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Stepping Out

Tuesday
9/20/2011

We didn’t get a chance to post over the weekend because we’ve been scrambling around – meeting potential adopters, doing home visits and handoffs, preparing for vacation, and getting our housesitter up to speed on all the issues with the 50K staff animals.

On Sunday our old Peloton pals Cowboy (whose new name is Pudge) and Wheels (still named Wheels) stopped by to get their final FVRCP vaccination. Their parents said that their five-year-old female cat is starting to play with them after a predictable first week of hissing at them and hoping they’d go away.

The kits looked good but felt a tad skinny, so we encouraged their parents to crank up the canned food and watch how well they eat. Since Agate’s death earlier this summer, we’ve realized that it’s sometimes hard to tell when one of your two adopted kittens has stopped eating. We weigh all our kittens on a postage scale every day and are hyper-sensitive about the issue, since weight loss is the first sign that something ain’t right. And weight loss over a three-to-four day period means it’s time to see a vet.

After saying goodbye to Pudge and Wheels, we drove to Alexandria for a home visit with the couple who decided to adopt Paris and Smoky Joe. That went well, and our last two Pelotonians are scheduled to ride home either tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on their parents’ travel logistics.

And they’re our last two riders, because… you guessed it… Bobke and Skoda went home yesterday!

Their new mom stopped by on her way to pick up her 6- and 7-year-old boys from school. As it turned out, the mom stayed with me to handle paperwork while the boys’ father picked them up and then came back to collect mom and the kits. So I could see how excited the boys were when their mom brought the kitten-carrier out to the car. We’re guessing there was some serious rompin’ and rasslin’ going on in that household last night.

So that brings us to our four Hepcats, who will be moving to another fostering gig later tonight. These guys are fat-and-happy little nipple-hounds who have yet to demonstrate any interest in lapping slurry (or even Gerbers baby food) from a spoon or a bowl. Hmmm. Maybe they picked up a just-say-no-to-weaning vibe from the Peloton.

In the scheme of things, that’s not a very big deal. Especially when the Hepcats are acing the poop-and-pee exam by delivering perfect tubes dead-center in the litterbox, and never peeing on the nest towels or the floor. Maybe we should have them make an instructional video on that topic for future bunkhouse residents.

And while there was a day or so late last week when Maynard was losing weight and his appetite, triggering visions of the ill-fated Bottle Caps, everything auto-corrected within hours of their first dose of Clavamox. Coincidence? I don’t think so. If we’ve learned anything about bottle babies, it’s that infections are the norm, and you need to hit them hard with meds the second you think you’re dealing with one.

So while the Hepcats will be playing an away gig for a little while, we think the odds are pretty good they’ll be back at 50K after we return from vacation. If not, furballs hate a vacuum (in both senses of the word), so another band will fill the void. Until then, stay cool daddy-os!

filed by: TS

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