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Winter 2011 - The Valentine's Day Kittens

Shortly after Valentines Day, the shelter got a call that Aurora Animal Control had a couple of cats, one possibly pregnant, and the other with four four-day old kittens. I offered to take the mom and babies (I'm not home enough to feel comfortable taking in a pregnant mom in case she runs into difficulty giving birth–I wouldn't want her home alone all day in case of an emergency).

Because the kittens were born on Valentines Day, I named them all after fertility gods and goddesses. Initially, we thought there were three girls and a boy but it turned out they were all girls. The one whose gender was in question, had longer fur and so seeing all the relevant parts was more difficult than for the others. So, they ended up being called, Brigit (Irish fertility goddess), Chandra (Hindu fertility god-this is the one we originally thought was a male), Demeter (Greek fertility goddess) and Freya (Norse fertility goddess). Freya had the most striking coat color. She was mostly white with some buff colored patches, a black spot on her ear and a black tail. She was also the most vocal of the kittens, complaining all the time. Loudly.

A couple of weeks after bringing them home, mamma came down with a cold which she was passing on to her babies. So, it was decided to treat mom with amoxicillin. Because the babies were still so small and nursing we didn't give them anything, simply allowing the antibiotics to get to them via their mother's milk. Demeter was especially hard hit, having the infection spread to her eye. Every day, morning and night, I would have to start by washing her face with warm water to loosing the crusts that had form along her eyelid and sealing it shut. When I soaked her eyelid with warm water to gently ease them open, pus would come oozing out. I had to put Terramycin ointment in her eyes to treat the infection.

The mom I named Hannah after the mother of Samuel from the bible. I searched in one of those online baby name sights and entered "mother" in the meaning criteria. She was super sweet and had an incredibly soft, plush coat. It was soooo nice to run my fingers through, something she was more than willing to indulge me in. Her babies were incredibly cute and lots of fun to play with.

It was with this crew that I discovered that like baskets, boxes, bags and bowls, plates, too are a kitten magnet. I was using a salad plate to carry the medicines on for mom and babies (several wound up needing the Terramycin, though none as badly as Demeter).  The kittens couldn't resist sitting or playing on the plate.

Mom and babies recovered nicely and once they were back at the shelter, were all quickly adopted.
Copyright © 2019 Janet Potts