The Terrifble Three’s

For those of you who adopted a kitten over the holidays, you may soon find your precious ball of fluff in the throws of what I call, ‘the terrible three’s.”  It’s the kitten version of the terrible two’s in toddlers and if you’ve never had a kitten before..it can be a very trying time. The good news though is that most kittens outgrow it.

The terrible three’s start, generally, when the kitten is about 12 weeks old. Suddenly, your kitten has gone from cute and cuddly to a little monster almost overnight and they are into everything. What is happening is your kitten has reached an age where they’ve figured out they can do just about anything and get just about anywhere they want…so they do.

Over the years, I’ve had people who have adopted kittens at 8wks call me one or two months later, frantic.  “She’s climbing my curtains!” or “I caught her leaping from the coffee table to my hanging plant!”  or “She jumped onto the dinner table and stole a pork chop off my plate!”  Those are not exaggerations. Those are actual phone calls.

This past summer, my local shelter called and asked me to foster two 3wk old kittens that had been abandoned, one black, one white. I named them Jasmine and Jade. Jade turned out to be the relatively calm one. Jasmine, however, is into everything as these videos show.

 

There are a number of things you can do during the terrible three’s to get you through. First, this time in a kitten’s life is a very good teaching time. One good teaching tool I use is a spray bottle filled with water.

Keep that spray bottle handy and whenever you catch your kitten about to do something inappropriate, simply squirt them with water and say “No!.” They don’t like it, it gets your point across, and it doesn’t hurt them.

Provide lots of toys of different varieties to keep them interested and occupied. Any kind of climber, along with little cubbies, an empty box that you throw their toys in for them to retrieve, and interactive toys like laser pointers and feather sticks will help minimize their desire to get into things they shouldn’t.

Allow for some outdoor time.  If you are lucky enough to have a backyard with a high fence your cat can’t jump over, let your kitten have some outside time everyday. It gives your kitten/cat a chance to be who and what they really are..you will watch them “come alive” so to speak as they explore the garden, sniffing flowers, catching a bug, and you’ll have fewer problems in the house because kitten will be worn out from her backyard adventures.  Habitat Haven’s web site has great photos of enclosures for your backyard if you don’t feel comfortable letting your kitten/cat roam freely in the backyard.

If you live in the city and have a balcony, you can still give your cat some outdoor time by installing an outdoor enclosure.  Check these out at Habitat Haven: http://habitathaven.com/blog/category/cats-den-photos/apartment-cat-enclosures/

The good news is, your kitten will grow out of the terrible three’s and by six months, will begin to calm down.  ..assuming you make that appointment with your vet to get your kitten spayed or neutered. If not, you will have a whole other set of problems on your hands…and that’s another blog.

Dog Story on Cat Blog

Midgie..the dog you see in the box on the left is my 16yr old Shihtzu/Peke mix.  She is the mascot of the cat house and my baby girl and best friend..probably the only dog I’ll ever have.

Anyway, this morning when we finished our walk, I stopped at the end of our driveway to speak to my neighbor across the street. Harold is 83 and a widower. Once you engage him in conversation, it’s hard to break away.  I had dropped Midgie’s leash thinking she would do what she normally does at the end of our walks, run up the driveway and up the steps and wait for me on the front porch.  Well this time she didn’t.

I must have talked to Harold for about 20 minutes and when I turned up the drive and looked at the porch expecting to see Midgie, she wasn’t there. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere.  In 16yrs, I’ve never lost her. She’s not the kind of dog to wander off by herself without me.  She may walk a little ahead of me sniffing things, but she will eventually stop, turn around and make sure I’m there. If I’m too far behind, she sits down and waits for me.

However, over the past couple of years, her eyesight has started to fail. The vet said her condition is a precursor to cataracts, a hardening of the retina, I think is how he put it. It’s normal for elderly dogs and Midgie’s eyesight has been good far longer than most dogs of her breed who tend to go blind or have eye problems much earlier.   When she was a pup, a vet told me to rinse her eyes once a week at least with saline solution for sensitive eyes. I’ve done that and that coupled with a good diet has allowed her to keep her vision for a very long time.

But still it’s not what it once was and instead of finding the stairs to the front door, she wandered off  between my house and my neighbor’s..into his backyard..and then into the backyard of the house behind him..and apparently, into the street behind me.

Fortunately, we live in a quiet lake community and our street is a horseshoe shape and one Midgie and I have walked around many many times. 

When I realized she was no where around I began to call her and ran frantically around my house and my neighbor’s in a total panic. Not only does she not see well, she doesn’t hear well anymore either. Sometimes she hears me just fine I think because she responds to what I’m saying and sometimes she ignores me.  When I come home from work, she no longer hears the car pull up and she continues to sleep long after I’ve walked in the door. When she was younger, she would be barking and wagging her tail and jumping up and down as soon as I opened the door.

