Jaffa on the right, McVitie on the left….
Dear Readers, our foster kittens Jaffa and McVitie have been with us for a few days now, and it’s fair to say that they’ve come out of their shell a fair bit. They are getting on for six months old, and so are in that gangly adolescent phase. Plus, kittens always wear an expression that reminds me of a dowager duchess seeing somebody naked in the garden.
At first I thought that Jaffa was the boldest one, but the other kit is now definitely building in confidence. They both rush to the door when they hear me coming – at the moment they’re confined to one room, but we’ll be gradually letting them have the run of the rest of the house from the weekend on, and then the fun will really start.
As a cat fosterer, you find yourself becoming obsessed with poo (those of you eating your breakfast might want to skip past this part) – one of the kits has an upset stomach, but the other one is fine. They’re both on ‘sensitive’ food, which is very expensive, so as soon as they sort their digestion out, we’ll be trying to wean them onto ‘normal’ food. Being a cat owner can be brutally expensive, what with vet fees and special food, and I see an increasing number of people deciding that they can’t afford to keep an animal. There are investigations into the corporate buy-up of many local vets practices, which ‘seems’ to have coincided with a doubling in the costs of some treatments. All the vets I know are caring people who want to do their best for the animals, but their corporate ‘masters’ are very keen on profit. Not an ideal situation, for sure.
Anyway, these two kittens are absolutely adorable. They get on well together, they’re eating well, they purr when you pick them up, and they’ll make somebody the most perfect pets. They’ve had me in stitches with their antics already :-).
Brilliant! What a pair of cuties? I agree totally about expense. I’ve always had cats and ours have to get on. I do think stress too plays its part in allergies and tummy troubles, so hopefully as they settle, your kitty’s tummy will too. We had a rescue who was small in stature – we suspect he was weaned too young, who lived his entire life with a delicate tum.
Our son is a new cat parent and also has sensitive cat food, steroids and heaven knows what else. All very costly!
They look so sweet and innocent, not to mention adorable. They’re a bit like the Felix cat on the adverts (not that I’ve seen that very often to know for certain), so I’m sure you (or whoever) will have no problem finding permanent homes for them. 👍👍😊
They do look like Felix! And are just as mysterious! Tomorrow we’re letting them out of their ‘settling-in’ room for the first time, so I shall be prepared for lots of shenanigans…
After my cat Orlando cost us $5000 at age 3, with a case of pyothorax, we got pet insurance, which covered 90% of vet bills, after a deductible per illness. They made absolutely no money from me, as he had a urinary blockage 3 years later, and then required $25,000 worth of brain surgery for acromegaly at 10 years old, followed by lots of permanent medications. Without the vet insurance, we would have let him die of acromegaly, because we definitely didn’t have that kind of money. Not everyone would make the choices we did, but I liked have an insurance plan that allowed us to make choices not based on whether we could afford care.
Yikes. We had insurance with our late cat Willow, but it only covered us up to £5000 (silly me, I didn’t think to check). She wasn’t as expensive as your puss, but we were still nearly £5000 in the hole. We were lucky that we could find the money, but no wonder people are reluctant to take on pets these days….