Adoption tails: Daphne

 Remember Daphne who had three lovely kittens Danielle, Douglas and Dallas back in February?

Daphne and family

 

They caught the flu and were the first into our quarantine room. But recovered and all were adopted happily. Daphne worked as the meet and greet cat in the first seen condo for a couple of months while she recovered. Then she was adopted by somebody who came in for Sprinkles but chose her instead.

Day 1 in her new home at the end of May:

Her new owner called to say that Daphne had climbed up the chimney overnight! Irene phoned her back to see if any progress had been made though the day. The food her owner had left out in Daphne's room had been eaten sometime between 1.30 and 3.30. Perhaps Daphne went back up the chimney after eating as there were sooty pawprints in the room and still no sign of Daphne in the room itself. Irene advised that she should be ready to block off the space at any moment as she may find that Daphne comes down at anytime, so should be ready. She also said Daphne will be more likely to come down at night when the kids have gone to bed, so hanging out for a little while in that room quietly may be a good strategy as well.
 

After 1 week:
Daphne is very happy in her room and interacting with the family. She seems curious about the dog when the dog is on the other side of the door. Daphne is near the door a lot so her owner will start to introduce her to the rest of the house.

After 1 month:
The cat/dog introduction went well and Daphne continues to explore the house more. She does love sitting on her owner's lap at nighttime

Bumper weekend

After Socks on Friday, Dallas, Danielle, Pepsi, Sparky and Sunny were all adopted on Saturday. That left Douglas to be adopted on Sunday. Sparky is the brother of Socks. That litter hasn't been listed as available yet. I dropped by the four carriers that I picked up from Pittwater Animal Hospital last Friday today, as I was passing by. It seems that the ring worm quarantine kittens are now out of quaranteen so will be available for next weekend!

An L of an Day

Two lots of cat schleppers: Terry arrived first, at 7:30am to take Daphne, Lillian and Skylar to Mona Vale Vets. Daphne was easy to pop into a carrier. Lily needed some coordination. Terry tried with the gauntlets while I held the carrier over the door to her bed chamber. She went into the darker space. And Skylar, who is one of Steph's latest litters, the one girl of a litter of 5 who had a collar. But she is fluffy and the collar was not easy to see in the scramble of hungry kittens. So we microchipped everybody and found her last of all. Then Tim arrived to take the rest of the boys to Pet O. Then Mona Vale vets rang to say that Skylar didn't weight 1Kg (should have used a heavier collar!) so wouldn't be desexed today. And thus it continued. Tim came back and showed around/entertained a pair of women from Pet Love. They raise money for good charities, I gather. We qualify. The vollies tried to work around them. We wouldn't wnat to get their pretty, high healed shoes dirty. Eventually a nice lady from Bayview came to replace her beloved cat who died quite some time ago. She had spotted Mixa on our website and wanted a boy cat. I showed her all the availables. She liked Marmalade, because he is a red head like she is. Then I introduced her to Lily and Lily liked her, curled around her hand, purred loud enough to hear across the room and generally acted like a bit of a slut. It worked. The nice lady changed her mind and took Lily. Hurrah! She is an experienced cat owner. I told her all about Lily's frustration at not getting her share while she had kittens. She stays at home, plays music and wants a loving cat companion. Purfect. I took this photo of Lily just before moving her into the carry cage to get out from behind bars forever.

A little later another older couple came in. They have always had cats. She is allergic to rats so wants somebody who will deal with them. He is happy if she is happy. They both rather fancied Peggy who would probably have been perfect for them. But, they chose Luna who was very affectionate with them. (Irene tells me that she was loving to the previous folk who adopted her but then hid for a month when they took her home). I hope that this couple will have lots of patience with her. Or that she will realise that she is being given a second life at a spoiled, comfortable life outside a cage. We have another Luna, whom I have dubbed Luna II (after the lander). She came with a group of 3 other large kittens but doesn't get on well with them. So she is where Starmoon was. (Incidently, Starmoon has been trapped by her owners). And we have a new big boy, called Sprinkles who was found with a colony but does not behave like an urban stray.

