One Month, One Pound - Milestones

Doyle has been busy in the last week reaching quite a few milestones. His cold is finally under control and he:

• is now one month old.
• has had his first taste of wet cat food and water (which he likes, although mom is not too keen on sharing her food).
• finally weighs over one pound. True it is only 1 oz over a pound, but it is a start. He is walking well and doesn't fall down as much.
• is also awake more often now
• and just today started learning how to play
• is way too adorable for his own good

His brother Domino is also doing well. He continues to have medical problems and be bottle fed, but he is slowly improving in the new foster home he is in.

Doyle's one month birthday celebration. (No he did not get to eat the cake, we did)

Sitting Pretty

Being this cute is hard work - Nap time!

Lap Kitty

Doyle climbed into my lap for the first time today. He looked up at me, blinked, gave a big yawn and proceeded to fall asleep. His mom walked over, rubbed up against me and then calmly went over to eat her food. And that, for anyone who wonders, is why I do this. Those small signs of love and trust are what make the worry and the work that can be involved with fostering all worthwhile.

Three Weeks and going strong

Doyle (and Domino) is three weeks old today. He has started to get his teeth in, is staying awake for longer periods of time, and learning to walk. Watching him stumble along on his wobbly legs is awful cute. Domino is holding his own so far, but still has to stay at the shelter. Since Domino is not around for him to clean, Doyle has started "grooming" my hand whenever I am holding him. And let me tell you, boy does it tickle! Mom is taking good care of him now and he is growing in leaps and bounds. Just look at that cute face. Who could resist?

Domino is growing

I got an update from the shelter about Domino. He has actually managed to gain a little bit of weight, which is great! It is the only way he will survive. He is currently being taken care of by shelter staff members because there is not a foster home that is equipped to deal with his fragile state right now. He is still very congested which makes eating very hard. So it is still touch and go for now, but at least the weight gain is a positive sign.

The foster coordinator said that if a foster home that can bottle feed him and care for his needs opens up then they will send him to one, but at this point they think he needs to be with a staff member. If he stays with staff until he is old enough to eat solid food, then they will send him back to us! Where every he goes, I just hope he keeps gaining and growing.

Missing Domino :(

Well Domino had to stay at the shelter. He needs fluids too often to be in a home setting anymore. I also realized that mom took much better care of the other kitten, Doyle, when she did not have to worry about Domino. The mom was also starting show signs of stress from the daily carrier trips to the shelter. We all miss Domino alot, but he is where he needs to be. The shelter is going to update me when they can and I will update here.

On the good side, Doyle has gained weight and is nursing from mom again. I was worried that Doyle would have trouble sleeping because he tends not to go to sleep until he manages to climb on top of or snuggle next to Domino. But I found a really neat thing that is shaped like a small dog and can be put in the microwave to warm it up to body temperature. It is meant for when a puppy or kitten is having trouble sleeping once it is old enough to be seperated from its littermates. Doyle curled right up on it when I put it in the bed a few hours ago and went right to sleep so I think this will help him alot.

Bottle Fed Baby

Well, Domino is now a strictly bottle fed kitten. He continues to lose weight and is down to 7oz. He was almost 9oz on Sunday. This is not good. We are no longer depending on his mom to give him any of his food. He has received IV fluids three times in the last four days. I will be feeding him every two hours or so, 24/7. Hopefully this will help him to stop losing weight and if we are really lucky, maybe even gain some. The next few days will be critical for him.

Thankfully, the antibotic that both kittens are on has worked well for Doyle. Doyle is a nice plump 10oz and is starting to act like a kitten should. He is following us with his eyes and ears and starting to try and be playful.

I will try and keep this blog updated on Domino's progress just in case anyone is actually reading it and just not commenting. Everyone out there in blog land, please keep your fingers crossed for this little fighter.

Happy Birthday to Us!

Hi - we are two weeks old today! Isn't that exciting. We also finally have names.

My name is Domino

And this is my brother Doyle

We have had a bit of a rough road so far because we both have colds that we just can't shake and that are making it hard for us to eat. Our foster mother keeps putting us in a carrier and bringing us back to see the doctor. Yesterday, she gave us somethig called fluids in a big needle. We did NOT like it.

Our mom is trying to take care of us, but she keeps forgetting to feed us and stay with us so we stay warm. Yesterday our foster Mom and the shelter staff decided to put us all in what my foster mom jokingly calls "Bad Mother Jail." It is a big dog crate. They noticed that mom does take care of us if she is in a confined area with us so I guess that was their idea of how to keep her with us. It did not work. Mom just ended up pushing us out of the crate through the bars while trying to get us all out. We are still rather tiny.

We have been getting steam treatments twice a day for the last few days. It is supposed to help our noses stay clear. All we know if that we like sleeping in the little bed in a warm steamy room.

