I saw the theme for the photo contest this month; "from wild to mild"; cats that have gone from feral to spoilt housecat.
I feel I cannot enter in that contest because I've never had totally feral cats, but still wanted to show something about my kitties and fosters.
dEUS and Flynn came from a really nice breeder who spoilt them rotten so this thread does not apply to them.
We got Ernesto and Mimosa from a farm, their siblings and mother were all dead two years later so I guess they are lucky to have gotten out of there.
Still on the farm in their carrier, Mimosa looking slightly disheveled and the most important thing missing from the picture; they were absolutely reeking of cow dung !!
Mimosa now:
Ernesto now, enjoying his favorite cat tree:
This summer we had our first foster kittens, they were caught at a local campsite that has lots of feral cats. These kittens were pretty friendly to humans though, maybe because the campers often feed the cats.
Kitten Frank was very friendly from the very beginning, but still hiding a bit. Why leave the safety of the box completely when the human puts the food close enough to keep your hind legs in there ?
But his brother Black would hide most of the time and hiss and spit at me when I tried to touch him.
The first week we had to bother them a lot because they had a lot of ticks (I removed at least twenty ticks from Frank alone), a bad case of worms and severe diarrea. They got medication that tasted so foul it made them foam at the mouth. Fortunately they forgave us and turned into little snuggle bunnies pretty soon
At first they were confined to the kitten room but soon they had the run of the whole house, snuggling with our cat Flynn and playing with dEUS' toys (and with dEUS)
Apparently we fed them well too, they weighed 2.2 kilos at thirteen weeks. next time I went by the shelter I was startled to see how scrawny and small the kittens of the same age they had there were, I was so used to how Frank and Black looked.
They have been adopted together by a nice family with a little boy who plays and cuddles with them.
I feel I cannot enter in that contest because I've never had totally feral cats, but still wanted to show something about my kitties and fosters.
dEUS and Flynn came from a really nice breeder who spoilt them rotten so this thread does not apply to them.
We got Ernesto and Mimosa from a farm, their siblings and mother were all dead two years later so I guess they are lucky to have gotten out of there.
Still on the farm in their carrier, Mimosa looking slightly disheveled and the most important thing missing from the picture; they were absolutely reeking of cow dung !!
Mimosa now:
Ernesto now, enjoying his favorite cat tree:
This summer we had our first foster kittens, they were caught at a local campsite that has lots of feral cats. These kittens were pretty friendly to humans though, maybe because the campers often feed the cats.
Kitten Frank was very friendly from the very beginning, but still hiding a bit. Why leave the safety of the box completely when the human puts the food close enough to keep your hind legs in there ?
But his brother Black would hide most of the time and hiss and spit at me when I tried to touch him.
The first week we had to bother them a lot because they had a lot of ticks (I removed at least twenty ticks from Frank alone), a bad case of worms and severe diarrea. They got medication that tasted so foul it made them foam at the mouth. Fortunately they forgave us and turned into little snuggle bunnies pretty soon
At first they were confined to the kitten room but soon they had the run of the whole house, snuggling with our cat Flynn and playing with dEUS' toys (and with dEUS)
Apparently we fed them well too, they weighed 2.2 kilos at thirteen weeks. next time I went by the shelter I was startled to see how scrawny and small the kittens of the same age they had there were, I was so used to how Frank and Black looked.
They have been adopted together by a nice family with a little boy who plays and cuddles with them.
