Good morning, Internet.
This morning I took the last hanger-on from the last litter, lovingly named Beaker (the litter was Beaker, Gonzo, Kermit, and Snuffleupagus, aka Snuffy) back to the shelter so that she can find her new family. Click the pics below for bigger versions!
Snuffy (gray) and ... Beaker, I think? snuggling with my cat Gnar, who is the designated kitten ambassador. |
Beaker, sitting like a people and wrestling with a shelf. Like you do. |
Beaker, the day her bros & sis went back to the shelter, reclining across my crotchety cat Squish who’s pretending she’s not there. |
Beaker, peeking through the hole in our tall cat tree. Now with more ear of Gnar. |
Gnar and Beaker, napping on the back of the couch. |
Beaker, using Gnar’s head as a pillow. |
Gonzo, Beaker, Snuffy, and Kermit after being separated from their big foster brother for the most endless night ever. |
Snuffy in the foreground, Beaker in the back. Posing for their album cover. |
Four-pack of kittens. |
Gnar and Kermit napping on the back of the couch. (Lookit dem mittens!) |
They were a great litter—so affectionate, so sweet, and so smart. We nicknamed Gonzo “shriek-bat” because he had big flappy bat ears and never stopped yelling at us. But he was the most snuggly one of them all, for a while. All but Beaker were polydactyl, which means they had extra toes that made them look like they were wearing oven mitts—which is probably why the other three were heavier than Beaker. (That’s a joke.)
Last Thursday, two days after Kermit, Snuffy, and Gonzo went back to the shelter, I picked up a new litter of three four-week-old kittens. I actually think they’re more like three weeks old; they’re so little. They are very demanding. They always want to be being snuggled! Unfortunately, I picked up the drop cloths that I put down to protect the carpet from semi-incontinent kittens a while ago, and we haven’t scrubbed them clean yet. So for the time being, the kittens are exiled to their small (but comfortable) kennel while there is no one actively watching them. Hoping to change that soon, they desperately want to be out and exploring everywhere.
Gnar isn’t quite to the snuggling point with these guys, but he has begun grooming them. That poses a small problem: They are pure black kittens, with no distinguishing characteristics. To be able to tell them apart, I put a dot of different-colored non-toxic puff paint on each of their heads (immediately smudged into an irresponsible-looking smear by enthusiastic head-butting), and I don’t want Gnar to groom it off. In the same vein, I don’t think he can groom it off, and I don’t want him to, like, tear out their fur trying to get it clean. I don’t think that’ll happen, but hey, I had an opportunity to worry, so I figure, why pass it up?
I don’t have many pics of these guys yet, but I hope to take some every day and post them as I take them. Look forward to that!
 
A kitten, enjoying armpit-rubs for the first time. |
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