Vancouver Cat Adoption

Everyone meet...Beelay!

2007-08-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

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.

The 5 kitties all purr like motorcycles!

2007-08-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

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.

5 eight week old kittens now ready to go!

2007-08-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

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!

My Place is a Cat Factory! Accident Drama News!

2007-07-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2007-07-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Pipi and Snowball...great buddies

2007-07-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Columbus adopted. The cats are hyper!

2007-06-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

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!

More about Pet Store kittens

2007-06-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

I went to a large popular mall in the lower mainland to pick my girlfriend up from work last Friday and of course I had to go to the pet store to look at the kitties. After caring for a cat and two kittens, from coming to me in rough shape to now being healthy and socialized, I was a little saddened by what I saw.

First, there are two display windows at the front of the store. In one window there were seven kittens and in another, there were eight. That's fifteen total kittens. In the past the store had told me that the kittens sell for $695 each, but if I get one 'today' I can get it for $550. No, in fact, make that $375, as a special prize, for 'this' kitten and for a short time only. And I've come and seen many kindles kittens go through the store.

This time, I saw a lot of grey tabbies, a few long hair domestics, one orange tabby, and one tuxedo kitten. They looked from six weeks to 8 weeks. And they were really small and SKINNY. I was really surprised. It was also obvious that they were likely not from the same parent, perhaps only one or two pairs were siblings. That many kittens from different genologies means that that they are coming froma large kitten mill.

Now, to describe what I saw in detail, these were skinny kitten that looked under fed (there was kibble in the food dish, that hungry kittens would walk by, sniff, then continue walking on. I'm sure they'll eat it when they are hungry enough). These kittens looked small, in different sizes, with the smallest looking like a 5-6 week old kitten. And they were ungroomed and looked downright MANGY.

They also looked unloved. They would sit there, looking angry. Only two of the 15 were active when I saw them, and they were fighting, like it looked like real fighting (I've studied my cat and kittens play fight and it looked like the pet store kitties were just more aggressive).

I'm sure that whomever buys them will treat them nice…for a while, but when they grow bored of them or the kittens turn into cats, will the average pet store consumer keep the cat for the long run, or will the cat be turned into the street to become a stray? I don't know what the statistics are, but say a pet store sells 250 kittens in a year. That seems possible. How many of the cats will end up as strays? I don't believe the answer is "none". I'm not saying that pet store consumers are bad people, just not always prepared. The pet stores themselves, well, it's a business for them, so money is the bottom line.

The better option for people in every major city, including Vancouver is to adopt cats through any of the MANY rescue groups. They make sure that you are informed about what a cat needs and you'll be saving feline lives by going through them.

Here are a few videos from Youtube that I saw a few months back. I'm not going to embedded them here as they are PG-13 material, but feel free to look at the links if you are curious to see what is happening behind the pet store and pet stray scene.

Life of a Petstore Pet

Pet Store Suppliers: Beyond the "waggily tail"

pet store and puppy mills

(These new two are must-sees, regarding over population of our shelters).

Doctor Death, Shocking Killing of Shelter Pets Part 1

Doctor Death, Shocking Killing of Shelter Pets Part 2

FYI: I am not against pet stores. I buy my supplies at pet stores. I am against poor treatment of all living things, regardless of who and where.

Many cats will be killed this summer

2007-06-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Calgary Sun Fri, June 22, 2007 Cat-astrophe looms

Death row time may get clawed back
By SHANNON WOODWARD, SUN MEDIA

The SPCA is having a kitty crisis. And that has humane society officials thinking of cutting down the number of days the felines are allowed to spend on death row. Hedy Hope, communications co-ordinator for the humane society, said yesterday their building has reached its capacity for cats and the situation is dire. "We're basically full of cats right now," she said. Hope said if more people don't adopt the felines, they may have to limit the length of time they can stay at the shelter.

Any cat brought in spends about 10 days in a holding area where their health and temperament are assessed. They are then moved into the adoptions area where they have just seven days to charm their way into the arms of a potential adopter. If not, it is euthanized to make room for hundreds of others. "The reason that we do have that for the cats is because there is such an over-population of cats and we can't provide homes to that many animals," said Hope.

Last year, 7,000 cats were taken in, with nearly 5,000 finding homes. Currently, the Humane Society has about 390 cats. "We're seeing a lot of mothers with kittens because people aren't spaying or neutering their animals," said Hope. "In addition, there are a lot more strays this time of year as people let their cats outside because of the nice weather." Hope emphasized the importance of licensing, tattooing or micro-chipping pets, as well as having them fixed. Sun Media Corporation

Cats and kittens now available for adoption! Video of Snowball!