And a man surrendered the cats of his deceased parent. They are Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra. They share the condo below Ebony, peacefully, at the moment. But I hope they can be moved to the palace when Coco and Mason go home.

The Mum of Mum+4 was given the name Kendra.

We promptly named her two boys and two girls. Let's see if those names stick.

The couple who adopted Salt came in to find a friend for him. He loves one of them more than the other except at 1am when he NEEDs somebody to play with NOW. She thinks that if there was another kitten around Salt would let her sleep. I suggested a girl kitten and showed her Danielle (Daphne's). Danielle played up splendidly, of course. She is such a loving handful. But they rather liked Douglas who sat, calmly against their chests and teared up. Of course, it might be that he still has a bit of flu and his calmness is lethargy and his tears of joy are gooey eyes. We decided that they should call Tim tomorrow to see what his advice is. They live locally so are happy to come back.

C kittens adopted

Somebody had put an expression of interest on one of Candace's kittens. When they were desexed she came to confirm her interest and ended up taking them both! They have such different personalities but I suppose she didn't realize that at Safe Haven. She will at home. I wonder if she will continue to call them Caleb and Cooper.

Two of the F girls have been desexed and look very fetching in their Elizabethan collars. I don't know why the other tortie wasn't done. Perhaps she is too light. The boys are both black but who know which is Franklin?

Buffy has been put on a special diet to try to control her dreadful skin/drool condition. Which meant that Taylor needed to be moved to a condo of her own. I carried her across with her towel to the (cleaned) condo where Bonnie was. I carefully put the hairy towel back into the condo with Buffy just in case she needs the smell of Taylor to keep her calm.
Taylor has a modesty cloth to hide behind. . . Buffy doesn't need one.

Taylor

Bonnie is now below Candice and the plan is to open the trapdoor between them so the sisters can be together.

Bonnie and her bear

A ginger colony cat was brought in by Clare. It is assumed that it is a he. He is around the back next to the D kitten condo. 

Clare's ginger

The remaining two D's, Diana and Danielle have been moved to Charlie's condo. They were fairly shattered by being moved inside their square bed which is normally a flat bed.

Danielle and Diana

I noticed that apart from Peanut and his downstairs mate Sootie who is behind modesty cloths because he is so unsettled that he is not using his litter tray (perhaps he need some dirt). . . . that all the cats in that adoption area are female. 

We have no borders and it is all clean. Storm has moved back to the palace.

PS Tim had the day off. He has Freda and Ginger at home with him. Freda is not well.

Still with us

I got to Safe Haven early-ish because the tennis group folded early because we were one person short, one person with a bad back, one person with a chest infection. Enough already, we said after 2 sets.

So Sandy and Joan were just finishing up and Tim had taken cats to the vet:
         Kit Kat (or Maggie) was checked out to be better than expected.
         Buffy is on antibiotics. Her skin is looking better.
         The D kittens are still off their food. But obviously not REALLY sick.

Sandy and Joan were worried about Freda who is off her food too. She was due to be picked up by her foster-to-adopt person. Her bum was a bit red and sore looking. But she ate her lunch (when Tim got back) and was still passing formed stools. So perhaps it is just a reaction to having been vaccinated on Tuesday.

The family who is to foster to adopt Ginger plus Freda came. The mother loves cats and had them as a child. The husband doesn't know cats so is worried about hairs on everything. The two little girls are just thrilled with the idea of having a kitten. They are about 5 and 7 so if Ginger and Fred go home with them, we will never see them again!

While Freda was having her lunch (she ate well and he polished everything off), Bailey performed fabulously for them. He let them pat, brush and love on him. Personally, I think that he would be a better match for the family but having F & G in a foster home would be better for TIm. They went away, catless with instructions to call on Sunday to see how Freda is and whether she is well enough to leave Safe Haven.

Bailey

My friend Gina was supposed to visit but she couldn't get a taxi in time. I will pick her up at home next week on my way! I think Bailey will be perfect for her too.

I spent time organising stuff.

I put labels on the wheely cages. Tim remembered where the blue labels were so I added them, later.

Angelo inspects the label

And I spent time socializing:

        Blossom: she is much more relaxed since her thyroid is appropriately medicated.

