trust), and I think this will move their progression forward much faster.  I don't forsee it taking long, and the youngest is extremely good with ferals.  She has a knack of making them trust her very quickly.  She is definitely helpful!

With Wind leaving, it opened up our room to having Nightingale and her kittens move into the bigger room.  Now that Nightingale is trusting us more, I wanted to speed up that progression, and also have a chance to observe her much more closely.  I knew something was up with her, but wasn't 100% sure what because she wasn't moving around a lot away from the kittens.  This is normal with a feral, scared, protective mom, but it seemed to me like this was something more.  Her eyes weren't reacting the way they should to light, and I was SURE I saw her stumble a little moving around a few times.  Now I am sure.  Fairly sure her vision is disabled.. She seems to register movement, but doesn't recognize anyone unless she smells them or they speak.  As soon as she registers motion she hisses, and has to cock her head around the other way to get a better look.   Makes sense why she seemed more scared than usual.. if her vision is bad she's going to be more reactive to perceived "threats".

L to R: Chickadee, Robin, Raven, Kestrel, and Sparrow

Moving her into the bigger room, though, definitely showed more issues than I initially thought.  I saw her move around, as the kittens were in their glory tearing around all over the room and exploring their new space, and I realized, this cat has a badly healed old injury.  Either  a broken leg, or some kind of pelvic damage.  She stands funny and has a hard time weight-bearing on her back hind leg.  It sticks out a bit funny too.  I checked her over and there's no swelling, nothing CURRENT that's causing the condition.  Her temp is fine, her heartrate is fine, and there is no external damage that I can see, but there is definitely an old injury there, and it's causing her pain and discomfort as she moves around.  We will be taking her to the vet this week to have him look into it, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's nothing extremely serious or permanent, but my feeling is this will not be the case. Either way, she's making great progress on the social front.  She now thoroughly enjoys petting and chin-scratches (after her initial startle reaction), and is now coming out to lay in the room.  In fact, I'm quite sure that this cat is nothing close to feral, but was dumped or lost.. because she seems more comfortable in a home environment than any cat I've seen that was truly "feral".   That, and we discovered one interesting, and amusing thing.  Nightingale LOVES TV!

Nightingale avidly watching TV

The first time we turned it on with her in the room, her ears perked up, she moved out to somewhere she could look, and she happily watched House on Netflix with us for hours!  It was the sound that perked her to it, and something tells me, she's enjoyed TV before.  Poor darling, I can't imagine what she's been through, but that is all in the past, and she's never going to be neglected or hurt again.  We will make sure of it!

The kittens are doing extremely well.  They are sweet, social little things, although Robin and Raven are a little shy at first.  All five girls are running around like crazy, and the three larger ones, Kestrel, Chickadee, and Sparrow, have all started eating wet food!  This is great, because it will fill them up more and take some of the pressure off of mom to provide all that milk, and also leave a little more for the littler ones (Robin and Raven).  They are all very adorable, highly photogenic, and mom is an excellent mama!  They are regularly using the litterbox now, and I haven't even really had to put them in it!  So far we've only had ONE accident, and that's because baby got lost across the room (I put boxes in every corner so this doesn't happen, although she just didn't make it in time), and she couldn't wait anymore.  Oh well.   These ones are going to be fully litter-trained in no time!  Mom is an excellent example! 

Little ham Chickadee posing for her pic.

I'm very pleased with all their progress, and we are enjoying them all immensely.   Please, even if you can't adopt, consider fostering.   I hear a lot of people say that saying goodbye is hard.  Sure, it absolutely is.  I don't have an easier time saying goodbye to fosters than I would any other animal or person I cared about.   But it's not about me, or us, or any of that.  It's about what's right for the animals, and seeing pictures of them happy in their forever homes, being loved and cared for like they deserve... that makes it worth the hardship of saying goodbye!  There was an excellent article on Catster about this. If you can't foster, donate!  Especially during kitten season, the bills for the rescues pile up, and with so many cats and kittens to help, it's hard for them to make ends meet.  Remember, they are run 100% on donations.  Even $5 can help towards a vet bill or a meal for a rescue cat in need.  It helps to SAVE LIVES, and anyone who fosters, or even donates, are contributing to saving lives.  Be a hero, help out!

As always if you are interested in adopting any of the cats or kittens I talk about on my blog, contact Neveah's Charity of West Lincoln.  Lori Dudley is absolutely amazing, and will bend over backwards to help you find the perfect feline companion for your home.