2007-06-21T01:41:00.001-07:00

Good news, Pipi the cat and the kittens Columbus and Snowball are now available for adoption because they are growing fast like healthy kittens should.

Here is a video I made last night of Snowball playing with her mouse! They love their toys! If you wish to adopt him, please see the previous post.

Good news, the cat and kittens will be ready soon!!! And another Video!

2007-06-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Some good news. VOKRA is accepting applications for Pipi (the mom cat), Snowball and Columbus! Possibly to be adopted by you as soon as the end of THIS WEEK!

The way the adoption works is that you go to the VOKRA website, www.orphankittenrescue.com, and request these kittens. Then Amanda (from VOKRA) will put you in touch with me so you can come and meet the kittens. After you meet them, we’ll see if everyone is a good match and if so, then it’s just a little more administration work to get the adoption papers and the kittens will be under your care.

I do believe that you are required to transport the cat and kittens home in a cat carrier, not a cardboard box, so please purchase or borrow one beforehand.

Also, I believe that the mom cat (and possibly the kittens) will have to be spayed, arrangements will be made with VOKRA as to how to do this.

Since I’ve had the cats for about three weeks, I can tell you more about how they are in a minute and will post another video. I do want to mention first that it looks like Pipi and Snowball are still closely bonded together, thus they will have to be adopted as a mom and kitten pair. This should be for good times though as mom is a young cat herself. Columbus is fine by himself, but he also has a lot of fun playing with her brother. You are welcome to adopt all three, but consider if you can keep and manage them for 15 years.

Last, but not least, since I put this blog up just over two weeks ago, I’ve had at least twenty people ask to adopt the cat and kittens. So if you are wanting them, then you should plan now and move fast. I assume that pure white kittens are uncommon, especially ones that are as nice and cute as these ones!

Pipi, one year old mom cat is very tame, well behaved, and can be affectionate if you are good to her. She loves to come over and ask me for treats and she likes to be pet and scratched a certain way around her head. She also plays with her kittens a lot and is very caring, calling them over to feed them milk every so often. She is putting on weight very well and loves to eat! She is also a very shy cat when it comes to strangers and new places and may initially hide a lot, but I’m sure she’ll be ok once she’s given time to adjust to her environment for a while.

Snowball is the male kitten and this one is big! When I got him and Columbus three weeks ago, they were exactly the same size. But this guy likes to drink milk, so he’s like over a centimeter longer than Columbus now. With his larger size, he can climb things and he loves to dart around the place and chase Columbus and play fight with her, or play with his toys or scratch his horizontal scratching post. His is a bit of a baby and likes to be with mom.

Columbus is the female kitten of the kindle. Very cute, very self assured. She loves to dart around and chase Snowball and also is a great hunter of the toy mouse or the stretchy string. She also loves to play with the vertical scratching post and nowadays like to climb to the top, and perch on it like the queen she is. She loves to watch what is going on around her and is a smart cat. She will happily eat solid food off the plate. Snowball eats solid food as well, if mom isn't around.

All three are litterbox trained and seem to operate on three hour cycles right now. Meaning that they sleep for three hours, get up, stretch, then run around for a big, then go back to sleep for another three hours, and then get up and run around again. The kittens are growing well and fast, particularly in this last week.

They are very cute and must be seen. I’ll have pictures up on Petfinder (through the VOKRA website) as soon as my girlfriend returns my camera to me.

In the meantime, here is another video of them taken last week, then they were six weeks old.

Good luck with the adoption!

Adopting out too early? The importance of waiting until kittens are ready.

2007-06-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's great that since I put up the Vancouver Cat Adoption blog a few weeks ago, I've already had some requests to adopt the cat and kittens. Don't worry, they are not spoken for yet, as interested parties would have to apply through VOKRA and these kittens don't hit the 8 week mark until June 25th. For all of you who would like to adopt, there are PLENTY of cats and kittens in Vancouver that need homes. Just go to the website of the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue (http://www.orphankittenrescue.com/), or any of the other rescue groups out there, and they will let you know the procedure for adopting. It's just a little screening, a few questions, making sure that you understand the 15-20 year responsibility you are embarking on (indoor cats live to be that long today. If you let it outdoors, statistically speaking, I've read that they live 3-5 years? That's generalizing of course), and of course the adoption fee which helps makes the rescue group and its service possible (some people consider an adoption fee an indication of your seriousness for maintaining the life time quality of care that the cat needs).

