Monday, January 7, 2013

What a Weekend

If you missed the special weekend edition, you'll want to do some catching up here before reading today's post.

Caught up now? Awesome... Let's get to even more updates!

CRUZIE GOT ADOPTED ON SUNDAY!!!!

Cruzie Adams, the baby who entered my life in August when he looked like this...


The little boy who left me for the store, got sick at a time when I couldn't bring him back home, and went to two other foster homes before coming home to me again in November... My easy-going, love of everybody's life, FINALLY got his very own forever family to love. Cruzie has a Mom and a Dad and two English Setters to love forever and ever. We got an update shortly after they got home and he is settling in quickly and becoming part of the pack. I may smile until next Tuesday.


We received approximately 15 calls about Samson by the end of the day Saturday and another 17 messages that he was a Bengal. We did suspect his heritage, but thought we'd keep it low-key while we evaluated him and his personality. We planned to hang on to all of our shelter kitties for a week while we got to know them, but then Samson's new family arrived. And when you hear their story, you'll know why we decided to let him go early...

Samson (who was Benny at the shelter) had been visited by a very special family on Thursday while he was still at the shelter... Mom, Dad, two spectacular animal loving kids. They fell in love with the cat known as Benny and planned to return for him on Saturday. The hiccup? We sprung him a day early and brought him to the store. When the family heard that he might have been one of the cats to go to a rescue on Friday, they spent most of Saturday bouncing from store to store, from rescue center to rescue center until they found him with us... just as we were packing up for the evening.  

After watching them interact with him and finding out that they had done quite a bit of research on the Bengal breed, we decided to let Samson go home with them Sunday afternoon. The kids even spent quite a bit of time helping us socialize and evaluate the other cats. He has a spectacular family and a stupendous new name... Figaro.


I finally have a beautiful face to put with our fourth Petco resident... Meet Sadie. 6-years-old, sweet as can be, purrs and begins to knead whenever she thinks you might be talking to her. She's amazing and I adore her.

And now for the residents of Teeny Tiny Tabby Town...


Stinkin' Lincoln came home with me at the end of the weekend. He stressed out big time at the store (actually, he's done so for the past two weekends). My son came along on Sunday and was able to distract him so his behavior was better, but we still figured that he was better off at home with me. As you can tell from the photo above, he's clearly feeling no stress here.  

Having Lincoln here alone is actually pretty good for socializing our two new residents...


Frosty moved in on Saturday afternoon. He was a bit nervous, especially around the little lady (go figure!) He spent the evening at the top of the cat tree and by morning had been joined by Cruz and Lincoln in a cuddle puddle... clearly their idea, not his.  

After Lincoln returned from adoption hours, he gained a shadow... a gray one.  


Our skinny little girl with the amazingly fluorescent green eyes spent the weekend curled up on her very own heated cat bed. The only time she left it was to peep for love... a lap is ever so much preferable to a heated cat bed.  


I didn't see her eat much of anything until Sunday, but then she licked some canned cat food and crunched some kibble. We've got a way to go, but we're moving in the right direction.

By the way, her paperwork says she is 3 years old. It's hard to tell here, but she is tiny, skinny beyond belief, smaller than the 5 month old kittens with whom she shares a room. I'm so sad for what she's been through and thrilled beyond belief that she is here.


She also has a name! Her splendid green eyes are clearly the most prominent part of her beautiful face, so I went in that direction for her first name... Esmeralda :)  

My daughter kept suggesting another name in the holiday theme that fit her markings so beautifully... Angel. If she's in your lap and you look down at her back, you see a pair of gray tabby angel wings.  I'll work to get a photo of them soon. In the meantime, just know that our new girl has a middle name too... Esmeralda Angel.


I've taken to calling her Zelda. She's the girl with a million and one names ;)

And outside of the foster room...

Pretty baby Ruby made a visit to the vet on Saturday for her final set of vaccinations.
4 pounds 8 ounces of dead weight sleeping on my legs for the rest of the day.
Don't worry, she made up for it starting around 4 am on Sunday.

