Warning for new owners of kittens: cat-proof your home!

Our local shelter is swamped with kittens at the moment (whose isn't?), so all the volunteers were thrilled when a family looking to adopt one kitten took three 9-week-old littermates last week. Today the daughter called and told us that one kitten died yesterday. She was playing in the living room with her brothers, climbed the floor-length drapes, fell, and broke her neck.
If you are a first-time kitten owner, please invest in a good cat-care book, don't adopt a kitten that's under 3 to 4 months if momma cat is still around, and crawl around your home looking for possible dangers. It's not just the obvious things like hot pots, dangling cords, household cleaners, candles and full bathtubs that can cost your kitten its life. Curtains, open toilet seats, missing floorboards, swinging doors, etc., are also potential traps. Imagine the worst. An inquisitive, clumsy kitten can get itself into trouble very quickly.

That is so sad! But thank you for the reminder to all of us!

Before I brought Buttons and Felix home, they were only eight weeks old , I went all round the house, blocking cubby holes up e.g. the small hole in the wall where the pipe goes through, I made sure there was nothing sharp, poisonous, swallable, etc. I crawled around looking under fireplaces and sure enough I found a breathing hole big enough for a kitten to crawl through which would lead under the floorboards. One big danger to a kitten, or a full grown cat is the washing machine. If you turn your back for a couple of seconds while loading the washing machine, your kittie could be in it and hidden underneath the clothes, it has been known to happen. I always gather a machine load of washing before I open the door and stay there with it until the door is locked.