Silvermist and friends

I have three new fosters in my home right now. They are all too scared for photos at the moment. One is a 4 week old female who my niece named Silvermist after one of the fairies in the Tinkerbell movie. I was just happy it was not yet another one of Ariel's sisters. Silvermist is small, but beautiful. She appears to be either a pure Persian kitten or possibly a Persian Siamese mix.

She was found in a local state forest where someone had probably dumped her. She was too clean and unmatted to have been in the forest since birth. This makes no sense to me. Why would someone just dump a kitten that will be worth money when it is older. Of course, I do not understand why anyone would dump ANY kitten but even people who are not animal lovers seem to value animals that are worth some money. Oh well, I am just glad that she is now with us where she is valuable just because she is a sweet little girl. She is very timid from her time in the state park, but we are working on that.

My other two guys - at least I think they are guys - are feral kittens. They can not be handled at all yet which is why I am not sure yet what sex they are. They are the most feral kittens that I have had so far as fosters. In fact, the rest of their litter was sent to a feral cat rescue. These two were the only two the shelter felt had a chance of become social pets. The rest will probably end up in a feral cat colony that the feral cat rescue manages. They are around 8 weeks old and have been here for 5 days now but they are still terrified of me. I have had to move to the "tough love" method of socialization which I don't really like even though I know it does not hurt them and it works. What that means is that they have a comfortable cage, litter box, bed and water at all times, but they only get food, toys or a chance to get out of the cage when I am in the room. That way they soon realize that every time I come in the room, something good happens.

I did not want to try this method because I like to leave dry food down for my fosters at all times because so many are underweight or sick. But these guys are not sick or underweight and I was not making any progress just spending time with them. Since I started only putting food bowls in when I am in the room, they have actually let me pet their backs while they eat, so it is working. Of course, I am going down about every 20 minutes or so throughout the day and offering them the food, so they are not going hungry. Hopefully we will make more progress in the days to come.

Since I do not know their sex yet, they do not have names. I have never been very good at coming up with traditional either sex names for my cats. So right now they are just the brown tiger guy and the black and white guy. They are going to be a challenge, but if they come out of my home as social, adoptable kittens, then it will be worth it.