My god, I'm beat. Lily has been quite a handful, but ever adorable.
She is now officially accepted by the colony, which was proven by Prinny's washing. There is elaborate washing and submissive behavior going on, so that's all good. There's also ass to ass positions with the Falkie (Falk didn't wanna see her so he laid with his ass towards her, and she followed his example). There's plenty of sharing of the couch. Meanwhile her new owners are in Hawai, enjoying the good life.

Her mreowing is still present, but less. She no longers sleeps in the bathroom, as it is now safe for her to be with the other cats. She sleeps in between us, but is also able to sleep outside her bedroom, as long as she has the other cats. The mreowing fest has stopped. The only thing she is still very annoying about is food that isn't for her, which brings me to the more sad news.

Arwen isn't well. Last Friday, she already looked a bit iffy, but since her Feline Influenza often bothers her a bit when changes occur and stresslevels rise (new kitten, anyone?), I didn't think much of it. However, she got more apathic on Saturday and started to spread a foul smell. She was also clearly feverish. I called the vet, but he reassured me that it wasn't a problem to wait till Monday.

So come Monday, she hasn't eaten nor had a drink for two days at least (which I know isn't good). However, a shot of antibiotics and some IV-fluids got her feeling better and dropped her fever immediately. I came home and gave her some canned food, as she had difficulty eating (she has lesions in her mouth!). And that is where Lily just became a pain in the ASS!!! I actually had to forcefully make the matter clear to her before she dropped her attempts to at least managable (you know, you can actually sit down for five minutes instead of being a guarddog right next to Arwen). She loudly complained about her fate though.

Poor Arwen. I got out from my encounter with Lilith, when I walked up to Arwen, and the other kittens. They all sniffed Lilith on me. At first, Arwen was ok, she was sniffing and being confused.

It was however when I tried picking her up that she got scared. She started grouching and hissing at me. She jumped away, but I stopped her. She freaked. I eventually let her go and tried to win her over again with a toy. She relaxed again, but was still hissing at me.

And then the ambiguity started. She started rolling on the floor, a sign that she wants to be cuddled and petted, giving me her belly to cuddle, while silently protest meowing at me, which then turned in to a surpressed hiss. She was like...I know you, I want to reassure myself that you are good, but that smell!!! I took her with me to the couch and cuddled her, but she was hissing all over. I eventually let her go, after I noticed she was more aggrevated than scared.

It was the whole 'Fey-Fey' debacle all over (for those who were here a year ago, remember the moment I took the basket Faith had been brought in with out of the bathroom and Arwen was sitting on the scratching post, and wanted to cuddle to then hiss, run away and come back to run away again, coz of Fey's smell?).

I eventually left her alone, and she did come back to cuddle some furniture (to reassure herself and spread her scent) near me, but she hasn't come back to cuddle herself yet. Right now she is sitting in the window behind me, and she seems to have forgotten the ordeal. I'm gonna go found out now if she's still upset ;)

Don't worry, this time it's really only temporary *grin*

Yesterday, my friends dropped off their newest kitten. Yes, they dropped it off here, because they are getting married in two weeks and are leaving for two weeks on honeymoon in Hawaï. To minimize the amount of stress (they are also not always home, and I am these days), they decided to drop it off here.

I figured, one more or one less..it's not gonna show :) Clearly, I was wrong *grin*. Yesterday they dropped it off, and it is 10 weeks by now, so it was scared. Lilith crawled away (normally kittens warm up very quickly to a new place) for quite a few hours.

During the night, I heard a ton of mewing at one moment. I waited till she was done, to check up on her, and see if she was maybe in trouble (I waited to avoid teaching her that meowing gets her attention). She was fine, just lonely, homesick and missing her mom.

The next morning, we woke up to more meowing. You see, Lilith is a cross with an Eastern Shorthair. And all eastern cats are a little bit more vocal than western ones are. I waited, and waited, and waited for her to stop. Unfortunately, my own kittens were completely intrigued by the lungs of this thing on the other side of the door, screaming through the house. And therefore, Lilith kept going. She noticed the movement behind the door. My boyfriend got up and fed my own kittens. Arwen stayed with the door till she heard the lid of the kittenfoodjar, and then even she left the crying baby for what it was. I'd also noticed that my moving the bedsheets made her listen for me and stop meowing, only to start again when she didn get a 'reaction'.

Today started out well. I get up, send my boyfriend to the bakery and set off to play a bit with my Arwen. She has this scratching post which is about as big as I am. It is used to feed her the special food and on the platform where her food is, there's also a little ball made out of rope hanging from an elastic band. Usually, she eats, and then climbs up to the highest platform just above it. Today was no different.

So I play with her a bit, lying on the highest platform, make her a bit jumpy and put the ball from the platform beneath her between her legs, since the elastic band is just long enough for that.. Usually, when I get her all jumpy, she likes clawing and biting the thing (keeps her from doing it to my hands).

