lavendertook

So. New kitten! I brought him home today! Loooooooook!



This pic was taken by his foster and put up on petfinder.com and I as not strong enough to resist applying for him. He was named Spencer, but I am calling him Kimba--my earliest childhood anime hero, and also a name close to our Kimbra. I’ll give him his full name when I'm sure it fits him. He is about 3 1/2 months old--about 2 weeks older than Shuri was when I brought her home last year, but the pic is probably closer to when he was 2 months. And OMG, he is soooooo sweet! He loves to be held and purrs like a motorboat and goes straight for your face with his nose locking his eyes on yours. So, so, so loving!

I met him on zoom almost 3 weeks ago--yup the kittens are all up on pandemic tech, too. And I of course said I would take him. The very next evening, poor Tuxie started bleeding out his rear all over the placeand peeing all over. I got him to the vet and it was a urinary tract infection as I suspected. They are apparently very painful, poor baby. The doc gave him a shot of Covenia, and gave he heavy duty probiotics to give him. We decided to wait 2 weeks before bringing in the kitten, depending on how he was doing, not wanting to add stress until he was well. He progressed wonderfully, and had his followup last Monday, and the go ahead on the kitten. So we worked out the details this very insane week in this country. Tuesday I was busy voluntering with Election Defenders as a poll monitor/voter aide for my county down in Fort Washington. Then I was scattered and kind of off the rest of the week like most of us. But we worked it out, and I drove out to Round Hill, VA a little town near the Appalachians, met his wonderful foster and brought him home with a gorgeous sunset over the mountains in my rear view mirror. It’s not far from El Trumpo’s golf course, so I am glad I did not run into his motorcade either way.

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Happy Birthday, claudia603!!!!!

Purrsimmon, Shuri, and Tuxie send their birthday greetings!

Shuri’s birthday was Sept 20th (she is 1) and Purrsimmon’s birthday will be Oct 1st (she will be 2) so they are very happy they get to sandwich yours between theirs.



Tuxie would like everyone to settle down so he can go back to sleep.



Hugs, love, and purrs!!!!!

Shuri just sneaked up to my bowl of salad on the table, extracted a crouton from it with her mouth, and ran off with it. Just a very smooth stealth meezer move as I was handing other things. Gave me the best belly laugh I've had in a while.

I just pulled the bowl away as another heist was underway--I don't think those spices are good for her tummy, or she'd get half of everything I eat. Tuxie is a good sneak as well, but his diabetes limits what I can let him have. Sweet Pursimmon, however, is a little too timid to steal, so far at least, or it may be beneath her royal status as a lost princess. We'll see if that changes over time.

Hi!

When we left off, it was Saturday night, the last night of Chanuka, and I had just brought Pecan Pie home and set her up in the bathroom for the night with beds and plenty of toys, and she was a happy kitten with a constant motor boat purr, though she'd try to walk out every time I came to the bathroom during the night.



Since the upstairs bathroom was small, and I didn't want her stuck in there when I took a shower, I put her in my bedroom during the day with more toys. I just couldn't keep her in the bedroom at night because I didn't want to shut out Tuxie, since he sometimes came to bed with me and I wanted to avoid causing whatever resentment I could. So that all worked out and then there were several calls and emails on Sunday to the rescue to set up getting new antibiotics for Shuri to replace the bottle I threw out in the bag she peed in.

Now I had 3 cats in separate places to divide time with. Purry now had the run of the house, along with Tuxie and no blood had been shed, and the likelihood of that happening was dropping so that was great. The downstairs bathroom was still her base and she spent most time in there, with play runs in the living room.



When I emailed my cousin and brother I was deciding on whether to name the kitten Shuri or Iskierka (Iska Kitty), they both stated a preference for Shuri, and I saw the benefit of the easier name being her first name, so Shuri it was.

So it was time to introduce Shuri to Purry and see if they'd get along and be the companion they each needed. I shut Purrsimmon back in the downstairs bathroom that was still her safe space and toy filled, and brought in Shuri. Shuri immediately started playing with all these wonderful new toys.



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So here's what I know about Pursimmon's back story: she was found at the end of July as a pregnant stray in the northwestern most county of the Maryland panhandle by animal control and taken to the county shelter. The county is sparsely populated and the Alleghany Mountains of the Appalachian Range runs through it. So there's lots of wilderness and state parks with a few small towns and some villages and resorts.

I don't know if she was found in a town, around homesteads, a resort or camp where she was left behind by tourists, or in the wilderness, but I'm glad it was summer and hope she didn't go stray in the winter, because that would be some cold country to be out in winter. But there's no telling how many days or weeks or months she had been living stray, whether she was a young kitten or a young cat when lost or dumped, and what kind of socialization she had before being homeless. Siameses can get pregnant earlier than other breeds, as early as 4 months old.

Within a day of being captured and brought to the shelter, this mountain girl gave birth to 3 kittens. I imagine even a shelter cage felt safer than the life she was living as a place to give birth, poor thing. One of them died within a few days. The remainder were a flame-point boy, like his mom except he was deaf, and a dilute tortoiseshell girl.

A rescue out there transported Purrsimmon and her kittens south to a rescue group in Purcelville, VA in the Virginia foothills, a little more populated area at the far edge of the Washington, DC metro area where she and her kittens would have a better chance to find adopters. A fosterer with a spare room to keep a mom with her kittens in separation from her other foster animals was found, and Purrsimmon was put on mom duty for 2 months until her kittens were old enough to be adopted. Her daughter was adopted then, but her son broke his leg and so Purrsimmon was kept on mom duty with him another month. Her son was then adopted by a man who works with deaf people, so that was a nice connection where his disability could be an asset in his new home.

Purrsimmon was spayed in October. They determined her to be about a year old, so they made her birthday, October 1st. Off mom duty, she could now hang out with the other foster cats and she liked to sit near another young cat, a dilute tortoiseshell girl, but was skittish with people. Now it was time to find her a home and they started advertising her on Petfinder.com and other sites. This was the pic of her I saw on Petfinder before I decided to ask about her in December after Moo died:



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