Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Everyone meet...Beelay!

I thought I would talk about each kitten individually over the next few entries in the blog. It was hard to choose which one to talk about first, as I really like two of them. But…let’s start with… Beelay!

Beelay is a 9 week old grey Bengal kitten with black stripes. He almost looks like a little grey tiger. He is really playful, smart, and independent. I really like him a lot, he’s a little shy when in the company of the other kittens, but when I put him in the living room himself what will happen is that he’ll first start by exploring the place for a few minutes and then he’ll happily run around and pounce on string, on my laptop bag, hop around like he’s attacking the air and try to jump on the chair (he doesn’t make it and always wipes out on the floor).

This guy is very strong willed and eats like a vacuum, he’ll literally take big bites and suck the food right in. Very litter box trained, he does best with the large litter box, as he’ll kick pine litter out of the small boxes as his animal instincts really tell him to bury things.

Sometimes when I’m lying down, I might put him on me and rub him. He’ll purr and then fall asleep on me. Very feisty when he wants to be, but very cute and adorable the rest of the time.

Here is Beelay.




If you would like to adopt him, please contact VOKRA.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

The 5 kitties all purr like motorcycles!


Time for another update about the 5 kitties. First, they are super cute and all of them are really playful. However, I’ve noticed a few interesting things about how they are socially to each other.

There are 3 black short haired kittens (Oynx, Inara, Georgia), 1 black medium hair kitten (Starbuck), and 1 grey Bengal kitten (Beelay). They are all independent and not bonded to each other, in fact far from it.

When they sleep, they either all cuddle up together for comfort, or the four short haired ones will sleep together but Starbuck will sleep off on his own. In fact, Starbuck is like the fat kid with classes that everyone made fun of in elementary school, as none of the kittens really like him. Beelay is not far behind, sometimes he’ll sleep by himself in the corner as well.

What I’ve also noticed is that the three black shorthaired ones spend a lot of time playing with each other and are really friendly with each other. Thus they are tame and will even come up to me and say hello. With Startbuck and Beelay, it’s actually quite the opposite.

When Beelay is in the presence of the other five and I’m in the room, he’s not too active and may even hide and doesn’t like to be touched. However, once Beelay is by himself in the living room, he’ll quickly assess where he is, and then he is suddenly the most playful and fun loving kitten, running around, hopping and playing with stuff. When he does play with the other kittens, Beelay is quite rough, I suspect that the other kittens are beating him up, as I saw him bite Inara on the leg quite hard one time.

Starbuck, on the other hand is scared and hides whether in the presence of the other kittens or not. I have taken him out into my living room as well, with two other kitties, and he did start playing with them, by chasing them and trying to join in the fun, however the other kittens didn’t initiate playing with Starbuck. He is the softest and cutest of them all, a little fat, but quite capable of getting into trouble, heh heh. He’d be a lot of fun for a loving home.

I have found that I can get them all purring with just a little affection. With Georgia, each time I move my hand down her back her tail goes higher, and higher (means she’s happy). Pop a treat and she’ll purr like a machine. Same with Starbuck. Beelay, he likes to rest on me, and if I just rub him, he’ll start purring like a motorcycle. It’s too bad that socially he is too feisty for the black kittens, he is the most fun, and I think I like him the most. He is just beautiful.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

5 eight week old kittens now ready to go!

I recently picked up some more kittens to foster last week. A kindle of five cuties actually.

First, thanks for the emails about Georgia’s nose. He is well, recovered and very playful now. In fact, he’s the guy who purrs the most and is always trying to coax his brothers to play.

The five kittens. They are all 8 weeks old, as of last Tuesday and are from the same mom. They are cute and cuddly and very curious about…everything!

Here is a photo of them all sleeping. Shhhh.



What are they like? I’ll talk briefly about them all how and over the next few posts, I’ll talk about each one and how his/her personality is. If you are interested in adopting them, please send an email to vokraadoptions@gmail.com requesting them and you’ll be directed to the adoption form, which can actually be found at the VOKRA website, www.orphankittenrescue.com. These little guys will go fast, so be prepared to act fast.

These four brothers and one sister are feisty and love to do three things. 1) sleep, 2) eat, 3) play. They can be found huddled around each other for comfort when sleeping, polishing off the food plate when there is food there, and chasing after each other when there is room.

They are all eating the Felidae cat food and drinking water, in fact, they differ from the last kitties I had in that they actually take large bites. They each probably put on an ounce to an ounce and a half in the several days that I’ve had then.

They are vocal and very curious, but, as kittens are, not too bright. One of them actually tries to feed off another male kitten’s nipple every night and another ran head first into a glass door, which stunned it for a few seconds, haha.

Their names? Well, here is what we have:

Beelay – is a beautiful 8 week old grey male Bengal kitten who is feisty and independent.

