Throwback Foster Cat! Duckie/Orion Grown Up

Isn’t he beautiful?!

Before:

After!

According to Duckie/Orion’s forever mama, he loves to pal around with his sister and eats organic meat! Nice for this boy! He looks like the king of his castle 🙂

Bean and Co – Feral Kittens to Forever Homes

This was maybe the hardest thing I ever did.

Bean and her brothers were three wild kittens that my friend found living under her shed in Austin, Texas. It happened to be summer in Austin, and I was out of school and only working part time, so I thought – Hey! I’ll trap them and take them home!  At the time Austin was not a no-kill city, and even no-kill operations have a hard time with wild kittens. They don’t tend to make the best impression in a shelter atmosphere. My oldest cat Maybe had been found on the street, I even had to trick her into a box to get a-hold of her. She spent two days hiding under a shelf, but then came out ready to play. How hard could it be to bring them around enough to be adopted?

How hard indeed.

Bean After Adoption

The mom was spayed and released through a Trap-Neuter-Release program in Austin. Easy peasy. She had no interest in being a pet and was a community cat for sure. But the kittens were really little and really cute, and I wanted to give them a chance. After taking them  to be FeLuk and FIV tested (negative!) and putting them in quarantine in my absent roommate’s bathroom (it’s always good to be free of roommates when bringing three random animals into your home!) they were okay to be around my other two cats, but I didn’t want to encourage it, just in case something went down. So based on information I found saying that they should be around people as much as possible, I housed them in a large kitty cage from PetCo, in my living room! And so began the terrible process of trying to tame them, even though they were probably already 8 – 10 weeks old and had clearly never been handled. Sitting on the floor with spoons full of ignored wet food. Hoping for a little pink nose to sniff my hand. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Hissing. Huddling together. School started. I did a lot of Googling. Then I started emailing. Does someone want a (semi) feral kitten?

Had I to do it over, I recommend: