Weeks with current fosters: 8, 2
Days without hissing: 0 (someone made a loud noise and Buster is jumpy)
Days without being sneezed on: 0
Last year, when we had five kittens named after pasta who were “just getting over” their ringworm, we used a chlorhexidine shampoo on them three times and thought we’d been through hell. Today we gave four different little kittens a lime sulfur dip and I would like to change my opinion about what hell is like.
The Well-Traveled Crew, as Kas has dubbed them, had to go back to the vet today because they aren’t really improving, upper-respiratory-infection-wise; Marlo and Sidney are still little slimeballs who climb up your back and sit on your neck and wheeze, snottily, into your ear, and that is not the way kittens ought to be breathing. Royal and Indiana — whose conjunctivitis is just as gone as everyone else’s, thank goodness, that was a real pink eye — are also still sneezing rather frequently. So it was back to the vet they went, for weighing and temperature-taking and Marlo got subcutaneous fluids and everyone’s now on Clavamox instead of doxycycline, hooray. They were also prescribed twice-weekly lime dips, which we’d never done before but Kas helpfully panic-bought three bottles of the stuff last week, so sure, Dr. Corn, we can certainly do it. These guys’ ringworm is also “on the way out” (fingers crossed, knock on wood, pray to the gods you believe in), but it “couldn’t hurt” to lime dip them, just to be on the ol’ safe side.
Lime sulfur dip turns bright yellow when properly diluted and it smells, appropriately, like sulfur. I’m trying not to swear in this newsletter because I’m trying not to swear in this newsletter, so expressing just how stomach-churning the stench was is a bit of a challenge. Suffice to say the bathroom stunk, the kittens stunk, our scrubs (Kas panic-bought scrubs, too, in size enormous) stunk, our apartment, briefly, stunk. But the kittens have been dipped and rubbed and placed to dry in a warm environment, and the rain stopped so we could open the windows, and I did my own panic-buying of fancy scented candles the other week so now the house smells like On the Beach, and we’ve all retreated to our corners to have quiet reflection about the horrors of sulfur in an apartment bathroom.
Jenny is very miffed with our behavior overall and is pointedly ignoring me, doing that thing where she walks away, staying within eyesight, turns her back to me, and sits, staring Not At Me. I, ensconced in the couch corner trying to update the world on my foster kittens and still tasting sulfur in the back of my throat, cannot blame her.
Tomorrow Clementine, who has begun sneezing rather profusely, gets to see the vet herself. The last time we were at the vet, the doctor (why do you always see a different veterinarian? I appreciate that they all have access to your animal’s medical history, but rotating vets means you’re always explaining the same things to a new doctor and it feels like you could avoid a lot of redundancy if maybe you saw the same vet more than once. Then again, who’s to say any doctor remembers one thing about any patient they only see infrequently, so why should it matter as long as their practice is keeping detailed records?) told us poor Lemon had tartar buildup and would need a teeth cleaning within a year. She also told us that vets recommend brushing cats’ teeth every other day. In our household, we compromised with a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, with nail clipping also happening on Monday and ear cleaning occurring on a monthly basis. This is not to say we’ve been able to stick with that schedule; right now it’s really more aspirational, with the cats definitely getting their pearly whites scrubbed twice a week, if not the aforementioned three times. It’s not a lot of Work but it feels like a Job, since the cats hate it so much. They put up with it, but they despise it, which makes it hard to want to do. Nevertheless. I hope nothing is terribly wrong with young Clementine tomorrow, or at least nothing a dose of some kind of antibiotic we’ll pay an arm and a leg for won’t cure. She’s just been sneezing up a storm and I suspect the kittens have gotten her sick. Wretched little creatures, honestly the bath they got today was a long time coming; have I mentioned that their fur is matted in places because they’re too young to properly clean themselves and they haven’t got a mother to do it for them? It’s pathetic; they are extremely pathetic.
Buster, however, is not pathetic at all. Today caught him in Kas’s lap, purring himself to sleep. Look at this contented face:
As a person who takes several medications to combat anxiety, I worry that he loves Kas too much, that he’s gotten so comfortable here that placing him somewhere else will be terribly jarring and set back his progress. We had people here a week ago Saturday to meet him, potential adopters who seemed lovely and friendly and like they and their young cat could provide a great home for the not-so-little guy, and they passed. At first I worried I hadn’t sold him hard enough, but I was very straightforward about what they could expect from him and the work they would have to put in to, as Will from Flatbush Cats puts it, put the finishing touches on his socialization, and if they weren’t ready for that kind of commitment, that is fine. Everyone adopts the cat who is right for them, and we have to accept that Buster just isn’t the kitten for them. But he is the kitten for someone. He’s such a darling, and he’s started communicating through his flightiness much like Bowie, his FBC predecessor, did — you’ll approach him, and he’ll run away from you, but only to half-hide in a tunnel, wiggling: He’s inviting you to play rather than cuddle him. That’s how he presently prefers to experience intimacy. It’s both magical to have figured out and frustrating to experience, since it means you can’t actually pet him however much you might want to; you had better get out a wand and drag a fuzzy worm across the floor if you want to spend quality time with wee Buster. Unless you’re Kas, of course, in which case you get head-butts and purrs and cuddles galore. I’m envious, I won’t deny it; most of the cats end up liking Kas more than me. I think they can tell he’s a kinder person than I am. But we all do our best, however weirdly adapted we are to the world.
(This is the part where I remind you we’ve got an Amazon wishlist (ugh ugh ugh) for the Little Wanderers kittens and would very much appreciate donations of food in particular, as they are blowing through that Royal Canin like nobody’s business. Clumping litter would also be a godsend. For regular photographic updates on all our kittens, please see our Instagram, which is run by Kas because his phone has a better camera.)