So there I was, in a total panic, no Midgie and even though I was calling her, I knew she probably couldn’t hear me so there was no chance of her coming to my call.

After searching both yards on either side of mine, I ran back into the street not sure which way to run first..did she go up the hill to the left as we usually do when we start our walks? Or did she go back down to the right towards the horseshoe bend on the right on the lake? 

Just as I looked to the right, I see her, way down at the bend, running towards me at top speed, her leash dragging behind her.  She couldn’t see me, but I knew she was running home. I ran to meet her and scooped her up in my arms. She was hot and panting and very upset.  Once I got her in the house, she got some water, and then collapsed on the floor, still panting, but smiling.   I put her in her bed and it was awhile before she calmed down, had something to eat and then fell asleep. 

I wasn’t quite sure if she was smiling because she made it back home or because she went around the block by herself for the first (and last) time..or maybe a little bit of both.

Apparently, once she got into the road behind our house, she just started walking  as she would have normally and took herself around the block, as she and I have done so many times before, going more by smell than by sight or sound.  Still it must have scared her, because it was a long time before she was able to calm down.  I held her on my lap for a good bit and felt her little heart just racing . 

I know she was happy to be back home.  

Summer Means Kitten Rescue and Fosters

Every summer, whether I look for them or not..and usually I don’t, I end up fostering and placing at least one kitten.  It isn’t something I purposely try to do, it just works out that way.  Spring, summer, and fall in Georgia is kitten season.  Because of the warmer weather, cats can breed longer and have up to two litters a season.  Here in rural Georgia, cats are not valued, except for the few that make a living as a cattle or poultry farmer’s mouser/barn cat.

That farmer mentality regarding cats also means that they are left to breed and live by their wits. The result is a huge cat overpopulation problem in our area.  Our local shelter does a yeoman’s job of placing cats and kittens, many ending up with no-kill rescues in more metropolitan areas.  They also work with the veterinary school at the University of Georgia getting cats and kittens spayed and neutered for free before placing them.

But every once in awhile they get a kitten that they don’t have the resources for or can’t get into a no-kill rescue, and they call me.

Earlier this summer, it was Charlie, a 4wk old black domestic longhair, brought in by a woman who found it, but thought it was too young to keep. She actually ended up adopting one of the older shelter kittens and I took Charlie home.  As it happened, a couple I know in Atlanta had emailed me days before telling me one of their older cats had died of kidney disease and they were ready to adopt again.  So Charlie is now “Mr. Charlie” and lives with two other cats Phil and Margie adopted from me.

Then there was the calico kitten, bottle raised by a young woman who found it in her backyard.  She had raised it to six weeks and was going on vacation. I babysat for the little calico for a week.

When she came back, I was able to educate her on kitten care, vaccinations, low-cost spay/neuter and the importance of keeping the kitten inside. Since it was her first kitten, she was happy to get the info.

Then on Friday, as I stood in line at the local big box store, with a dozen things still left on my “to do” list, I get a call from Amy at the shelter.  “We have a project for you,” she said.  “Really? This isn’t a good time,” I thought.   “A little kitten was just brought in that’s covered in scabs, we think he was burned.  If you can’t take him, we’ll have to put him to sleep,” she said. “Just come look at him.” Since our shelter has no medical facilities, I thought I might as well see what the situation with this kitten was.

When I got there, he was sleeping on Amy’s chest, very quiet, very content. This one is the most calm, good-natured kitten I’ve ever seen.  But the top of his head and his ears were covered in one large scab, like he had been subjected to a burn so bad it left a 3rd degree burn.  The hair was gone and parts were just open sores.  You would have thought he’d be skittish, and shy, but he was just happy to be getting attention.

Needless to say, I took him on.  I named him Moshe (Hebrew for Moses).  He went straight to the vet from the shelter and spent the night there.  The vet removed his scab and cleaned his wounded head and ears, tested him for feline leukemia and feline AIDS, vaccinated and dewormed him, gave him a bath and a capstar.  They also checked him for ringworm and he’s negative.

Through it all he purred..and ate like a horse.   Since he was found on a local college campus by some students who brought him to the shelter, she thought he might have gotten up inside someone’s motor.

Kittens will do that, left outside on their own, looking for a place to hide.  It’s very dangerous. They can be severely burned by the hot motor or killed.   Whatever happened, the vet said he was healing and should be ready for adoption in about two weeks after a course of anti-biotics and antiseptic cream for his head.

Meantime, he spends most of his time in his soft-sided condo, but I do let him out to play and he and Cody my 1yr old kitten are becoming friends as this video shows.   Cody and my other cats are very accepting of him after the usual day of hissing and growling, which will make fostering him easier.  Now we just have to get him adopted.