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- Mar 16, 2016
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Got a situation here and need some ideas/advice.
Background: We had 8 cats for the last 6-7 years, until we lost one last April (almost 16yo), another in October(8yo to cancer), and a third (16yo) in November.
Last October I answered a Craigslist post from a gentleman asking for help for a “neighborhood stray” who had just birthed 5 kittens. The coldest fall/winter night so far was forecast and I couldn’t stand the idea of newborns out in the cold. I was able to ask my vets for help and they agreed to take in the Mom and raise the kittens to adoptable age. That worked out fine; Mom and all kittens were adopted around Christmas time.
End of October the same gentleman asked again for help with 3 6-month kittens, two of them kittens from the same mother as the litter of 5. I spoke to the vets again, and again they said yes. By this time I was getting serious about adopting again, the so I got over to the animal hospital, looked them over, and decided to take all 3, since two were a m-f bonded pair, and the third unrelated male was a brown tabby, as was the 16yo we lost last April. The two littermates were probably handled from early on - the gentleman said he had actually helped the Momcat with delivery, as one of the kittens was breech. Unfortunately we lost the female when she went into shock following her spay surgery and could not be revived (only had her for 2 weeks!)
The gentleman emailed me again mid-January that he had two more (female) kittens, maybe 5-6 months old, neighborhood strays, somewhat socialized (he described one as being about as tame as the little one we lost, but he may have overly optimistic, and the other one not quite so tame), and could I talk to the vets again. The vets agreed to take them. I had some thought of taking one or both of them, since we had lost the female from the bonded pair.
Apparently the transfer did not go well - the tamer kitten tried to get away and had to be grabbed to get her in the cage, at some cost (scratches and bite) to the VetTech who caught her. The other one got loose and got into a small area behind the cages - she was corralled in the next day or so. They were kept separated, since nobody was able to handle either enough to verify that they were both females. Vets thought they would calm down after a few days. But they didn’t. And one of them attacked every time her cage door was opened, or even gone near. In other words, they were so freaked out that they have pretty much reverted to wild. I have tried to check regularly with the staff at the hospital, both because I feel some responsibility for the situation, and because I had had some thoughts of adopting them (But my husband thinks we have enough cats already - 7 currently- , and don’t need to take on more, especially some needing taming.)
Latest word is that both kittens had sometime in the last week or so managed to get out of their respective cages and are loose in the small room where they were. And nobody can catch them. The vets don’t know what to do with them - don’t know if there is any rescue that would take them and try to re-socialize (Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC). I loaned our humane trap to the vet staff today so they can at least try to get them back in a cage. We might try socializing them, except that with our current cats and litterboxes, it’s difficult to know how we could confine them so they couldn’t just hide from us. Bathrooms are occupied by litterboxes - can’t do without that space. Spare bedroom has a bed and dresser they could hide under (and never come out when we’re around). We do have a “kitty playpen” tall cage, but I’m not even sure how we could get them into that if we brought them home. This has all the makings of a tragedy for these two kittens - can’t turn them loose in a strange area, animal rescues likely not willing to work with more-or-less ferals, any sanctuary for such likely full, Local animal control has a pretty good percentage on adoptions but there's always the risk that these two are declared unadoptable, etc.
Anybody have thoughts/ideas.
Forgot to mention: the gentleman lives in a no-pet apartment in an area with lots of feral/community cats around. So he couldn't keep any of the cats for more than a short time. And another hangup for me in possibly bringing them into our home is that they have *not* been checked over by a vet (The vet thought that they would calm down at some point so they could be handled - didn't happen.) The animal hospital was just not a good environment fir the two kittens. But is there any way to undo the damage to them
Background: We had 8 cats for the last 6-7 years, until we lost one last April (almost 16yo), another in October(8yo to cancer), and a third (16yo) in November.
Last October I answered a Craigslist post from a gentleman asking for help for a “neighborhood stray” who had just birthed 5 kittens. The coldest fall/winter night so far was forecast and I couldn’t stand the idea of newborns out in the cold. I was able to ask my vets for help and they agreed to take in the Mom and raise the kittens to adoptable age. That worked out fine; Mom and all kittens were adopted around Christmas time.
End of October the same gentleman asked again for help with 3 6-month kittens, two of them kittens from the same mother as the litter of 5. I spoke to the vets again, and again they said yes. By this time I was getting serious about adopting again, the so I got over to the animal hospital, looked them over, and decided to take all 3, since two were a m-f bonded pair, and the third unrelated male was a brown tabby, as was the 16yo we lost last April. The two littermates were probably handled from early on - the gentleman said he had actually helped the Momcat with delivery, as one of the kittens was breech. Unfortunately we lost the female when she went into shock following her spay surgery and could not be revived (only had her for 2 weeks!)
The gentleman emailed me again mid-January that he had two more (female) kittens, maybe 5-6 months old, neighborhood strays, somewhat socialized (he described one as being about as tame as the little one we lost, but he may have overly optimistic, and the other one not quite so tame), and could I talk to the vets again. The vets agreed to take them. I had some thought of taking one or both of them, since we had lost the female from the bonded pair.
Apparently the transfer did not go well - the tamer kitten tried to get away and had to be grabbed to get her in the cage, at some cost (scratches and bite) to the VetTech who caught her. The other one got loose and got into a small area behind the cages - she was corralled in the next day or so. They were kept separated, since nobody was able to handle either enough to verify that they were both females. Vets thought they would calm down after a few days. But they didn’t. And one of them attacked every time her cage door was opened, or even gone near. In other words, they were so freaked out that they have pretty much reverted to wild. I have tried to check regularly with the staff at the hospital, both because I feel some responsibility for the situation, and because I had had some thoughts of adopting them (But my husband thinks we have enough cats already - 7 currently- , and don’t need to take on more, especially some needing taming.)
Latest word is that both kittens had sometime in the last week or so managed to get out of their respective cages and are loose in the small room where they were. And nobody can catch them. The vets don’t know what to do with them - don’t know if there is any rescue that would take them and try to re-socialize (Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC). I loaned our humane trap to the vet staff today so they can at least try to get them back in a cage. We might try socializing them, except that with our current cats and litterboxes, it’s difficult to know how we could confine them so they couldn’t just hide from us. Bathrooms are occupied by litterboxes - can’t do without that space. Spare bedroom has a bed and dresser they could hide under (and never come out when we’re around). We do have a “kitty playpen” tall cage, but I’m not even sure how we could get them into that if we brought them home. This has all the makings of a tragedy for these two kittens - can’t turn them loose in a strange area, animal rescues likely not willing to work with more-or-less ferals, any sanctuary for such likely full, Local animal control has a pretty good percentage on adoptions but there's always the risk that these two are declared unadoptable, etc.
Anybody have thoughts/ideas.
Forgot to mention: the gentleman lives in a no-pet apartment in an area with lots of feral/community cats around. So he couldn't keep any of the cats for more than a short time. And another hangup for me in possibly bringing them into our home is that they have *not* been checked over by a vet (The vet thought that they would calm down at some point so they could be handled - didn't happen.) The animal hospital was just not a good environment fir the two kittens. But is there any way to undo the damage to them
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