Regarding adopting kittens…most people in Vancouver want to adopt a baby kitten, because they are just so darn cute. It's a rule of thumb that the kitten should not be taken aware from its mom, or at least its kindle (group of kittens) until they are at least 8 weeks old. But consider that some people (particularly breeders) believe that this is still too early, that the kitten should stay with the mom for at least 12 weeks.

It is possible to adopt a 6 or 7 week old kitten? The kitten mills and pet stores in Vancouver think so. My girlfriend works at a Vancouver mall that has a pet store, so I would go and visit with the kittens and the staff. What happens many times is that they get 6 or 7 week old kittens and put like fourteen of them in the back, where no one can see them, in one or two large cages and they bring them out when they are 8 weeks old supposedly. They say they keep them in the back so they can get their shots and because they are not 'ready'. But then, the store sells kittens like hotcakes, I would come back a week later and all the kittens are gone. Other than the vet shots, what other definition is there to being 'ready' at this junction?

Hypothetically, the moment the kitten can eat solid food, it can go off on its own, but that could be as early as 4 or 5 weeks. The importance of keep them together is 1) for it to be properly weaned off the mother, 2) for it to (hopefully) learn how to use the litter box, and 3) for it to learn social skills.

The last item is very important. You see, kittens like to play when they are young and don't know what it is doing at that age. It will bite, run, stalk, and pounce, and then forget what it was doing when something more interesting comes along because it's just a curious little ball of energy. During this time, it should learn how to play with others, such at other cats, or other kittens. A gentle and conscientious human can also be a good way to help the kitten socialize. What should happen here is that the kitten learns how to behave as the domestic animal that we will love when it grows old.

But what happens if the kitten is not socialized enough, or not socialized properly and it becomes a cat? A lot of what it learned regarding how to behave toward other living things (like humans) will really come out then. If a kitten is well socialized, it will be a happy, problem free kitten. If it isn't, then it's really a big question mark. For example, take feral kittens born in the street. I get them every summer in my old neighborhood and when ever I would approach one, it would run off, having had a rough life (I've seen a few dead cats in my neighborhood) and learning not to trust people. But don't worry, I would suspect that most of the time, the domesticated adopted cat will quickly adapt and learn how to behave well anyway in the care of a new home.

But there is the chance that the under socialized cat will also be one of those cats that are just hard to deal with, who sulk, are boring, are mean and hiss and scratch, who run away from people, or have littler box problems. And it's likely that these are the cats that are then booted onto the street or brought to the SPCA. And it's also likely that the cat hasn't been spayed or neutered, so it gets pregnant on the street and then has ferals, thus further contributing to the uncontrollable cat population. Remember, a lot of stray cats that live on the street, who have feral kittens, used to be someone pet for a few years.

Another thing I also wonder: if a kitten is adopted early into a catless family, will it learn any positive or negative habits will it learn from being played with by the humans?

I really am not an expert in all cat behaviour by any means, and these are things that I have observed myself. I think though, that the longer you wait to adopt a kitten (meaning leaving it with it's mom or pals for 8 weeks or older) the more affectionate and nicer the cat you'll have. The younger the kitten you buy or adopt…may get you a difficult sulking cat who sulks and doesn't seem personable at all.

By the way, these are my own opinions, I don't represent the views of VOKRA or any other animal rescue group. I try to keep myself informed and think of the best interest of the pet, but I could always be mistaken.

Video of the Kittens for adoption

2007-06-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the first of a few videos of the cat and kittens I have available for adoption (they will be ready in a few weeks).

This one is of the mom cat, Pipi, feeding and grooming Columbus and Snowball.

Enjoy!

A word about fleas today

2007-06-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've wanted to write about fleas for a while. Why? Because this is something that a lot of non-pet owners fear. We've all heard horror stories about homes being infested by little hopping insects that are very hard to kill. Well, I'm happy to say that, in today's age, that is no longer a reality (as I found out recently).

The first flea I saw was 15 years ago. My girlfriend had an orange tabby that was an indoor/outdoor cat and she had fleas jumping around her carpet, on her socks, and biting her ankles (and mine). One day, I found a flea in my bed, no doubt from that orange tabby.

That year I was at the animal zoo at the Pacific National Exhibition and there were two companies offering to rid your residence of fleas. So I spoke to one company and one of the young men there asked if I had furry animal pets. I told him I didn't, so he deferred his services saying that fleas can't live on human blood because of the lower protein content. The other company was staffed by old (old) ladies who were hungry to make their commission, so they told me that the first company was lying, that I had to buy their product or else my place would be in trouble. I didn't feel that the old ladies knew what they were talking about – why would the first company lie to me to not get my business?

