Theodore W. Bear

[mlp]

This is the last survivor of the litter of almost-newborn kittens that I was nursing. The "W" stands for Warrior, because he has certainly fought for life.

Snowdrop, the little white one, was the first to die - she was constipated, then developed diarrhea, and weakened quickly, despite my use of a probiotic and Pedialyte. Jasper, the little black one, was the smallest of the litter and always had difficulty eating - I was syringe feeding him, and never managed to get him to suckle.

Teddy is thriving physically - he has at least doubled in size the past two weeks, but digestion (i.e., regular pooping) is still an ongoing issue, despite my best efforts at replacing the massaging effects of mom's tongue to keep things moving along in the digestive tract.

Developmentally, he is doing great, becoming more active and interested on pretty much a daily basis.

 

[Dedalus]

Theo!

What an emotionally draining ordeal, mlp. Cheers for hanging in there.

 

[Freesia]

He is so adorable! Sorry to read about the other kittens.

 

[AspireToExpire]

Ahh, a squeaker.

 

[Moll Flanders]

 

[SuicideBlonde]

Awe!

 

[KLS52]

Yay for Teddy! Keep up the good work!

 

[mlp]

Well, Theodore turned out to be Theodora. She has grown to be an extremely confident and well adjusted teenager, thanks to Alice. Alice is one of the litter of four kittens who were dumped here earlier in the summer, together with their mother. As soon as Adora became strong enough, I put her and Alice together for part of every day so that she wouldn't become exclusively human bonded. Of those four older kittens, Alice was the one who had a strong maternal streak (stronger than her mother, who didn't want to have anything to do with the intruder kitten).

I'm attaching a photo of Adora's first tree climbing venture, in September. Theodora never got the hang of the dismount - I had to get her down each time - but Alice was a champion tree climber.

Adora and the other four kittens and Elinor, the mother of those four, are all indoors and thriving. (While I could still somewhat control the kittens, I took them out under supervision for tree climbing and other romping.)

 

[Amy SF]

Theodora is beautiful - and I'm happy to see she's thriving and happy.

 

[KLS52]

OMG, mlp, Theodora is amazing!

I want more cats.

 

[Amy SF]

Me, too.

 

[mlp]

Guys, just come visit me on your next vacation. You'll get about ten years' worth of cat attention in a week.

I still have to get three of the girls spayed - Theodora, Alice and Isis. When I have multiples to be spayed/neutered, I like to take them in in pairs, so that they have each other for company and it's (I hope) not as traumatic for them. I had been procrastinating on Theodora, because I'm kind of paranoid about everything to do with her. I was sure she was too small for her age, but when I took her in for a checkup, she was just two ounces shy of the average for a girl her age. So I'm going to have to bite the bullet and take those three in.

In the meantime, there's been another cat dumped here - he looks like a Burmese - very beautiful and very shy. I will start setting the humane trap every evening for a couple of hours, starting new year's day. I have gotten him accustomed to come to a spot I can see from the window, at dusk every day. He's going to have to be a chicken house cat, at least for the time being - I've run out of room in the house to quarantine.

 

[Amy SF]

I really admire you MLP for taking responsibility for all those animals.

 

[mlp]

I really admire you MLP for taking responsibility for all those animals.

Thank you, Amy. I don't know that admiration is in order - I find I just don't have much choice.

I was going to hold off trapping the new guy, but the temperature is going down into the single digits on New Year's day, so I decided to start trying this evening, and was lucky enough to get him right away. He's in a crate in the chicken house (which I keep heated), and was finishing off his fifth can of food by the time I had everything sorted. Definitely not a feral, but so traumatized that he had gone into deep hiding here.

Not a Burmese. I looked them up (don't pay much attention to purebreds). He's a really big guy, and Burmese are apparently on the small side. Also, I think his eyes are blue, and Burmese have golden eyes. He has a large, heavy boned frame, dark points, and I suspect will be a twenty pounder when he's filled out.