counting the kitties

Last week the kitties were fixed – all of them. This was sort of an ordeal because we had to figure out how to catch them all. Wednesday morning, Mom and I put the food bowl really close to the sliding glass door and waited for them to come eat. We knew we had to get the black ones first because they are the most skittish and the hardest to catch. Mom got hers; I missed mine. We caught Number One and Number Two, but Lightning didn’t show. We were three for five… not bad. I felt bad about leaving them in cat carriers all day, but knew that if we had tried to catch them on Thursday morning before we took them, it was not going to work.

It rained all day Wednesday. I beat Mom home and when I got there, Lightning and the other black kitten (Elvis or Booties – not sure) were Inside the house. How did they get in? The ripped a hole in the screen of the garage about a foot off the ground and about 4inches by 6 inches big. I would have never guessed this is how they got in until I saw the black kitten leap out of it when I went to get him. I did catch Lightning and put her in a cat carrier. (SNAP, the group who was doing the spaying, let us borrow five cat carriers!)

It was still raining, but I had to go to town for dinner with Dad, so I called Mom to let her know about the hole in the screen and the cat status. When she got home, the black kitty was again inside (it was still raining) She tried to catch it, but it went behind the hot tub. Sneaky Mom went and closed the sliding glass door and eventually cornered the black kitty so that it leapt out the hole in the screen and got stuck between the screen and the glass door. I wish I could have seen that.

Mom dropped the cats off on Thursday morning and we both went to pick them up in the evening. Turns out, all the kittens are boys (so much for Karrie’s probing one afternoon). Lightning weighs three pounds, and Kitten Number One weighs 5! He is a heavy weight. Turns out also that they don’t hate us for being in cages for a day and getting fixed, and surgery is no big deal for cats – they were all jumping like crazy – despite our warnings to not let them do anything too strenuous (or feed them… we did that anyway and no puking was seen).

The odd thing now is they are all much more approachable and want way more attention. Lightning has turned into a lap cat and has been trying to punch keys while I was typing this because if I am typing then I am not scratching her. Even Elvis has been wanting attention. .

So if you know anyone who wants a kitten… I still have four. I’ll keep Lightning, she is more of a dog than a cat anyway – she likes nothing more than a good scratch or a belly rub. She mostly comes when I call and she will follow me around to a certain extent… except when she is being catlike and spends all day sleeping on the couch.