Also...

Monkey see...

Monkey do.

Nothing like clean laundry covered in cat hair.
Might as well look that way from the beginning ;)

Thank you, Norman.

In other more serious news... We are postponing Abby's surgery that was scheduled for tomorrow. She just can't kick this latest upper respiratory and we need to get her on slightly stronger meds for a bit and going back to the nebulizer. She's not in desperate straits, just not well (and that's not acceptable). I'll keep you updated.














14 comments:

  1. Figaro is one of my cats' names! It's a great name for a kitty.

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    1. I love it. I'm thinking of adding it to the future kitten name list.

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  2. Beautiful Esmerelda. I had no idea she was so tiny until you mentioned it - do you have any idea what her story is or how she ended up at the shelter? Also my standard prescription for finicky kitties is baby food. She needs to get used to eating again!

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    1. I don't have much of a story yet (not sure there's one to be had). Since I was planning on taking the FIV litter until we found out they were FIV, our paperwork ended up switched around and I didn't even realize Zelda was 3 years old until late last night.

      And baby food is on the shopping list for this afternoon, most definitely.

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  3. Yay for Figaro and his persistant family!! What a great story!

    Sweet Zelda, you need to eat little girl! Since she loves sitting in your lap, I'd try the baby food/wet food next time she's in your lap. I got many a finicky kitten/cat to eat by putting the bowl on my lap with them and encouraging them to eat while petting them. :)

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    1. Great minds, Amy... that's exactly how I got her to eat yesterday. Since then, I've seen her go to the bowl on her own (but I'm still working on coaxing her whenever I'm in there)

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  4. Yeah for Cruzie and Figaro. Sounds like it was meant to be. :) We hope Esmerelda settles in and that Abby starts feeling better.

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  5. I am SO HAPPY for Cruzie and will keep hoping for the appearance of the ideal family for Lincoln. Meanwhile, among all the excellent and inspiring news in today's post, one of the best bits is that your son came along to help with the kitties. What a nice young man! And here's hoping that Abby returns to full strength and the Zelda discovers the joys of eating soonest.

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    1. He's always been good with the animals, but he was my very last kid to spend time at adoption hours (and didn't do so out of selfless reasons... at least at first). He is a scout working on a badge that requires a certain number of hours of service to a charity. Lucky for him (and me), his mom had plenty of community service for him to do. Turns out that he had a great time, wants to come back, and was absolutely an enormous help in socialization/evaluation, Lincoln calming, and Figaro wrangling when he went up on the rooftop Henry-style (and my son was the only volunteer there who was tall enough to reach him without having to climb on a table)

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  6. Congratulations on the adoptions :) I do love Cruz as a baby, he was such a cutie!!

    purrs to Esmerelda Angel of a Thousand Names..

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  7. I already posted this on Robyn's L&H page, but wanted to make sure you saw it too: Tax breaks for pet foster parents…make sure you claim yours (http://www.examiner.com/article/tax-breaks-for-pet-foster-parents-make-sure-you-claim-yours). It’s not “new” news, but it may be new to you, as it was to me. I know most rescue groups cover the fostering costs, but there may be some stuff that isn’t covered that you could claim. I remember you saying that yours was a really small rescue group, and that cost was one reason it gives out vouchers for spay & neuter rather than doing that pre-adoption. Anyway, I thought this might help in some way.

    BTW, I love Esmeralda for that sweet, green-eyed kitty's new name.

    And thanks for answering my rhetorical question on Friday's post. I really didn't expect a reply, but was grateful that you did. Your approach seems eminently sensible.

    Oh, and what an absolutely heartwarming story about Samson's adoption. What a great ending to the story. That one should get written up on "Love Meow." I wonder how one makes that happen ...

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    1. Oooh! Thanks for the link! I'll be sure to check it out.

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  8. Super YAY for Cruzie! I am happy his family finally found him, and also yay for Samson/Figaro. I hope Lincoln's family finds him soon.

    Zelda is a great name for your new addition. Best wishes to everyone. I hope Abby gets better soon too.

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