At that point, I hear my boyfriend come in with the bread and as we are having a conversation, I hear a ton of screaming and dismayed mreows. I turn around, to find Arwen completely panicked about the fact that the evil ball has gotten hold of her foot and won't let go. I immediately swoop in, hold her so she doesn't get more entangled to then look at the problem. Meanwhile this kitten is grouching her ass off in complaints. I tell my boyfriend to hold her while I examine, but even looking at it was met with more grouching. I couldn't for the life of me understand how she'd gotten entangled like that. It didn't help that the elastic band was black and the ball white and Arwen is a black 'n white kitten! As she started grouching and panicking more, I took over from my boyfriend to reassure her, when he calmly suggested getting a pair of scissors. So, I was left with the kitten, while he found them, meanwhile trying to calm her down and keep her still. He eventually was able to locate the elastic band and cut it on both sides. A very anxious and flustered kitten was glad to jump in my arms.

Yesterday I went to the vet with our little Fey-Fey. A card had arrived via mail telling me her yearly shots needed updating. Normally, I do all cats at the same time, but Fey had come to us last October and needed her vaccinations as soon as possible in order to be able to join the colony.

I also decided to not vaccinate them all at the same time this year, for practical reasons. Though it gets you a discount at the vets, transporting six cats all at once is... challenging. Now, I do plan to take the five up there at the same time in the New Year, when their card will arrive. However, Fey Fey is already easily stressed, and taking them all at once as well as Fey would be even more stressfull for her.

So yesterday, I got out the basket, placed it in the bathroom, called my boyfriend to help me and got to work. My boyfriend was anything but thrilled. Last time we had to catch her was to get her spayed, and he had the scratches to prove it hadn't been easy. Then again...he didn't LISTEN to me while we were hunting her down, thinking his methods were better :P

So this time, he followed my instructions to the T. And wouldn't you know it...it was a walk in the park.

I came across this incredible story that I just felt compelled to share. I finally understand why many men are instinctively resistent to the idea of adopting a kitten *evil grin*

A couple of days ago, I got the card from the clinic, saying that Fey has to come back to the clinic for her anual shots. And I started thinking..man, it has been a year already since she arrived in this house. And although she is nowhere near as cuddly yet as I'd like her to get, she has shown vast improvement :)

It is hard to believe that only a year ago, I brought home a small ball of fluff with razorsharp claws and big fearful yet beautiful eyes following my every move. In that year, she became part of my colony, became joined at the hip with our Falk, grew up to be quite the little slutty kitty seducing our Falk in every way possible, and lost some of that hysterical fear she had in her when she came in. And my, has she grown. I'm going to try and get a snapshot of her (still can't stare at her, including cameras, otherwise she runs), so you can see the difference. She's become a beautiful big cat.

It's going to be such a joy to catch her again for those shots. And my, is the doctor going to be jumping up and down to get their hands on her (and her paws with claws on their hands *grin*)

Last friday, I went to a shelter for horses. I was looking to volunteer. When I got there, they had not only horses, but also a couple of dogs, some birds and a kitten. Kittens weren't their specialty though, and the kitten was very much dehydrated and hypothermic.

I decided to take him home and give him the care I could. The people of the shelter dropped me off at my old clinic to have a look at him. He had Feline Influenza, but from what I could tell, he was way too weak for the symptoms he was showing. The vet confirmed my suspicions. She also warned me I might not be able to help this one because it was so weak. It was possible he had Leucosis or FIV. She gave him an warm IV in an effort to try and warm him up. I went home, hoping he'd pull through.

Once home, he refused to eat. I forcefed him some food and water, and went to bed after desinfecting myself. The next day, I checked up on him. He was ok, and even purred at me when I held him, till I forcefed him some more. He started squirming, and meowing. His tummy was clearly hurting. Some time later, he was just lying there, breathing through his mouth, NOT a good sign. So I called the on-call vet. He told me the kitten wouldn't last the weekend with those symptoms. So I went to the clinic, scared I'd have to leave him behind.

Once there, the vet told me he still responded quite good, and he gave him some anti-worming medication, some de-licing, and the IV treatment again. He also told me to take the IV home and do it several times again during the weekend, to get him hydrated and warm. He was still severely hypothermic. I also got some food that was easier to forcefeed and especially made for these kinda circumstances. The vet told me the kitten still had a shot. So I went home reassured.

A couple of weeks ago they started again. Suddenly Lulu was bored and starting irritating everyone in sight, including our favorite little diva, Prinny. She of course replied in her favorite way, by peeing on the couch at first and afterwards on the bed. An entire year this had been no issue, and suddenly it was back *sigh*

So, I broke out the toys, and I washed, and washed and washed. I got Lulu some more feathers and watched her go bonkers over them the entire day and most of the rest of the week. Arwen and Trini were happy to join in.

Lulu calmed down, but the stress was still a bit too high. I'd gotten lazy on cleaning the littertrays, and Prinny was starting to pee elsewhere whenever I didn't clean them in time to her liking, something she'd been pretty tolerant about before. Though Lulu was leaving her alone again, you could tell the tension was still there. Add to that that we had a party and moved all the furniture around, bought a bunch of new furniture..well, you get the idea.

I brought home some boxes for them to play with and trew some catnip parties, and for now, it is going all well again, but I still am not allowed to be as lazy on the littertrays as I used to be. But for now..the peace has been restored to the house. Fingers crossed now that it will last :)