Soon, it turned out that the first company was right. I didn't have a flea problem. It was probably just the one flea at my place.

I did look into other means of flea treatment. The flea collar was popular in those days, although they really only work around the neck and the fleas would just run to the tail. There was the rumour that if you submerse the cat in water (up to its neck) that the fleas would run to the neck to avoid drowning, and thus were easy to pick off. Somehow, I doubt it is that easy.

The last alternative is to fumigate. That's something I not a fan of, I don't need toxic fumes in my place of sleeping.

So, a few weeks ago, armed with this (limited) knowledge, I took in the cat and kittens for fostering and found that they had fleas. I got a flea comb and starting picking them off the cats, hoping that I would get them all. I think I only found one flea egg, but there must have been more. Fleas can lay ten eggs per day on the animal. Perhaps I couldn't see them, I was looking for the wrong thing, or they all fell off onto the floor. Was I in danger of a flea infestation?

Thankfully, in today's day and age, fleas are something that come be avoided.

Before they left, the women from VOKRA put some Revolution fleas drops on the back on the neck of all three animals and by the end (I stress, "the end") of three days, all the fleas had died.

This is a revolutionary (pardon the pun) new product in my opinion. There are others like it, called Advantage, and Frontline, and they are similar in practical use. The way that Revolution works is that the formula is absorbed into the skin, goes into the cat's blood and then into the subcutaneous glands of the cat, where the fur grows. This formula is paralyzing to fleas, and the fleas eventually die off if they jump on the animal and try to feed. It's like 99% effective or something.

That's awesome. It's also expensive, it can be $30 per dose, which is good for one month. I have seen cheaper formulas, which are sold for $10 per does, but I wonder if they are just as effective.

Nonetheless, with proper care and management, I've discovered that fleas are something that we don't have to worry about in the future.

Videos posted tommorrow!

How am I caring for the cats from VOKRA?

2007-06-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

What am I doing to care for these cats that I am temporarily charged with?

Well, I'm getting them ready for adoption, and specifically what that means is that I am getting them as healthy as can be and have them litter trained. I have had some success with this so far, but still there's room for more progress.

When the cat and kittens came to me, they were in good health, but were thin from not being fed. So I've been slowly feeding then a large can of cat food a day, throughout the day. At first, only the mom cat ate, and not very much. Then Columbus started eating the food, while nursing…and Snowball....preferred to just nurse.

I started to wean the kittens to start eating more solid food. It was easy really, I just let Pipi (mom cat) out of the bathroom, and as she prefers to sleep on a dinning room chair, there was less access to her. So eventually both Columbus and Snowball got hungry and would try the solid food. Now, all three will eat off the plate, but Snowball only eats for a short time (he takes big bites though) still highly favoring mom's milk.

What will usually happen is Snowball will start crying and run over to mom and bite a teat, or Pipi will start calling her babies and they will come and nurse off her. And yes, they are still nursing a lot.

Some good news about Pipi. She is finally putting on some weight and her belly doesn't feel as skinny. She didn't eat a lot at first, but I guess the more relaxed and comfortable she became, the more she'll let herself go. I play with her sometimes, but I don't want her to get too fat from lack of exercise.

Columbus is in perfect shape and gets lots of exercise playing with Snowball.

Snowball on the other hand…is larger than Columbus now (they were the same size when I got them) because he is a milk monger, and is actually a little fat around the belly. Is that possible? For a kitten to be too fat? Is that ok for their health? He gets lots of exercise as well, playing with Columbus.

Litter training wise, only Columbus continues to be a problem. He pee'd in a corner of the kitchen last night. I don't know why. It could be he liked how it felt there, the temperature was good, he just had to go, or maybe he's frustrated? Cats will urinate out of the box when stressed, but then, I think the reason is that he's just not trained enough (i.e. too dumb) to use the litter box.

What else….I checked their ears for ear mites and there are none.

I'm grooming them. Well, just Pipi really, as the kitten's aren't shedding yet. Pipi sheds a lot so today I had to vacuum the floor and use the Furminator again with her. Worked very well.

Flea wise, there are no fleas. I'll talk about that tomorrow.

I'm also giving the cats from vitamins and immunity boosters, as instructed by VOKRA to make them into super healthy super cats! That's two drops of each in the morning and at night, into their mouths. I hope this super juice is working for them.

I already gave it dewormer once. Will have to do so again on Thursday.

Stay tuned for some video of them soon.

More about their personalities.