We have to go back to the vet AGAIN tomorrow for a check-up and our first vaccination. Hopefully the doctor will tell us that we are doing better. Well this was a lot of work, so I think we are going to sleep. Bye for now.

A Home for Marion

I had to take the current foster kittens to the shelter today (yes, again. More on that later). But while I was there I found out that Marion, the mother of my first foster kittens, now has an adoption pending. That means that they are just waiting for all the paperwork and such to be processed and then she gets to go to a forever home. I am so happy. I was worried that it would take much longer than this since she was not great with other animals or little kids. Yeah for Marion! She had a rough start in life, so she deserves a good place to spend the rest of her life.

Marion - mother of Triton and Ariel

Missing Mom

My roommate and I ended up feeding both kittens three times today. Domino was hungry and I decided to offer his brother some food too and he sucked it down like crazy so I do not think Mom is feeding him enough either. It is hard because we want them to eat from Mom as much as possible, but we do not want them to go hungry either.

When I fed them the second time Domino sounded like he was breathing heavily, like he was really congested so I took both of them in the bathroom and ran the shower for steam like the shelter suggested. He was still soundng a little loud when I fed them for the last time tonight and that concerns me. Of course, I do not know what a kitten's breathing is supposed to sound like, so who knows. I have asthma so I am always hyper-aware of breathing that sound labored.

We brought the kittens upstairs to feed them and bring them in the bathroom for steam and when I brought them back, I realized that Muffin (the mom) was missing! When I did foster orientation they warned me that it was common for kittens to get temporarily lost because they are so small, but leave it to me to lose the mom. I thought at first that she might have come looking for her kittens since I had taken them away from her, but after a few minutes of searching, I found her curled up on my bed.

It seems she did not care that I took the kittens. She just wanted to be with the people in the house. That is part of the problem with her. She wants to be with us more than she wants to take care of her kittens. She acts somewhat like a kitten herself even though she is two years old.

Hopefully, Domino's breathing will sound a little better tomorrow. I would like to avoid having to take him back to the shelter before Tuesday. They are scheduled to go in then for a vaccination. Of course, if he gets worse I will bring him in right away.

If anyone has any advice for me, I would be happy to hear it. Even if it is that I am doing everything all wrong. LOL.

Formula Anyone?

Well, I am glad I decided to just go with my overprotective foster mother feeling (see yesterday's post). I took the kittens in today because the mother was acting strangely toward Kitten C (who has been nickednamed Domino because of the spot on his neck). I did not have anything real concreate to tell the shelter, just a bunch of vauge concerns that made me think he might not be getting the milk and care he needed from Mom.

The foster coordinator at the shelter agreed. So I am going to be supplementing his feeding from his Mom with some formula. I also got an antibotic for him and the Mom since their colds are getting worse. Oddly enough, Kitten B is doing just fine. But I will keep an eye on him too.

So, in the end I am glad that I listened to my instincts and got them checked out. There is no need for serious concern right now, but if I had left it for too long, there could have been.

Overprotective Foster Mom

I can't get this annoying feeling that there is a problem with one of the kittens out of my head. Somehow the kitten keeps ending up out of the bed and away from the other kitten. The mother does not seem to be real anxious to put it back. In fact, she tends to push it towards me if I am down there. She also will roll over and move around to make sure that the other kitten is latching on when she lies down to nurse them, but the lets the other kitten climb all over her looking for a place to eat without doing anything.

I made them a new bed that I do not think the kittens can get out of on their own and that gives Mom more room to lie down, so I will see how it goes tonight. But if I still have this uneasy feeling in the morning, I think I am going to have to call the shelter and see about bringing them in to be checked over.

I guess it is better to be thought of as the crazy overprotective foster person than take the chance that there is something wrong and I did not pay attention to it.

Eyes Wide Open

Well, at least partially open. That is right; Kitten B opened his eyes today. They are very cute, very unfocused blue eyes. Kitten B also finally lost his embilibal cord. I brought the foster family up to my bedroom today to keep a closer eye on them because I had a little bit of a concern today.

I mentioned in a previous post that they all have a slight cold. Well, one of the things that can happen when a kitten gets sick is that the mother can reject them and not keep them in the "nest" where it is warm. When I went into the room today, one of the kittens was sitting alone in the middle of the room. I did not know if the mother was ignoring it, or if I had just interuppted her in the middle of moving the kittens. (She likes to move them around the room).

So, just to be safe, I brought them up to my room to watch for a while. Turns out that Kitten C has decided that he likes to try and crawl around the room loking for Mom even though his eyes are not open yet. So thankfully, it seems he is just adventurous, not that Mom is rejecting him.

Kitten B now weighs in at 9 oz and has opened his eyes. Kitten C weighs in at 9.25 oz.