Tuesday, June 23, 2009

New Kitten

So I can't post a picture since my camera ran out of battery power when I was copying the pics of the camera, so here's one I'm borrowing from another site that looks like her. This pic is from http://www.great-pictures-of-cats.com/
I found her while I was walking my dog in the park. She can meow really loud and there were no other cats or kittens nearby. My neighbor thinks she is probably 8-10 weeks old. She's really skinny and gobbled down the food I put out for her. She's also a snuggle-bug. She's got fleas and probably ear mites too. Poor mite.

So I found her in the park and brought her home with me and Luna and put her into the bathroom with a bowl of water and a little wet dog food and a towel and closed the door while I ran up to Petco and got some kitten food, a couple of little toys, a litter box and cat litter, and some cute kitten bowl. I think I spent $50 on everything, but she's so pathetically small and undernourished. I hope she will be okay.
So how is she integrating after one night?

Really well. I kept her alone in the bathroom for awhile last night so she could feel secure. She keeps laying behind the toilet, so I put the towel there and gave her some kitten food and set up the litter box with some kitten attracting powder added in and shut the door so Luna couldn't get in and went out and walked Luna for another 30 minutes. Then I watching Back the the Future II for 30 more minutes, then I went in and picked her up and petted her. For a ferrel (sp?) kitten, she seems to really like being touched.
I petted her until she purred and walked around the apartment. Luna tried to jump up on me a couple of times, but I didn't let her. Eventually I sat on the couch and put her on the back of the couch and let Luna sit on the floor beside the couch and watched them stare at each other. Luna barked a bit at first, but after she realized she couldn't get to the kitten and the kitten realized the dog wouldn't attack her, both settled down a bit and Luna assumed her defensive stance she uses at the dog park. In other words, she sits with her back to me, surveying the world around us. After a few more minutes of this and me petting the kitten and Luna at the same time, I put the kitten back and put her on the litter and dug her paws into it since someone on YahooAnswers says it helped her kitten learn to use the litter box and it seems a harmless enough thing to do.
After petting Luna some more and continuing to watch the movie for another hour, I brought the kitten out again, although I may have gone a little too fast this time since she arched her back a hissed at Luna when Luna aproached really quickly. I subdued the kitten until she calmed and purred again and Luna was still sitting beside the couch and I returned her to the bathroom again.
So on the third time I brought the kitten back out, things went really well. I sat with the kitten and Luna was more calm and the kitten began purring almost immediately and I sat down on the couch and she stayed on my shoulder even though Luna approached and I let Luna get close enough to sniff her with my hand on Luna's harness to pull her back if need be and she started licking the kitten. I've looked it up and older female dogs licking kittens is usually a symptom of the maternal instinct, so Luna may have already accepted her into the pack and the kitten continued purring with Luna licked her. I only let them do it for a few moments the first time before again removing the kitten into the bathroom.
So the final time I brought her out last night, I let Luna again lick the kitten and she licked the kitten a lot, but the kitten really didn't mind. Awesome. You know, I wasn't thinking of having a kitten before yesterday, but now that I've let her in the door, I want to keep her. I've named her Rosalie.