2007-06-09T13:40:00.001-07:00

Ok, I've had the cat and kittens I'm temporary fostering for over a week now and I can definitely tell more about their personalities. I really believe that, with a companion, you have to know what his/her personality is like before you get too involved, so you know that you can put up with them for a long time (and adopting a cat today can be a 15 year relationship).

First, I think I'm correct with these kittens being (now) six weeks old. They are just starting to run around, not fast yet, but are growing fast. Still no ability to jump up or off things without a wipe out landing, but they'll probably be doing that fine next week.

And these are absolutely the most beautiful cats I've ever seen. Very healthy, beautiful sleek fur, pure white color. I wish I could adopt them myself but I'm not sure if I can commit to the 15 year thing either. And I'm not just saying that because of the blog, I really love these guys.

Pipi, the mom cat is the smartest cat I've known. Very tame, very obedient. She is fully litter box compliant, so I let her roam around the apartment, except my room and the kitchen. If she's doing something and I tell her "no", she'll stop. She knows not to go certain places. She's also very agile and a great hunter (of the wand cat toy). She's a little skinny, but I wonder if that's because the previous owners didn't feed her, or if she is just genetically predispositioned that way. I've been feeding her regularly, yet she hasn't gained weight.

I've also been able to train her to come to me if I shake something that makes a sound or slap my thigh. I'm working on training her to come when I call her name. She's very affectionate and will come over and say hello and rub up against me. Sometimes she'll sit like a proper cat and offer me her forehead to scratch. I've found her magic spot, it's the fleshy part right behind her ears, she loves to be scratched there. She's got to be only a year old.

Snowball, the male kitten is still very attached to mom. He'll run over to her whenever he wants anything, always cries for milk and is always trying to feed off Pipi and they groom each other. He's also litter box compliant, and when mom goes to the box, he'll pop his head over the edge and watch her carefully.

He's a bit of a cry baby though when he doesn't get his way. He's also grown quite a lot and is bigger than Columbus. I think he's a large kitten for his age and I think it's because he's always drinking milk, perhaps even drinking Columbus' share. His belly is always firm and round, full of milk and occasionally solid food, though he doesn’t really go for solids yet if mom is around.

Columbus, the female kitten. Still very independent. Very tame as well. Sweet and have a lower, quieter meow than Snowball. Sadly…she is litter box compliant but with a caveat. She has had two accidents outside of the box. I had let them come out of the washroom and explore the apartment and she found a stack of papers I have on my floor and urinated and poo'd on it. And later, she urinated on some newspaper I had on the floor. But she will still use the litter box. I think the accidents are because when she's walking on paper, they move underneath her and she thinks it's litter. She can't tell the difference, so she'll go on the paper. She's not that bright as to keep it in the box, as she doesn't pay as much attention as mom goes in the box. On top of that, she also will step in her own poo and make a mess of things.

Because of that, I keep them in the washroom and watch them carefully when I let them come out. Columbus is a more athletic kitten though and loves to climb the scratching post.

Both of them love the horizontal scratching post as the bed of choice and to scratch and they love the little toy mouse I got them.

The one thing I will say is that there is a lingering smell of cat urine as the box is used more often. I have been told to put baking soda on the bottom (and to avoid odour absorbing crystals) to soak up the smell. I'm pretty good about flushing the cat poo right when it happens. Yes, litter is a reality of owning a cat, you have to be prepared to deal with it if you adopt one.

Would you like to hear about the other cats and kittens that VOKRA has ready for adoption? If so, email me at audio90@shaw.ca.

Everything I know about cats, I learned on the internet.

2007-06-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

A little bit more about me. What I do know of caring for a cat? Actually, until recently, I didn't know much. I, like many people, just kept hearing that cats smell, are messy and leave fur everywhere. Today I know a lot about cats, although I'm far from what would be considered an expert. How many cats have I owned? None. In fact, I've never had a furry, four legged pet larger than a rabbit, and we didn't keep the rabbits very long when I was a kid (I have had almost every other pet as a kid though). My family just never had one because we were afraid of the smell, the hassle of caring for it, and keeping the place clean.

However, I've always liked cats. My girlfriends in the past had cats. I think they are cute, sexy, and deadly (hiyaa!). So when I found out earlier this year that I could foster kittens, I jumped at the chance.

How is it that I learned about cats? My friends, the internet, Google, and Youtube are your friends. Being a Sagittarius, whenever I become interested in something, I must find out everything about that subject, so I read as much as I could about cats on the internet and have seen countless countless videos of cats and kittens on Youtube. I did also look at a few printed books, but in my opinion, the information on the internet is a lot better and more accessible. Youtube is great to see other cats and kittens being cute. I love it when they meow and when they eat, but that's just me.

