#toasty's adventures in unexpected feral kittens

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I love her and her cute little bib 😍💖

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Yes.

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I AM GIVING YOU LOVE!!

LOVE!!

PAY ATTENTION TO ME

[The photographer appears to have obediently put down the phone; no further records found.]

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A tale of two kitties who must move.

So in less than a month, the kitties and I will be moving to a new house. I'm very excited about the impending move! The kitties very much would not be, if they knew about it.

Those of you who've been following me since 2020 may remember the last time I tried to move my kitties (who were born feral and have never fully recovered). That attempt resulted in me spending the first day of covid lockdown getting emergency hand surgery after Bennet administered some truly epic bites.

I've known for some time that I was going to have to try again to move the cats eventually. Because a while ago, I bought a house on the same block as my polycule and started renovating it. And I hoped to someday finish those renovations and move in. But -- the cats! Or, mostly: but -- Bennet! (Winter can be picked up and put into a carrier with only mild trouble. And back when I thought I would be moving three kitties, we were sometimes able to capture Tico.)

I thought for a while that I'd come up with a clever solution. During renovations, I frequently had to hire a vet tech to come give Tico insulin injections when I wasn't home. And I thought, "Oh good -- all the cats will all get used to the vet tech, and then the vet tech can help me move all the cats, because she's much better at catching and handling struggling animals than I am."

One problem: the vet tech was never able to even catch sight of Bennet, no matter how much time she spent here.

I thought I had another solution. I bought big leather gloves. I started wearing them for long periods of time and trying to pet/brush/feed Bennet, so that she'd get used to them.

Turns out, though, that Bennet will not be in the same room as me if I'm wearing the gloves.

I did also try all the more standard advice -- feeding them inside their carriers so that the carriers stop freaking them out, and giving them treats regularly inside the carriers.

But Bennet just giraffes her little calico neck way out whenever the food is in the carrier, and she eats without ever placing her feet inside.

Bennet is also the least food-motivated cat I've ever met, and she is highly suspicious of treats. This makes it extremely hard to mix sedatives into her food, because she simply won't eat if anything tastes at all weird.

But she can only avoid food for so long (I presume).

So I'm going extreme: I've got out the Big Trap.

It's a bit Looney Tunes, I know.

For now, it's very solidly propped up. All their cat food will be inside this thing for the next couple weeks. Bennet will have to get used to going inside... and as the food moves further from the entrance, her giraffe-neck trick will only get her so far.

Sometime in the couple of days before the movers arrive, I will remove the extra props. I will hold a very long piece of string attached to the remaining leg that holds the trap up. I will wait for as many hours as necessary, until Bennet goes inside. And then -- boom.

(What then? Well, then you throw a blanket over the drop trap, and you attach a separate carrier to the door on the side of the drop trap, and then you remove the door between the trap and the carrier. And supposedly most freaked out cats will run out of the blanket-covered drop trap and into the carrier, especially if you put one of their favorite towels inside the carrier, and treats, and such. Bennet is hardly Most Cats, so there remains some question in my mind about that part? I think I will add a hard surface underneath the trap and the food soon, and then worst case I may end up nailing the dropped trap to that board and loading the whole darn thing into the moving truck. But assuming I do manage to capture them, there is an easy-to-close-off room where the cats can stay until the rest of the move is finished, so at least that part is figured out.)

Right now, Winter is nervous but accepting -- so long as I stay back in the living room. She's been pretty far inside the trap a few times and has sniffed everything extensively, though she prefers to sit outside while she eats.

(The feeders will be migrating to the back of the trap over time.)

Bennet, so far, is having none of it.

But she has to eat someday, right?

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Yeah, basically

Some of my friends describe cats yawning as them turning their faces inside out.

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🐈💔

I'm sad to report that Little Kitty Fantastico, aka "Tico," passed away earlier this week, at age 9, after a heart failure. He died at home, surrounded by love and cuddles.

He was such a good and beloved little guy. He was bonkers for lettuce & other greens, and he absolutely could not be trusted around salads. His skills included perching atop walls and keeping watch on everything below. Like his sisters, he was long and had arms that went on forever. He was usually both the goofiest and the floofiest of all his sibs, especially when he was begging for belly rubs.

He was exceptionally sweet and snuggly. (Especially with Winter, who is very sad now. 😿) We will miss him so much.

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I love it when he just hangs out on the stairs like this for a while.

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hello! we hear there may be an attempt at productivity happening here. we're here to help

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I got rid of all the beds in the house, along with several other major pieces of furniture, and the cats were DEEPLY OFFENDED.

"MeoW murmaMYEH murmeyam MYURRRRR," remarked Winter, pacing from room to room. She was too agitated even to sniff my dinner. It took several hours for her to nestle into one of my armpits, from which she would not be extracted.

Bennet hid beneath one of the remaining bookshelves for a full five hours after the strangers left with their furniture booty. She was extremely disgruntled to race upstairs and find 2/3 of her favorite haunts had vanished. She found a mattress on the floor of my bedroom, and no matter how firm her headbutts (and Bennet's headbutts are INTENSE), she was unable to burrow underneath it.

Sorry, kitties. You have no idea how much more chaos you are about to experience in just over a week, when we move to a new house.

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Even a day when it's 100°F can be a good day to cover your nose and cuddle with a blanket, if you are a cat.

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omg I thought your name was dentistapologist 😂

Your kitty is so pretty!!

Ahahaha, I apparently got this a couple weeks ago when I Blazed pics of Winter. But I just saw it, and it gave me a good laugh! XD

And thank you very much! Winter is currently snuggled up with me in a nest of blankets on the couch:

...Meanwhile, her sister Bennet was smugly getting butt scritches from me a bit earlier:

(Bennet is also capable of being very pretty! But not when there are butt scritches on offer. XD )

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Oh sure, you could sit anywhere, including on or beside my lap, or on the blanket or cushion that are right next to you, or on your cat bed or cat castle. But please -- plant your little kitty butt on my foot instead, and make yourself comfortable. XD