Mug Shots |
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Wednesday |
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After we stuck Violet the Cat on the wall to keep time over our Neverland Sluggers, we removed the stacked crates, moved the futon, and lined a whole wall with litterboxes. That would be the wall the futon previously stood against, which Willow decided anchored the poop-and-pee zone.
So far, so good. The under-the-futon bathroom seems to have been closed down, and four of the five litterboxes have been used. Ironically, the only one yet to attract a customer is the one with a roof.
Four days after we started pulling Molina out of the villa to offer her a bottle, the rest of the Sluggers seem to have forgotten that they miss the bottle themselves. Albert still perches near my feet and squawks when I stand near the dresser and write in the log-book, but when I pick him up to weigh him he starts purring instead.
And Molina seems to be gradually losing her attachment to the bottle as well. A week or two ago, she would drink a few tablespoons at a sitting and stop when she was stuffed. Now she drinks less than a tablespoon, and it’s more of a feel-good ritual than a primary source of nourishment. When she loses interest, we put her next to the canned food and she starts chowing down on that.
About a week ago Willow’s renegade pooping had all her siblings confused, and we were finding poop and pee in strange places. One of those was the dry food dish. We’ve seen this phenomenon before. Kittens rely on their sense of smell to determine what to eat and where to pee or poop, and sometimes they confuse the smell and texture of dry food with what a litterbox smells and feels like. When we see kittens paw the floor beside a food dish, we know we need to consider changing the menu, the litter, or both.
The other thing some kittens do with dry food is plant their front paws in the dish and paddle away until all the food is on the floor.
For either issue, we’ve only come up with one remedy so far, and that’s to put the dry food in a heavy ceramic mug. The mugs we use are hard to tip over, too tall for them to poop or pee in, and not wide enough for them to comfortably plant their front paws in. But they do allow the kittens to sniff the food and graze.
When we introduced mug-based dry-food a couple of days ago, it was an immediate hit. And that’s important, because some kittens prefer dry food over canned food and most rely on both. We’re hoping that having dry food available will help Molina accelerate a bit during the remainder of the year.
We’d really like to see her go home with one of her siblings, and they’ll probably be ready to graduate in three or four weeks.
filed by: TS