In fact, here is one of my favorite videos from Youtube:

Almost every major cat problem or behavior is covered on the internet, and from reputable sources in fact (I assume so anyway, it's easy to determine how credible a site is by the look of it in this area). Still, there are a lot of things that wasn't covered in what I read or that I didn't expect. That's to be expected I suppose, but I'm learning fast about the things that you cat experts take for granted and don’t write in books or on the internet.

The one thing I want to do if I adopt a cat myself is toilet train it. My girlfriend did that, I understand the progression to doing it. There are even products you can buy to help you do this. I just think that this will solve a lot of cat smell and cleanliness problems (now if only they could stop shedding).

These days, rather than reading on the internet, I sit and watch the cat and kittens go crazy.

Pipi, mom cat, loves me now.

2007-06-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I began to suspect that Pipi hated me. It has something to do with the de-fleaing, the de-shedding, and the de-worming (terrible tasting I'm told) and she began to sulk, turn her back to me, and refuse food for about two days.

I expected her to be moody, but the refusing food was a growing concern. It just so happened that I was at a pet store yesterday to pick up a horizontal scratching post for the kittens and decided to buy some chicken flavored treats for mom. When I got home, I shook the bag, let her smell the contents and then crushed a treat and mixed it with her food. She was instantly interested and started eating the food. When she was done with that portion, I put more regular food on it, and she ate it as well, and now will eat, as normal, when hungry. She also now knows that shaking the bag (or a can of peanuts, hey it's the same noise) means that food is here.

Now she is totally relaxed, she actually will wander around, make cat purrs, and waves her tail high in the air. She'll come over and say hello and rub up against me. So typical of a cat, when they want something, they come and be nice to you.

The kittens, Snowball and Columbus are just two great buddies, they hang out together all the time and love to explore my place. They are running around quite frequently and love the new scratching toy I got them. They make good use of it and even sleep on it whenever they can. They are still a little feeble, as the can't always get off the vertical scratching post without falling off, but they'll get some jumping and coordination soon I think.

I suppose I'll be posting videos of them soon.

By the way, the de-shedder I am using is called the Furminator (www.furminator.com). It's great, it works very well, just like they say it would. I keep a vacuum running as well to vacuum the fur right off the comb. Highly recommended.

Ok, tell us more about the cats, Pipi, Snowball, and Columbus!

2007-06-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've now had the cat and kittens (Pipi, Columbus, and Snowball) for two days and I can already tell a lot about their personalities and some interesting things have happened as well.

First, Pipi, the mom cat, is still off and on with me, sulking a lot right now. And the kittens are also still in their wonderment phase, except for 3am in the morning when they are at full swing chasing after each other. As a whole, this is a really tight nit family and they miss each other when one of them wanders out of sight. The mom, despite being a young (technically, still a kitten herself), is a great mom.

What are the cats like?

THE MOM CAT, PIPI, is very tame. She likes to be touched and would never bite or scratch you. I cannot believe how well behaved and tame she is. She is still shy though hides where her body can be pressed up against a small space and sticks her head behind the toilet whenever she can (I've put tin foil around the back of the toilet to keep her away from there). And she isn't very responsive most of the time. Yesterday though, she did walk up and brush herself against my legs and she begged quite vocally to be let into the rest of the apartment last night. When there are no fleas on her for sure, I'll let her roam.

I did find a few physical concerns with her. She has a cut on her left ear that seems to be healing well. Her left top fang is broken in half and missing. Her front claws are fine. But her back claws all are shaved off to the middle of the claw. Perhaps even cut off, and they are semi black. Perhaps someone cut the back claws some time ago, or she got it like that by jumping off hard surfaces or something.

She is quite the jumper as well. I have a cardboard barricade in front of my washroom. About 3 feet high. She can jump over that. Last night, I turned it on it's side and made it into a 6.5 feet barricade. She did a standing vertical jump to the top of the barricade and helped herself over!

She was eating well, yet is very skinny for a nursing mom, and she's always nursing her kittens, more about that later. But she is very healthy, with a nice coat, and she likes to be touched. And brushed, and petted. Lately though, she has been rejecting food and water.

Litterbox wise, she is using it fine. She urinates a lot and poo'ed twice, both times a constipated mess. She's good at using her litter box, so good that I had to empty the pine wood bits out of her box, wash it (and sprayed it with Nature's Miracle) and put new pine in. But what I saw happen after was that she took a walk around the bath room, she came onto the litter box set up for the kittens (I have two in there, one for kittens, and another for Pipi) and pee'd in their box. And she pees a lot so a third of the kitten box was suddenly tainted. She has since found her own box again and is using it.

