Our Foster Kittens Have Arrived!

[AintNobodyHereButUsKittens]

Look at my lovely kitteny name change. It is in honour of our two/three foster kittens from Celia Hammond in Lewisham and their beautiful (if skinny) young mum - hardly more than a kitten herself .

They arrived late Friday night (DC's were allowed to stay up late specially) and are settling in nicely. They're about 2 weeks old now, one chubby little smoke grey monster, one slightly runty black and white one who we were worried about but seems to be growing nicely, and a third one who was being hand reared after a ropy start and is being placed back into the family this afternoon!!!!!

We've just started to stroke them, and they have the softest fur in the whole wide world. DCs are besotted.

I'll try and get some photos onto my profile later today, but the kittens are still lurking in their box and I can't use flash, so they're of patchy quality.

Oh yes - all cross posting here like mad. I'm blaming the laptop and Seniorboy (who wants to go to his bed and is getting T'd off with me and climbing on everything.)

And I'm blaming a sodding great big dog that is having to spend the night in my house with 20 cats! I just had to get him from a domestic violence situation and he can't go to the Freedom Project (refuge for dogs from dv situations) for another two days. At the moment he's pacing up and down the living room and growling at the door and jumping on the laptop. Total nightmare.

Bribery is usually good with dogs. Have you tried any meat ? (If you have some around.)

No I'm a veggie. I offered Quorn - he looked most put-out. And I wasn't expecting to have a dog in the house until about an hour ago - so I'm not exactly prepared

Ah - there's your problem. No late night shops or neighbours? If not, half whip a couple of raw eggs. They usually like those.

Oh really? Ok, I'll try that. Anyway I don't want to derail and fluffy kitten thread with a sodding big, strong and very noisy dog :)

PS - or some cat food. They like that also in an emergency.

What about cheese? My parents' Labradors will do anything for cheese, but yes, also eggs.

No indeed. I've got to go off for a couple of hours kip, OP, to keep Seniorboy happy - but I'll likely be up again in the middle early hours. (I don't sleep through much.) If you want to post someone will likely catch up with you.

Cheese can make some dogs skitter, Aint. Just a bit risky with a strange dog.

Thanks everybody. I've just been in contact with Lesley from Lewisham, will update you in the morning.

Best of luck.

The owner did give me tins of dog food, but she said he'd already had his food for the night so I didn't think I should give him anymore.

And OP I'll probably be up most of the night too if you want to post. It looks like I'll have to share my bed with an extremely large, quite smelly and very growly dog (he won't be left alone) so I'm not expecting to sleep much!

Yet more x-posting. Glad you've spoken to someone. Best of luck

I've just given him a late night syringe feed. Only half a feed, but he actually suckled it down rather than needing to be drip fed, which is an improvement.

That's great, well done.

I hope you're not regretting becoming a cat fosterer?

Well done, Aint. Your next foster is going to be such plain sailing after this one.

PS - remember to set your alarm for the middle early hours now.

Hope all goes well with the kitten, and cat I'm in awe of what you do, that's a massive ask to take on a dog like that at such short notice.

Morning.
Did another good syringe feed overnight, kittens are asleep in a little heap which is nice. We can have another go at feeding from mum this morning when they wake up but I'm not hopeful.

Spoken to the previous feeder, who thinks he should come back to her, but getting him there is going to be a problem until the driver wakes up after her night shift. I think I'll have to go into work for a specific meeting (can WFH otherwise) but can be back within 3 hours, do you think that would be OK?

Done another good syringe feed, but no joy with feeding from mum. Rearranged work so I'll only have to leave them for an hour and a half, which should be OK. Previous fosterer planning to take her back even though that means missing her holiday - surely there must be another way? We can syringe feed until Monday, but after that we'll need to be back at work, so out of the house for 5 hours at a time.

Oh heck - I wouldn't wish to see anyone miss a holiday but I guess she's probably become attached to the little 'un and would fret if she left him. The difficult thing is that he might suddenly come across a teat in his travels and get the hang of it - but he might not.

What's the decision?

PS - sure. 3 hours is OK.

Aww bless. I hope you get something sorted for the little one.

I'm sure three hours is OK. I don't know much about syringe feeding two week old kittens. How often does the other feeder say it's necessary? Is five hours too long? It would be awful if she had to miss her holiday. Anyway well done for managing it and I hope it all gets sorted.