Kitten Formula 1, around and around they go!

August 23, 2021

Today, Wim was back to work so he was only able to do the morning rounds.  It was chaotic but lots of fun, he told me. It is not possible anymore to keep the kittens in the crate and just let Mitsy out. And it really is not necessary anymore either. We are preparing to let them loose during the day but not at night, there are just too many risks involved. And besides, we don’t know how fast they will be adopted and it might be that it is a good thing that they are used to being locked in a crate. Last night I spent some quality time with the family without bringing food. Just for company. Mitsy was very sweet and even came out of the crate for a bit longer. I seem to install confidence in her.

I am using my old trick to correct unwanted kitten behaviour: I spray with a water bottle. Works well. They do not associate it with me, but it is unpleasant enough so it gets them out of places where we do not want them. Of course this only works when we are physically present, so we will see what they will do when we leave them alone for a bit. While watching them on camera of course… I also say “PSST!” when they are naughty. This has always worked well with my cats and once they associate a spray of water with the PSSST, you eventually don’t need the water anymore. Theoretically….

I have removed the camera from the Nest this weekend. None of the kittens was really using it for sleep, and neither did mom. Of course on the first day after removing it they did sleep in it…. and they sometimes still do, off and on. But that is fine. We know that we have healthy, confident kittens that don’t need supervision in the Nest carrier anymore. I will repurpose it as a room camera. Still thinking about the best location for the cables. Brains working, plans developing.

After spending an hour with them, without active interaction or triggering them to play, the action was winding down a bit. They have such energy, these young ones! I decided to expose them to some new things to see how they would react. I put on an Audible book read by a man. The first Harry Potter book read by Jim Dale. They clearly recognised that as something new. Not sure they liked it. Put on another one, also read by a man: same reaction. Later during the hour, when I saw that they were getting tired, I decided to sing to them. Had not done that for a while. I have written about that before, so if you follow this blog you already know that Mitsy really likes it and usually closes her eyes and sinks into a nap. The kittens had a surprising reaction. I sang a Dutch nursery rhyme, just under my breath and slowly, and lo and behold, they all started to come into the crate! Voluntarily! They had a look on their little faces that I had not seen before. It was really funny. I am not sure that they liked my singing or that they thought: “OMG what is THAT! I need to hide in the crate!” Haha. Mitsy, in the meantime, just napped in the spare litter box in the room and eventually also came in. Wim brought some new food and we had no trouble getting them all settled for the night.

Typical for Mitsy: resting her chin on something, like a pillow… She is sitting in the stack of clean litter boxes that we had in the room, for quick exchange with a soiled one. I don’t know what the fascination is, maybe the ‘Yesterday’s News’ paper pallets remind her of outside mulch? It might also be cooler than carpet or a towel. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a cat… I think she looks positively exhausted here.

They ran around like kitten Formula 1, and most of them have now also discovered the cat tree. Not the top of it, but it is coming. They love it. Of course they fall off every now and then but the extra carpet is a good buffer. The kitten who I think to be Sipke is a bit more uncoordinated and tends to bump into things, but strangely enough she was also one of the first ones up there.

I will do the same ‘keeping them company’ routine the rest of the week and see where the places of mischief are!

This morning and lunch I offered Mitsy raw food. None of my other cats ever liked it but she just loves it!

This evening she was anticipating another portion but I want to see what happens to the poop first. If her GI system does not get upset, I will give her more tomorrow.

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