And as for nursing, she nursing all the time, with 8 healthy and large nipples and two kittens, that means that the kittens can have their fill. And more. And they do. She can probably comfortably nurse four more kittens without any problem.

Fur wise, I noticed that she is shedding more today. I wonder if it's because she is stressed? She didn't appreciate the flea combing I did for her, nor did she like the dewormer. But then, it's still apprehension time for her and hopefully she'll become friendlier soon.

KITTEN #1, SNOWBALL, is a male cat and is mom's best friend. He is almost always sucking on her teat, engorging himself full of milk. And it shows, he is a nice, plump kitten, who is a little bigger than Columbus who doesn't drink milk as much..

He can eat solid food, but doesn't much prefers to drink from mom. Thus, he and mom have a close bond, he'll go over to her to play with her and she comes whenever he lets out a "where are you?" meow. He also watches mom very closely and copies what she does, particularly in the little box. I do expect that he will grow up to be a big cat someday.

Snowball is curious, hasn't quite learned how to use the scratching post yet, loves to play with my mouse, loves to stalk Columbus. He isn't much of an explorer, still very much depending on mom and always watching and learning from her.

Litterbox wise, he can use his litter box to pee. He has poo'd once as well in the litter box. But I did put him in the bathtub, on a towel, and he pee'd on a corner of the towel. I don't know if that is his fault of not, as he couldn't get to a litter box. I think he'll be fine though with the litter box, but I'm watching him.

KITTEN #2, COLUMBUS, is a female cat, and is very independent. While Snowball will run to mom and feed, Columbus will go explore on her own. She will also sleep by herself sometimes, away from Pipi and Snowball, but prefers to sleep with her brother or with everyone most of the time.

This kitten is pretty smart and adventurous and is usually the first of the two kittens to try new things. She's also very tame and obedient, like her mother. She loves the scratching post, as well as the cardboard box beside the scratching post, always flexing her strong arm muscles against the box, biting it, or scratching and climbing the post.

She'll eat solid food without any problems, although still preferring to suckle on Pipi and litterbox wise….I don't know yet. She has pee'd in the litter box, but the only time she poo'd…well. When I was picking through the cats with a flea comb, I did her first and put her in a box by herself to quarantine her from the other cats. She was crying a bit and then let a large kitten poo in the corner. It's not her fault as there was no little box and she had to go. But she hasn't defecated since, so I have to watch her extra carefully.

In fact, tonight as I was watching her, I saw her do some sort of weird jerking, with a coughing sound and then she threw up on the floor. About a quarter cup of partially digested wet cat food. Hairball you think? No, although there was a little fur, it was not a hair ball at all. I had fed her the food seven hours before then. And it came out almost the same, hardly any of it was digested. Perhaps her little stomach isn't ready for solid food yes, as I would have expected that her fast metabolism would digest the food in half that time. But yes, she does prefer mom's milk, so it could be just a matter of being too young for the solids. Unless, it's normal for slow digestion and kittens throwing up cat food.

BOTH SNOWBALL AND COLUMBUS love to sleep. A lot. In any position, but preferably either against mom, or against each other on the soft scratching post base. When not asleep they are in two modes. The normal mode where they explore, bat some balls around and wander. And full chase mode, where they are having a good time bounding around, chasing, and attacking each other.

Both kittens are not weaned yet. And from the way that they are growing and how well they digest the milk (from plumb bellies to normal bellies in about eight hours) they will need to breast feed for a while,

I place these kittens at FOUR TO FIVE weeks now. I've seen six and seven week old kittens, and these older kittens can do many things that these two cannot. What I've seen so far that leads me to believe that these are young ones (oh, and from the same father as well, they are nearly identical) are that:

They can't jump high in any way at all. They may try to climb up, but they can't even get into the large litter box without tremendous effort to get their hind legs up.

The can't jump down. From any height. I put them on an eight inch box and they can't get down. They may fall down, but they aren't jumping.

They don't drink water at all. A cat should get 70% of its water from the food they eat. They are drinking from mom, who binges on water, so they don't need to be anywhere near H2O.

The mom grooms them excessively. And all over. They are still liking it a lot.

They are really absent minded. Their minds don’t have a good memory and they are easily distracted.

They are just starting to teeth. Their teeth are coming out. They are not all out. And they just started trying to bite things.

From their size, I would have guessed that they would be older, but it's apparent it's because they are lucky to have all of mom's milk only for themselves. They will gorge themselves sometimes for hours. Sometimes will fall asleep doing so.

