new kitten

Leonard has died. :( I made a short film about his life.

Adopted anoth­er kit­ten from the Humane Society (and I was­n’t able to wait until the new year). When I went to go see him at the shel­ter, he jumped into my arms, start­ed purring, and would­n’t stop nuz­zling my face. Even if he was any less cute, there’s no way I could have left him there.

He’s exact­ly what I was look­ing for: four months old, neutered, male, with a stub­by tail. Cats with stub tails from shel­ters usu­al­ly have their tails cut short because they’ve been run over by a bike, or caught frost­bite, but on him there’s no sign of scar­ring so he was prob­a­bly born with it.

I’ve yet to name him cause I want to see what kind of per­son­al­i­ty he devel­ops first.

new kitten

At this point, his res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion led to sores and he was bleed­ing from him nose. That’s why he looks sort of sad and grog­gy.

When I got him, he had an upper res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion and was infest­ed with fleas. I kept him sep­a­rat­ed from Dolly for more than a week, but she still man­aged to catch both. Now she’s real­ly grumpy and sick, and he’s com­plete­ly over it. She also feels huge, because the lit­tle guy is so small right now.

He likes to sleep by rest­ing his chin on my cheek, or lying right across my neck. I’m cur­rent­ly try­ing to change his sleep­ing pat­terns because he’s still a noc­tur­nal cat and gets up in the mid­dle of the night to lick my face. And because he’s a kit­ten who does­n’t know any bet­ter, he thinks Dolly is play­ing with him when she gives him a swipe in annoy­ance. There haven’t been any real scraps between them yet. More of a play­ful fight­ing, where Dolly gives as good as she gets.

new kitten

He tries to sleep with her all the time, and Dolly is usu­al­ly just too lazy to move away. I’m pret­ty sure this has helped her get used to hav­ing him around.

His tail isn’t buried under Dolly’s fat — that’s how long it is.

I won­der if I can be as good as Tiana and only write about him once a month the way she does with her son. But cats grow up so fast; they reach adult­hood in one year instead of 18, so I’m more tempt­ed to record him as much as pos­si­ble when he’s so small and cute. I just don’t want to be a mom­my blog­ger.

7 comments

  1. Kitten!!! He’s so cute! Why was a stub­by tail a par­tic­u­lar desire of yours? Hopefully Dolly’s mater­nal instincts will kick in a bit, but the exer­cise will be good for her too. I am con­tin­u­al­ly impressed at how much bound­less enthu­si­asm young cats have for play­ing, play­ing, PLAYING!

    • I’ve deter­mined that Dolly has no mater­nal instincts at all. She’s com­plete­ly aloof around the lit­tle guy. Or maybe she’s just more jeal­ous and that’s over­rid­ing it.

      I’ve been want­i­ng a Pixie-bob breed of cat for a while now, and often they’re born with super stub­by tails (about 1/4 of the orig­i­nal length). So I just kind of had that in mind when I was think­ing of anoth­er cat. It’s a nice lit­tle unique detail that I like, and I did­n’t even real­ize he had a stub tail until I got him home.

      And yes, I for­got how much end­less ener­gy kit­ties have…I swear I pick him off my desk a few dozen times a day. He nev­er tires out and just keeps jump­ing back on!

  2. That would just make you a crazy cat lady blog­ger! He is SO CUTE! I would name him Col. Mustard.

    • I think I’ve always been a crazy cat lady…I just nev­er blogged about it. Col. Mustard sound­ed so famil­iar until I real­ized it’s from Clue. I have a few names that I’m try­ing on him, but noth­ing has stuck yet.

  3. O NOES, does that make me a mom­my blog­ger?? < : O

    He’s total­ly cute, and YAY for sav­ing anoth­er fur­ry lit­tle life.

    I also hope you have some mark­ing-spray clean­ing flu­id on hand. Boys are dif­fer­ent!

    • I don’t remem­ber you being a mom­my blog­ger.

      And yeah, sad to think this lit­tle guy would have been put to sleep if no one adopt­ed him. He was at the shel­ter for about a week, and I could­n’t believe no one scooped him up already.

      • Well not a mom­my of a child or cat. I’m a dog mom­my tweet­er.

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