Foster Kitties

Rose is getting used to us, and is such a friendly kitty. She suffered the indignity of taking her medicine this morning without a struggle or a peep. When I came in this afternoon, she got right up from the sleeping kittens and meowed to get petted. She had finished her wet food, and used her litter box. Good kitty! It also looks like there were some scratch marks on her scratch box. If so, she gets an A+ in kitty behavior. :-)

I read her medical forms in more detail this morning, and found a hand-written note:

To foster person: rub raw honey on wound until healed.

This sounded rather ... odd ... at first. Put honey on her wound? huh? So I started looking into it. Turns out that honey has been used since the time of the Pharaohs to treat open wounds to prevent bacterial growth and promote healing. Who knew?

For folks not clicking through, those links are all to well respected medical sources, and cite empirical data gathered through peer-reviewed studies. Honey is approved for wound care in many countries now. I haven't found a statement on the FDA position, but there are over 500 studies of the medical application of honey, all with neutral to positive results. Can't hurt, might help! So off we went to Whole Foods to find some raw honey.

Again, Rose was a perfect little lady about having raw honey rubbed into her bite wound. Mewed a couple times, but didn't struggle or complain or try to get away, just stood stoically while I rubbed it in. She may have a little nerve damage from the bite wound, but she is still able to move the tail all the way to the tip. She's holding it a bit funny, but that may just be the open wound. Time will tell. I expect she will continue to carry it a bit more loosely than most cats, but don't think she'll have a significant paralysis.

Note that raw honey is also incredibly tasty. I spooned out a small amount into a tupperware cup to stay in the kitty room, and put the rest in the pantry. :-)

As soon as I was done with medical care and petting her again, she was purring loudly, and pushing her head against my hands if I stipped with the petting. She's learned to follow my hand if I snap my fingers, which is the first stage toward teaching her to come when called. She's eager enough for pets that I think she will be very trainable. She's also starting to show a little interest in the toys I bought for her and the kittens, particularly the ball with feathers in it.

I weighed the kittens; I'll enter their weights a bit later; don't have the stickie note with me. I'm not sure that "Martha" is a girl, after all. So hard to tell with new kittens! We'll be able to make a better guess in a couple days, and a name change may be in order. If anyone has a suggestion, let us know! Rose is too big to put on the little kitchen scale; I need to get a bowl to put her in to weigh her.

I found a posting on Craigslist from PAWS in Philadelphia about mother cats and their litters who would be destroyed if they weren't fostered, and it just about broke my heart to think about that. I have a small, unused bedroom in my home, so now it's a kitty cat playpen for a momma cat and her two kittens.

There were 5 mom's and kittens at the shelter, but one was scheduled for euthanasia because she has an infected bite wound on her tail. The mom is a tiny tuxedo cat who is probably not even a year old herself. The babies are both tuxedo tabbies. We took them in, though, so now they are safe.

My carrier has a small sliding door so that I can reach in to the carrier. The whole ride home in the car I was stroking momma cat. If I stopped petting her she would look up at me and meow. She is such a loving cat!

We've named momma "Rose," and the kittens "Mickey" and "Martha," because we're Dr. Who dorks. :-) I'm pretty sure Martha is a girl and Mickey is a boy, but they are too young to know for sure yet. Both still have their eyes closed and umbilical cords attached, so they can't be more than a day or two old.

Rose is such a good mom! She wouldn't even leave the kittens to eat. I put a tin of food in front of her so that she could eat without leaving the kittens, and she munched it down hungrily.

These cats will all be up for adoption as soon as the kittens are old enough to be weaned. I want to make space for the next litter to come home. Please let me know if you have any interest in these sweet cats.