So that's what they are like. Tune in later when I talk about the medicine I am administering to them and what happened with the flea scare.

The new cats are in!

2007-06-02T16:11:00.001-07:00

So the two main ladies from VOKRA came by and dropped off a young mom and two kittens last night. All are beautiful white colored shorthaired domestic and very healthy.

The mom, I figure is less than a year old, at the most, maybe a year and a few months. She is very tame, yet very shy and suspicious of humans (me!). But she is ok being touched and will eat solid food. I'll call her Pipi.

Of the two kittens, one is very adventurous, while the other one tries to stick by mom. Why? They are both still feeding off her milk. The adventurous one, let's call him Columbus, will eat the solid food, while the other one, Snowball, doesn't know how yet. . They are both big, plump kittens from Pipi's breast milk and I figure that they must be 5 weeks by now.

When they first came, they were a little shy and wondering where they were and what was going on. Around 3am last night, the kittens were wide awake and playing with the toys and with each other and since then, they have been pretty active, as kittens are.

The mom is content to just hide in some nook and cranny and make herself seem as small as possible. I figure that she used to be someone's pet, raised from being a kitten but due to neglect or bad treatment, she has lost her trust in humans temporarily. However, she is quickly warming up as well and is sometimes seen walking around the bathroom where I have them.

And, I'm also sorry to say that, they all have fleas. It's not unexpected, it's almost a given that animals who have been put/left outdoors will get them. I noticed dark shadows running around in the kittens fur, so I went and got a flea comb today and pulled 10 fleas off them all so far. I don't expect the fleas to stay much longer, as VOKRA used some Revolution flea treatment with them, I'm just concerned about eggs that would have dropped off within the two hour minimum danger winder, if I have stepped on them with my bare feet and thus have carried them around my apartment. On the other hand, in the combing, I've been able to find fleas and flea poop, but haven't seen anything looking like eggs (unless I'm looking for the wrong thing, I thought they are supposed to be white and looking like grains of salt. I would have expected them to be abundant as well, but I've yet to see any. Perhaps, I've been spared the egg scare?).

Anyhow, I get the sense that the cats are still getting used to the place, which is normal. Give it a day or two and I'm sure they'll be happy again.

Welcome to the Vancouver Cat Adoption Blog

2007-06-01T21:03:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the Vancouver Cat Adoption Blog.

Who am I and what is this blog about? Well, I'm your average Vancouver guy (ok, not so average. How about slightly about average?) who lives in an apartment downtown and has embarked on doing some community service. Which service am I referring to?

I'm helping one of the local Vancouver cat rescue groups help get their kittens and cats adopted to forever homes. That means homes that will take an animal and treat it like one of the family for the entire life of the cat, no matter what happens (the rescue group in this case, btw is VOKRA (www.orphankittenrescue.com).

More specifically, I am fostering cats, that is, I'm giving them a short term temporary home for a few weeks, until they are adopted into forever homes?

Why do this, aside from contributing to the community? Because there is a great need. In Vancouver, and in fact, in many cities all over the world, there are scores of stray, abandoned and feral cats living without the care of people, in streets, warehouses, neighborhoods. And cats are very fertile, a young kitten, less than a year old can already have up to two litters of more kittens. And of course, these kittens can have more kittens. Next thing you know, it's cats everywhere. And who takes care of them? No one, they fend for themselves.

If they are feral and don't trust humans, they are the ones you hear fighting at night and running away from you when you surprise them. Stray and abandoned cats soon learn this behaviour as well, then the reality of life on the streets hits them (like a bored fat kid with a big stick). Now, fortunately, many cats are caught by the SPCA and other groups and are adopted out. But for many more cats (and dogs, hamsters, rabbits) they are euthanized, i.e. they are killed because there is no space for them. They are especially killed if they are injured or diseased, as they are harder to adopt out.

So, following this tangent, if you have an animal, please spay or neuter (or speuter, ha!) it, unless you can be responsible for her offspring, intentional or not. You will save many cat lives and thus take a load off the already stress service of stray cat management.

At any rate, so what I am doing is taking care of kittens and cats for VOKRA as there are so many that are in their database that need to be adopted, that they can't possibly put them all into one place. So my role is to watch them, take care of them, and if need be, train them so that they are good little kittens, so that they can be adopted out easily. Possibly by you.

Thus is the reason why this blog exists. I will be posting news and updates about the animals I get, including pictures and video, as well as my experiences with the cats, so that you can get a sense of their personality and what it means to care for one and hopefully want to adopt the ones I have.

Happy reading!