Outside the Box

Well, it's been a while I guess.  Jack, Patches, and Cody have certainly been an interesting trio. Their personalities are among the more unique of all the kittens I've fostered to date.  They're the first litter I've had so far that managed to figure out how to open the closet door.  That has become their new favorite place to play.  Fortunately, I managed to catch them before they figured out how much fun it would be to play in the big bag of food that was in there!  After a couple of futile attempts to block the door, I finally just gave in and removed anything I  didn't want them getting into, and let them have the closet to play in.  It came in handy yesterday when I was vacuuming their room.  They all went into the closet the minute they saw me coming with the Dyson.  I found them afterwards looking really cute in a box.

Jack continues to be the most adventurous one.  Every time he hears me coming, he greets me at the door, and he's always the first to hop in my lap.  He's clearly curious to know what's on the other side of the gate I have across the door to their room, and I keep expecting him to figure out he's now big enough to jump over it.  He's probably the most independent of the three too.  I gave each of the kittens some one-on-one time outside their room today, and he was the only one that didn't start crying for the other two at some point after they were through exploring.  

 Cody still cries when he's not getting sufficient attention--even when its his own fault, like when he's way on the other side of the room out of reach!  He's definitely the sweetheart of the bunch, though.  During his one-on-one time today, he kept coming back to the couch to be petted.  He was the only one of the three that did that.  The other two just wanted to explore.

Patches is going to be one of those cats who wants to be with you on her own terms.  She still runs away if I try to pick her up or even pet her.  However, if I sit down, she'll hop up into my lap and purr like mad while she's being cuddled.  She also likes to groom the person who's petting her.  She'll roll all around my lap licking my knees.  Occasionally she play nips, which of course, I've tried to discourage as much as possible. 

After a rough start, the kittens seem to have finally perfected their usage of the litterbox, but it took a while.  As I said in the previous entry, I'm pretty sure they had never seen one before, and clearly didn't have a clue what to do with it when they first arrived.  Even after they figured out what it was for, it was still a couple more weeks before they stopped stepping in the poop and wiping their feet on the walls (Ewww!).  We haven't had an incident of that as near as I can tell for nearly two weeks now, but I'll sure have my work cut out for me cleaning up the dried on mess they had already made before they finally got the hang of it.  (Ewww again!).

However, messiness aside, this litter has really been one of my easier ones.  They were (and still are) shy around strangers, but not overly-freakishly so, and it's rare that I end up with all three eagerly jumping into my lap.  Usually there's one holdout.  Also, these three have managed to avoid the respiratory infection that almost every other litter I've had has ended up with at one point. So what they cost me in cleaning time they've certainly made up for in not having to make "emergency" trips to the shelter for treatment! 

The kittens go back to their shelter on Saturday.  They'll get their second set of shots that day, their spay/neuter surgeries a few days after, and will probably be available for adoption within the next couple of weeks, most likely under their original shelter names, Earth, Wind, and Fire.