My partial foster failure

Joelle and the kittens

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We've been volunteers at a great shelter since 2017, but according to our lease couldn't have pets (or so we thought). In early May 2021 we got a call from the shelter asking if we could be emergency temp fosters for a litter of 7-week-old feral kittens that needed medication twice a day -- we figured this would be a brief enough responsibility (1 or 2 weeks) that our landlord would probably be ok with it, and he was. So that day we brought home:
Grey Kitten (really bad eye infection/injury)
grey first pic.jpeg

Longhair
longhair first pic.jpeg

Orange and Orange&White (moderate eye infection)
orange and orange and white first pics.jpeg

The first night we made the mistake of providing one (1) litter box and some blankets to sleep on. Of course they all slept in the litter box and pooped on the blankets. That was a messy morning.
all together first pic.jpeg

Solved that issue by getting a second litter box and putting a blanket in it. At this point whenever we put on or took off the sheets covering their cage we were greeted with a chorus of hisses and spits -- still very feral.
all together early feral.jpeg

We discovered Orange was a lot more curious about outsidethecage than the others, who still cowered away from the door:
orange and white longhair grey together early sleeping 2.jpeg orange and white longhair grey together early sleeping 3.jpeg

However once we grabbed them they were surprisingly amenable to being purritoed:
longhair early being held.jpeg

Which was helpful because Grey's eye was getting worse :(
terrible eye grey.jpeg bloody eye grey.jpeg

Took her to the vet for a checkup and cone. They gave us eye lube to hold over until an enucleation could be scheduled.
after first appt grey.jpeg grey after first appt 2.jpeg

There was an initial period of distrust from the boys toward their sister's new headgear, but they quickly acclimated.
all orange and white looking cute early.jpeg

Grey also adjusted to the The Cone, a little awkwardly at first:But got pretty nimble within a few days:
She also got WAY more handleable -- as seen in this photo of her on the way to the enucleation:
grey on way to enucleation.jpeg

Enucleation went really well! We gave her a tasty treat and let her nap with her brothers when she got home.
grey longhair orange sleeping postop closer.jpeg
Surgery also meant our foster timeline was extended a couple weeks, which our landlord was surprisingly ok with.
With The Cone, feeding was already difficult enough, but to protect her incision from moisture and bacteria we decided her feeding times would be a little more special.
The brothers eating lunch:
boys eating anthony's room.jpeg
Grey Kitten being spoon-fed:
grey spoon fed.jpeg

We also decided to put her in a separate crate from her brothers while the incision healed, but gave them ample time to play outside the cages while supervised: all four on cage.jpeg

By this point the boys had become a lot more socialized as well.
orange&white and longhair sleeping.png cute o&w on his back.jpeg all on bed with me.jpeg
orange and O&W cuddling on blanket.jpeg orange O&W longhair on top of cage.jpeg orange being held.jpeg

Grey finally got The Cone removed and wasted no time snuggling up with her brothers (and me!).
me on bed in anthony room with kittens cropped.png all 4 grey and orange&white front on top of cage.jpeg all in box grey post cone.jpeg

A few days later they were big enough to get fixed -- which meant a night at the animal shelter before their surgeries. all in cage at shelter before fixing.jpeg

This also meant it was time for them to be adopted out...
But after all the trips to the vet with Grey Kitten I'd gotten quite attached...and O&W was the first to purr for me and had needed some extra care with his eye and socialization too... Soooo, after our landlord astonishingly approved adoption (with NO pet fees!) we welcomed our home officially to Lilac and Horatio :)
And of course being ultra-protective of Longhair and Orange, I only approved adoption of the highest quality -- by a cat-experienced postdoc in my lab who promised regular updates <3

Lilac and Horatio are now settled into their forever home, being typical cats :)
grey model shot at window.jpeg o&w curled up.jpeg o&w lying on grey in bed.jpeg

As are Fire Hunter and Martin
PXL_20210615_222309432.jpg

VERY typical cats
o&w and grey lying on computer accessibility.jpeg 20210616_090452.jpg
 

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Maria Bayote

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Wow, I am so happy you got to keep 2 of those kitties.

Thank you for doing what you do. You are a kitty hero. Bless your heart.
 

tabbytom

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Joelle and the kittens, on behalf of The Catsite community, a warm
7ee6f4e56d44dfc694e32754102dfc96.jpg
all of you.

So glad that you’ve joined this wonderful site and you are in the right place for all things cat and this site is loaded with tons of rich resources and you’ll find friendly and helpful cats around and many of our cats are very knowledgeable in cat related stuffs.

What a lovely bunch of kitties you've got here! :hearthrob: :redheartpump: and we hope that Grey will recover well:vibes::vibes::vibes::vibes::vibes:

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Enjoy your stay and see ya around :wink:
 
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Joelle and the kittens

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More cuddling pics of all 4
orange and onw under my legs.jpeg
grey and longhair cuddling on bed.jpeg
onw joining grey and longhair cuddling.jpeg

Post-adoption cuddling
onw and grey lounging on pillow.jpeg
onw grey in blanket.jpeg
Awkward sprawling
grey onw sprawling.jpeg

Post-prandial face cleaning
grey onw face licking on computer.jpeg
Inevitable catgoogle
onw grey on computer google search 2.jpeg
They tried to add their search term to the computer dictionary, then investigated the source code for their search results. Meanwhile O&W thinks the persistent error alert noise is coming from Grey's butt...
 

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rubysmama

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Hello and welcome to TCS. :wave2: Adorable kittens. Glad you were able to keep 2 of them. :catlove:
And thanks for fostering all of them.:petcat:
 
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