Georgia – is the runt of the kindle. He is a cute and small 8 week old black male shorthair kitten who loves to play with the mouse toy.

Starbuck– is a very cute black male medium haired kitten. He is very cute, almost looking like a fat little bear and is always wide eyes and looking lost.

Inara – is a sleek black female shorthaired kitten. She is gentle as a lady and is also quite vocal, always wanting to escape the bathroom so she can explore.

Oxny – is the biggest of the three black shorthaired kittens, he is a male and plays the role of big brother.

They’ve already had a few adventures at my place, and what is interesting to me is that they are very different in their personalities. Stay tuned for more over the next few days, with more photos and VIDEO!

Monday, July 30, 2007

My Place is a Cat Factory! Accident Drama News!

So much has happened since I last wrote in here 10 days ago. I’ve been busy with my work, despite being self employed (or because I’m self employed? Hmmm) so I didn’t get a chance to write…until now!

I woke up on Saturday morning to Snowball, the 13 week old kitten biting my hand and fingers. That is new. Lately, Snowball has made it a habit to jump into my bed and then go crazy at 5am every morning, heh heh.

I did get Pipi spayed last Monday and I have already noticed subtle differences in her behavior. First, before she got spayed, she would yowl and was really moody and, I guess really tense/stressed. After I got her spayed and when I brought her back, all she did was sit on the horizontal scratching post all day and look at me with hateful eyes, as if to say, “how could you do this to me?”.

She warmed up after three days, however and now she is more mellow and more friendly. And also, she is more playful as she’ll chase Snowball around more. Before she got spayed, I guess there was point when she was really stressed. Like she was shedding so much hair that there was a round bald spot over the right eye and her coat was so thin, I could see the pink of her skin underneath it.

However, now, after she got spayed, her coat suddenly became thick and smooth as silk, and she is less susceptible to shedding. I guess the spay did wonders for her hormonally (does anyone know if the spay is a tying of the tubes or a removal of the ovalries/uterus or something else?).

And both Snowball and Pipi purr a lot now. Pipi actually came into my bed and put her nose against my face on Friday night, before curling up beside me to sleep.

AND, I’m happy to say that both Snowball and Pipi have been adopted. And what surprised me was that they warmed up to their new owner in a matter of minutes. It took them days to get used to me, if you can call it that, but in this case they just clicked. I’m sure the new owner will love having them around. They are well behaved, tame, and affectionate. In fact, I really think that they are not far off from some purebred at their behavior and appearance are different from the many other cats I’ve seen lately.

I didn’t really have a lot of actual experience with a variety of cats until recently (just the two my previous girlfriends had), but now I’ve seen many cats over the last few months (of course I’m still not an expert like the folks at VOKRA). I think Pipi and Snowball are probably the most beautiful cats I’ve seen so far, well compared the other cats. And as it turns out, they are on the larger side of cats, as many of the other mom’s I’ve seen lately have been smaller than Pipi.

Pipi is lounging on my bed right now, half asleep or bored. Probably both.


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What’s this about a cat factory (see blog title) you ask? Well, as an emergency call to foster another kindle came in from VOKRA on Friday, I had to accept. This time it was five 7 week old kittens, all from the same mom, and likely from three or four dads.

They are all cute, and small, yet well fed and plump kittens. Not afraid of humans, as I’m sure the previous foster played with them a lot. I will call these guys the Alley Cat gang, not because they are dirty or anything like that, but because they are feisty!

I’ll be writing about these very shortly as I’ve already determined a lot about their individual personalities. One thing that is interesting to me is that when Columbus and Snowball were the same age, they were much much smaller than this latest kindle. I guess the two are genetically made out to grow faster or larger.


DRAMA! THERE HAS ALREADY BEEN AN ACCIDENT!!!

Yes, I’ve had the kittens for three days and already there has been an accident. Early this afternoon, I was in my room thinking of what to write for this blog (ironic isn’t it) when I heard a large crash and then see the littlest of the kittens (named Georgia) run to the washroom leaving drops of blog from it’s face. My first thought was that the book case fell on it and I immediately called VOKRA to seek instructions. I sped him to the vet and waited for the news.

It turns out that the kitten had broken its nose, but will be ok.

That’s good. I honestly thought little Georgia was going to the scratching post in the sky, if you know what I mean, and I felt helpless and terrible as he was under my responsibility. I guess I was a little shaken, but I’m told that kittens get into accidents all the time in kitten season.

Here is what we surmised happened. These cats are jumpers, which I didn’t expect them to be, they being 7 weeks old and the previous kittens not being able to jump (white kittens can’t jump?) at all. I had poorly balanced half a flat of Felidae cat food with a pile of library books on it on the edge of a table (yes, so stupid of me). I think one of the other kittens jumped on the stack of books and it came crashing down to where little Georgia happen to be. Little Georgia was able to dodge most of it but a single can probably glazed her nose on the way down, thus giving him a world of hurt. It makes sense as if more stuff landed on her (the books wouldn’t hurt her, they weren’t heavy, but the many cans…ouch), perhaps she’d be in kitten heaven right now. But then, cats are quite agile so I guess he used up one of his nine lives today.

