End of the cat story

Okay, here is the conclusion to yesterday's cat tales:

When I went home, it was two hours later than I should have. The Vet said to feed the cat every two hours, and it had been five or something. But it was fine, and sleeping and stuff. I fed it from the bottle again, and it picked right up. My wife and I later wondered if newborn things have adrenaline or something in them that makes them want to live so bad. A three-day old kitten might actually not survive that kind of neglect, but a 12-hour old one just keeps plugging away.

My daughter tried to get us to agree to keep it forever, which is not in my plans. We already have a dog and don't need any more anuses in the house. (Sorry for the language, but it gets the point across.) After dinner we had to head to the boy's ball game, so we talked to our neighbor, Kathy, about finding the mother and seeing if it would take the kitten back. We did finally find it, it was a very young cat, one of those teenage pregnancy things, I guess. Kathy already found another kitten in her yard all stiff and with its mouth open. She had disposed of it in her garbage can. I finally felt better that I maybe did not decrease the kitten's chances the previous night, it was destined to be the feline equivalent of a crack baby or something.

The mother had no interest in Weeness the kitten. In fact, she tried to bite it. She did like some balogna and cheese that we gave it, though. She had no milk sacks going anyhow, so it was a real lost cause. We asked Kathy to watch this kitten for us while we went to the game.

When we got back, we heard the rest of the story. I don't want to belabor this, it's actually quite funny.

First, the kitten that was thrown away was not dead, the warmed up trashcan revived it. When Kathy picked up some garbage from the yard and opened the can, kitten #2 had crawled to the top and wanted out. It's hard to believe these kittens were less than a day old. Now there are two kittens to save.

Kathy went to my other neighbor's house, the actual source of these cats to try one last effort. She enlisted the help of a "veteran" mother, a 7-10 year-old cat named Oreo who took care of eight kittens last summer, and only 4 were hers. Well, Oreo lived up to her obligation as uber-mater, and licked the kittens, and took them to nurse.

So that is really the end of the story. I might have actually saved the kitten by beating its mother on the head with a shoe because Oreo is a wonderful surrogate mother.

I took note of a few tell-tale spots on Weeness, so maybe I will write about him again this summer. Probably won't make it through next winter, though.... not my problem.

--gh