Blossom

Bonnie: who is off her food. She managed to eat two dental crunchies and some mouthfuls of breakfast wet food.

 Bonnie

Candace: who, if you give her enough time, really likes to be patted, stroked and generally loved on. She, and Bonnie, will be desexed next week. Tim and Chris (the vet) hope that the assigned day will be a good one for them because they both still are flu-filled. Candace's purr is deep and rumbly. She wouldn't pass a Corona virus test!

Candace

Big bags

Food was delivered today including a 20Kg bag of kitten chow. I asked Tim if he expected a lot more kittens. He replied that he expected the kittens to eat a lot more.

I had a Sunday volunteer to help clean up so we were finished by 1pm. Thank you. The litters are all in wheely cages except Diana and Danielle one of whom is not well. She isn't eating despite being tempted with every variety of food that we have. I just hope that Dale (adopted on Saturday) is OK. So it is easier to clean them. We will have to remember to disinfect their carry cages and shift them to the top for storage. . . . we need the floor room with the big bags of food!

Five F kittens fit on one square hammock.

 F kittens

The M kittens who are left are Madonna and Mozart. As I was getting out of the lift a mother and cute blond daughter arrived carrying an empty cat carrier. I assumed they were for us so asked them where they were going and escorted them up in the lift. They had come to adopt Madonna. So by this time it will be just Mozart left!

Caleb and Cooper are not on the cleaning list so get missed. Evie is not on the list either because we have run out of bandaids. She behaved perfectly for me. I bribed her into good behaviour by introducing a stratchy pole. She just needs to be distracted.

Bonnie has been upgraded to a Palace condo. She is overwhelmed. Perhaps Candace, across the way is giving her the evil eye.

Bonnie

I tried to unsquash Penny's ping pong balls but saw that she had bitten them, probably when trying to carry them around.  I got her some soft balls to carry around and her story came out. She was spotted by an animal worker being kicked by a man. The animal worker rescued her and took her to the vet who realized she was near her time and when she was put under her kittens were stillborn. So I got her a soft toy. Unfortunately it is a pink and purple bear with big, stick-on eyes. . . . perhaps that will transition her from her need to carry baby cats to a desire to rip a bear to bits.

Penny

 I took a photo of Bailey because my friend might come visit him on Friday (xxxxxx fingers).

Bailey

The other big bag was all the washing from the adoption day at Petstock. Mostly sheets to cover the wheely cages. My neighbour has started working at the local Red Cross and has claimed all the cat sized cloths for me. I may just substitute new for old and bin the dirties.

When it rains . . . . it floods

I was late at Safe Haven this afternoon because Babbage Road flooded. I had no idea where Babbage Road was so those signs that flash above you as you drive meant nothing to me. 

I learned that Babbage Road is the bit that connects Eastern Valley Road with Boundary Road. The traffic stopped on my way down to the Roseville Bridge and crawled up the hill. I detoured around the back of High Street to get to SH. To be met by Tim who had had the same problem when he delivered Dale and Danielle to PetO in Brookvale this morning to be desexed. His very clever app rerouted him through St Ives to save half an hour on his way back to East Roseville.

Poor guy has the flu and croaked this story to me plus the info that the kittens needed to be picked up this afternoon at 3:30pm. So I convinced him that he should stay warm and dry and I should drive in the rain. It took an hour to get to Brookvale. And an hour to get back to SH. Should have taken half an hour each way according to my TomTom which is nowhere near as savy as Tim's app.

Dale and Danielle

Nevertheless, Dale and Danielle survived the trip. They were super hungry when they got home.

Before I went I sterilized three Clean Me condos. I missed the fourth because I thought it was an alternative condo for the mixed litter. But was told that it was Felix's condo and he has been adopted. 
. . . . not having cleaned the kittens for a fortnight, I have lost track of them. The smallest of the mixed litter died last weekend. . . little blackie:

 Was Felix the biggest? But what is their relationship with Dale and Danielle who are with another D kitten above?

When I eventually got back, Tim was trying to get Buffy to take her pill laced food. Her skin condition has improved so much since she started on these pills that it is a pity that she has decided to spit out pill flavoured food.