There is a lot more I can write about these. Stay tuned, or go to www.orphankittenrescue.com to look at the cats and kittens that are ready to go right now.

Friday, July 20, 2007

See Pipi and Snowball at Tisol's this Sunday!!!

The two kittes are so good and well behaved. Well, most of the time. Snowball loves to run around a lot and last night, at about 5am, he jump into my bed and used my entire covers as his scratching post.

I was sitting on my sofa and had Snowball on my lap, so I started to scratch his chin and he started to purr for the first time. Loudly too, like a little motor.

Pipi loves to be touched. She especially liked to scratch her ears on hard surfaces. She loves it when I use the metal flea comb to comb/scratch her.

They will both be at Tisol's pet supply store on Arbutus Street just south of 11th Avenue (at 2738 Arbutus Street)this Sunday, July 22nd, as part of VOKRA's display. Feel free to come buy and see them, perhaps you may even end up adopting them and bring them home.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Pipi and Snowball...great buddies

I was playing with the cats tonight so I decided to make another blog entry.


Tonight I noticed that Pipi (the one year old all white mom cat) has been moping around the place lately, so I started playing with her with the long stringy yarn on a wand toy. As she busy “hunting” the yarn, Snowball, the kitten was hunting her and was pouncing on her every chance he had. Very funny to watch.


What has been happening with the two buddy felines lately? Well, both are super playful although Pipi tends to spend most of her time sitting around. I’m going to get her spayed this week and I’ll see if there are any behavioral changes.


Snowball, on the other hand has gotten a bit heavier and is a constant ball of energy. With his larger size, he can now jump and get into places he couldn’t before, so he likes to race himself up, down, and around my place and climb things. He is really cute and as it turns out, he is perhaps 2-3 weeks older than I thought he was. VOKRA now has him at 12 weeks old. I let him sleep on my bed sometimes. He likes to walk around and explore it and eventually makes his way to my night table so he can peer out the window.


The relationship between the two is interesting. I am under the impression that the reality of life is that every kitten is eventually separated from it’s mother and has to deal with it. I have heard however that if a bonded pair is separated it’s not a good thing. But what does that mean? Anyone know?


Pipi and Snowball have become best buddies. They chase each other a lot and like to engage in feline wrestling! It’s usually one or the other pouncing on someone and trying to bite. It’s not a serious bite, as I’m sure then there would be real injury, no, they like to play fight and will sometimes ‘call’ each other out for it.


They are also great hunters as I have seen both stalk and hunt insects in my apartment that I didn’t even notice myself.


They also will groom each other. It seems that they have a good way of communicating to teach other and understand each other well. One time, as I was dropping food on the plate, I accidentally dropped some on Pipi’s head in a place she can’t lick. Later, I saw her call Snowball over and tell him to groom her there, to which he did until she was clean. Amazing.


I’ve been getting a lot of requests to adopt just Pipi lately as well. If you want to adopt her, let me know and come meet her.


Here is a video of Pipi chasing Snowball for some wrassin.


Friday, June 29, 2007

Columbus adopted. The cats are hyper!

I thought it would be a good time to write about the cat and kittens. A lot of new things have been happening that I haven't seen with them before.


First, Columbus has been adopted. I'm sure she's loving her new family.


Pipi, the one year old female, and Snowball, the 8 week old male are having a good time at my place. Both are healthy and strong. Snowball is a big kitten, as he eats at lot, haaa. He still drinks milk from mom, but now they are both eating off the place and drinking water. Usually at the same time, one will see the other eat or drink and will come and join in.


Snowball is a SUPER CUTE ball of energy and runs around a lot. He's very curious and loves to play with his toys and watch things. He recently discovered my windows and loves to sit by them and look outside. He also loves to draw attention to himself, he will meow when playing with mom and every time he goes to use the litter box.


Pipi has also started behaving more like a young cat. When she was a mom, in nursing mode (and probably shy/scared mode) she would sit around and not do much. Now she's using the horizontal scratching post, will walk about the place, and will play fight with Snowball. It's not really an even match, Snowball will jump on mom and try to bite her, but she always gets the upper hand and can slap him down quite easily. She is also quite affectionate and come when called. Nowadays she is wagging her tail a lot.


Pipi and Snowball have a great relationship though and are always playing and come when the other calls. And they are hyper! From about 12 midnight to 3am every night they are playing.


Here is a video of Snowball and Columbus (when they were 7 weeks old) playing with string, as a tribute to Columbus. Photos of Pipi and Snowball will be up this weekend!