The great escape

With the help of the vets and encouraging the kittens to eat, my little foster family is back to good health.
I've found that different food containers can make a difference. When the kittens have been reluctant to eat I've used plates and even tried plastic place mats. At times Willow still wouldn't eat, until I put food on the back of my hand! Bizarre.

Princess Willow being served her food

When you open the door to the 'kitten room' it is now rather funny, but very exhausting! Mum has jumped over the hardboard barricade from the start, then William got in on the act. Now Whisper can also make it over and Willow is almost there. This makes opening and closing the door like a scene from a Benny Hill sketch. You catch one as another jumps and as you put one or two back, there is another waiting to take a chance. Nightmare? Yep. Hilarious? Most certainly!

Two local tom cats have been regular visitors to our garden.  They sit waiting patiently by the cat flap. One looks very sorry for himself, possibly a stray, the other looks well fed, but any wounds he has don't look like they get attention. We have no way of knowing if they have homes or not. We've called them 'Ginger' and Boe (As in 'face of' due to his big face...)  Boe has been very interested in waiting for Abbie to come out of the cat flap.

'Boe'

Ginger

Last weekend Abbie started behaving very oddly.  It seemed she was in season.  We've had her and her sister Bella for 18 months and they were thought to have been spayed.  However, with the howling and strange behaviour it seemed that maybe that wasn't the case.  Strange though that she hadn't shown this behaviour before.

Billy and Abbie holding paws...

I couldn't risk her going outside with two toms on the loose.  I spoke to the Vet and made an appointment for her to be spayed.  The Vets explained they would check for a scar first and would perform the op if there was nothing visible.  They were pretty sure from my description, that Abbie couldn't have been spayed.

In the meantime Bertie has turned guard dog.  He sat at the cat flap and grumbled warnings.  This last week his behaviour has definitely improved.  He now joins us in the living room a lot of the time and his problems with the other cats have been less of an issue. This is good news.

Bertie sits with Daddy :)

Abbie went in for her op on Thursday.  They did find a scar, but they felt it was in an unusual place so they opened her up to check.  She had been spayed so there is no chance of kittens.  They did say there could be something left that could produce hormones.  The only way to check this would be to open her fully all the way down her underside.  I don't want to put her through that.  It was bad enough seeing how wobbly she was when we got her home this time.  The Vet did say that having the toms around could have had an effect of her too.  She now has to stay in for 2 weeks, which she is very unhappy about.  Maybe this will be enough time for the tom cats to move on.

I've been trying to give my little foster family more chance to play.  This week they've been spending time in the living room and had great fun on our giant cat tree.  I love this tree and the cats do to.  I'll admit it is pretty huge and people point at it when they walk past my house, but who cares??

The Cat Tree :)

Here are a few photo's of them all having fun

Whisper

Willow

Whisper and William

Sisters

William

Mum watches her babies

Proper little monkeys!

Wendy went in for her op on Friday (its been a busy week!)  Whisper and Willow went along too so they could have their jabs.  In contrast to Abbie, Wendy was as bright as a button when I picked her back up.  You'd hardly know she'd had anything done.  The Vet suggested that the kittens shouldn't be feeding from her anymore as her nipples were sore again.  I think one of them must bite :(  With that advice, the only thing we could do was to put Wendy in the cat room and the kittens have stayed in their room.

Wendy will be going back to the Shelter tomorrow.  I think I will likely shed a tear or two.  She is an absolutely lovely cat, so affectionate.  I really hope she will get adopted quickly.

Here come the girls

It was a girl we needed, I was sure of it. A girl to get these boys organised and maybe one that would play with Billy to give George a break.  Billy was still so playful.  George could never keep his tail still and Billy couldn't help but pounce on it.

A young Billy goes 'Piggy fishing' when he's not chasing George's tail

My other half was less convinced telling me two cats were enough.  Even so we, my son and I, persuaded him to go to Thornberry Animal Sanctuary, 'just to look'.

Once there we went straight to the cattery, but it looked like there would be no suitable candidates for us. Almost ready to call it a day, I thought I'd just double check with the staff. It turned out they did have another girl we could look at, she was in the stable building with her sister. The problem was that they too were a pair and needed a home together.

We decided to go and meet them. As soon as the door opened a small black and white cat ran to us, tail up, rubbing round our legs and purring madly. Bella stole our hearts immediately. She was just so pretty and so affectionate. All we could see of her sister was a pair of bright orange eyes peering out from the back of a little fabric cat house.  You could almost hear Bella shouting 'pick me, ooh, pick me, pick me!' but her sister, Tinker, remained unmoved.

I looked at Andy, my son was asking if we could have them, I wanted them too. I could see Andy was finding saying no a struggle. Instead he suggested we have another walk around and think it over, so we did. We walked around and let him think it over.  I sent a text to my Daughter and told her all about the two girls.  Her response was 'If you don't bring them home, I'm not letting you in'. No doubt about her thoughts then! 

I knew we hadn't gone for two, but they would have each other for support when settling in. Bella was just lovely and Tinker just needed some tlc, which we were more than happy and capable of providing.
And so after 20 mins Andy's resolve finally crumbled and later that day the girls came home.

Abbie and Bella

Billy's room became the 'cat' room and the girls settled in quickly with toys and boxes to play with.  We were happy with the name Bella (My Daughters favourite films are Twilight) but Tinker didn't seem to fit.  A short discussion followed and we went for a name from a favourite TV show, this time Primeval, and so the two sisters became Bella and Abbie.  We gradually introduced them into the rest of the house.

At two years old they were still very playful.  They were a little hesitant around the boys for a while and regularly found the highest place in the house to look down from.

Bella and Abbie on top of a cupboard

 To begin with we started to call Bella Queen B as she definitely thought she was in charge.  Despite being very affectionate she wouldn't sit on your knee, unless you were sat on the toilet....Very odd.  She also had a strange habit of sitting upright, perfectly still and staring into space. 

Abbie on the other hand, went from a shy girl who spent a lot of time hiding, to a total sweetie who loves playing and lots of affection.  She is very often found on her Daddy's knee.

So did my plan work? Did the girls improve the relationship between Billy and George, well not straight away, but after a couple of months there was a definite change.  So much so I began thinking, maybe it would be nice to have another one...