It’s Monday and our household has grown by five. FIVE. Little Wanderers posted about a “litter” (lol I’ll get to that in a minute) of five kittens being held at the Animal Care and Control (ACC) in Brooklyn who needed immediate fostering or else … or else meaning euthanasia. And being married to a man with a huge heart and an obsessive need to check Instagram, I find myself this morning with a bathroom full of five six-week-old kittens in high quarantine. They’ve all got conjunctivitis, some kind of upper respiratory virus, and ringworm. But wouldn’t you know, we’ve got plenty of Curaseb shampoo leftover from the Pasta Pals last year.
Hi, Cypress
We were told, per ACC, that some of them had conjunctivitis, some were sneezing, and that there was possible exposure to ringworm. When we got them into the bathroom last night and blacklighted them, ha ha they all lit up like Christmas trees. It is ringworm city, in addition to crusty eye town and sneezeville. These kittens are a mess. However, some of the benefits of their having been processed through ACC is that they came with a giant bag of meds to treat their various illnesses. We’ve got an antifungal, we’ve got an antibiotic, we’ve got whatever it is that you drop in their tiny kitten eyeballs twice a day. They’ve also been chipped, gotten their first round of FVRCP vaccines, and been through a de-worming protocol.
Grimace for the camera, Indiana
Other than that, we don’t know a lot about them, such as whether they’re actually related; their intake paperwork cited nine kittens altogether, which is, you know, a few too many for one litter. They came in alone, i.e. motherless, and had been at BACC for two weeks before Little Wanderers got to them. And now we have them. In our bathroom. Because we can’t risk any infection of beautiful, bouncing baby Buster or Jenny and Clem.
Who’s that girl? It’s Marlo
Last night we gave them all Curaseb baths — the better to beat the ringworm with — dosed them with their many meds, filled their round kitten tums with nice mushy food, and sent them to bed with a heating pad under the cardboard box full of scrap cloths we’re using as a bed. Then we stripped off our clothes and shoved them in a plastic bag, along with all the towels we used for bathing, thoroughly washed our hands, and spent some time with our healthy cats who love us, and also Buster, who thinks we are all right but still isn’t entirely sure about being approached.
Royal — is it stinkeye or just conjunctivitis?
Speaking of the residents and young B, they are … displeased at the mysterious happenings in the bathroom. Personally, I am displeased because at least one of the new crew — the Well-Traveled Kittens, we’re calling them — isn’t using the litterbox. A thing about fostering I have found is that initially it’s very hard. You don’t know who you’ve invited into your home — their personalities may be hidden under layers of distrust and suspicion, like Bowie and Loko and Buster, or they may be too new to have fully formed them, like the WTK group. You don’t know how much they know about being house cats (like, say, using the litterbox). They’re little mysteries you have to solve while trying to tend to their basic needs, which sometimes aren’t so basic, like multiple medications and having to quarantine them not just in part of a room but in the actual bathroom. And all that is really difficult.
Sidney sends her regards
But once you get used to all the inconveniences and irritations and complications, everyone settles in and you can start to get to know each other. Already this morning I’ve seen two of the WTK (I can’t tell them apart yet, it’s only been 14 hours) playing with the ball tower and chasing each other around the bathroom, skidding on the tiles as they romped, and that was, of course, pretty adorable. It’s basically their job to be adorable, kittens, and it’s our job to get them shining with health. To that end, we’ve got an official Amazon wish list with Little Wanderers so if you’d like to help us out with caring for these little friends, we’d really appreciate it.
And, to reiterate, Buster is doing so great he’s actually ready for adoption. Just look at this beautiful boy. I didn’t think he’d ever take to us and now he’s part of the family.