SOS update [long - of course]

Sammy: The seige continues. The evil Spot and her minons made advances
early the other morning. They have now occupied the living room and
kitchen. Momma LB and I have retreated into the bedroom. For now the
bedroom door is a sort of demilitarized zone and things are at a
stalemate.

This morning the hoomin sat in the open doorway and I got my first
good look at the little fluffballs. They are kind of cute, and might
be fun to play with. I started to investigate further, but Spot hissed
at me and warned me to keep my distance. Not that I actually want to
get too close anyway. For now I'm treating them like I do the sucky
monster - keeping a close watch from a safe distance. Watching them, I
noticed that they have managed to find a lot of my toys that I played
with when I was a kitten. Things like tinkle balls, which I now find
kind of boring, seem to fascinate these fluffballs. Who was it that
mentioned that one of the good things about having fluffballs invade
was that they had good tasting food? Anyway, whoever said that, when I
tried a taste test the hoomin stopped me, saying something about me
having to only eat my special food. Hey, I know they got to eat some
of mine, why can't I try theirs?

Little Bit: When will this end!!! For the past couple days the hoomin
has kept me and Sam locked in one room, while Spot and her kits have
the run of the living room and kitchen. Today the hoomin opened the
door and I was forced to meet them for the first time face to face.
That Spot creature had the audacity to try to get in my face. I was
about to let her have it when the hoomin hit her with a blast from the
water bottle.

Sammy: yeah, sure Mom. Actually Momma was hiding under the bed almost
the entire time. When Spot looked under the bed and hissed the hoomin
told Spot to leave Momma alone. Spot ignored him and started to get
closer, so the hoomin gave the bottle a squirt, but he aimed above her
head and Spot didn't even get wet.

LB: shut up Sam, you had your turn. I'm talking now, and that's not
how I remember it. Anyway, since the hoomin let Spot and her babies in
out of the rain, things have been in turmoil here. I hate, Hate, HATE
to have my normal routine interrupted. I can't hardly even stand to
cuddle with the hoomin, because he smells of the interlopers. I'm not
sure I even want to get too close to Sammy, since she stinks of them,
too, from cuddling with the hoomin. A couple times I've hissed at her
because of the smell. When he closes the door to keep them out and us
in the bedroom, I lay by the door and try to keep tabs on what's going
on on the other side. I even managed to wake up the hoomin last night
by growling at the door.

Hoomin note: I'm pleasantly surprised by Sammy's reaction. She and
Spot have been boxing at the window since Spot first started coming to
visit the outside food bowl last fall. Today, when they came face to
face, Sammy acted like she'd be willing to sniff noses - no bushy tail
wide eyed look. Spot's reaction seemed pretty mild, too, more of a
hiss as a warning not to get too close to the kits than a "let's get
it on!" type hiss. The supervised visit this morning came off without
any real problems.

LB, on the other hand, hates any and all change. This is the cat who
has been known to refuse to nap on the bed because I changed
bedspreads. When I sat down in the open bedroom door this mornings she
came over, looked at the furniture which I'd moved around some to make
a gate into the kitchen, and promptly went and hid under the bed. I
went and stood in the bedroom and she came out from under the bed and
did the rollie thing at my feet. When I reached down to rub her belly
she seemed happy, but would glance over towards Spot, who she could
see laying in HER kitchen, and growl every so often. Actually, though,
that's not much different from her reaction when I first started
letting Rocky come inside. She wouldn't stay in the same room with him
at first, and this was after interacting with him fine outside. With
Spot, she has the recent memory being chased when Spot first showed up
with her babies last Tuesday.

Spot and her babies are all adapting pretty well to being inside. Spot
has obviously been inside before. She's pretty much lost her
skittishness, to the point where she jumps up in my lap and begs for
tidbits when I sit down to eat. The kittens have calmed down pretty
well. They scatter if I make any sudden moves and when I first come
into the room, but soon reappear. I introduced them to several of
Sammy's long deglected toys, and they've been wearing themselves out
playing.

The idea of keeping them confined to the kitchen hasn't worked out to
well. They're at the stage where they can climb and jump a little.
First they climbed up on the mini-tower, one of those 2' towers with a
couple holes to climb in and hide. They managed to jump from the top
to the island counter and get out. So I moved it away from the
counter, ony to have them jump onto the other counter, make their way
to the top of my improvised gate, and down into the living room. Oh
well, it won't be long before they can skip the mini-tower stage and
jump my gate, anyway. I'm guessing the gate won't hold them more than
a couple days, but hopefully that will be enough time to get them to
the point where they don't hide when they first see me. Right now Spot
is sleeping nest to my chair with Shadow, and Shadow accepted some
petting when I reached down.

I've named two, but haven't come up with names for the others. Shadow
is the tuxie, named Shadow because he sometimes glues himself to
momma's hip like a little shadow. Cali is a white cat mixed up with a
calico, with a black and orange striped tail, a couple small oragne
spots on her neck, and black and orange ear. The two without names
are white with black spots. One has a white ear and the other's are
both black.

Medicating them has been going fine now that I blocked off the
dishwasher hidey hole and can find them. They let me pick them up,
roll them over onto their back, and don't seem to mind the taste of
the amoxicillin at all. All I have to do is get them to taste it, and
they lick it off the dropper. The vet told me that they probably all
have a respiratory infection. That was actually good news, since when
I first saw them I was afraid the one with the worst case might have
ringworm, but the vet didn't think so. She said I only need to treat
the two with weepy eyes, so just the two yet to be named needed
treatment. Cali, the little girl, had early signs of weepy eye this
morning, so I've started giving it to her as well as her two brothers.
Shadow is the only one with clear eyes.

All in all, things are going better than I had expected.
--
Steve Touchstone,
faithful servant of Sammy and Little Bit

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Home Page: http://www.sirinet.net/~stouchst/index.html
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Steve T wrote:

--------------------snip---------------------
All in all, things are going better than I had expected.

You're a good man, Steve. Accepting responsibility for Spot and her
bitties meant there'd be lots more demands on your time and energy.
I'm sure it's worth it though. Keep up the good work.

--
Regards and Purrs,
O J