Hoover & Kittens

Hoover arrived with her kittens on June 12 & 13th. They were born June 1st. Hoover (cause she's always eaten like one) is about 7 months old. She's a fantastic mom. Gotta love watching those kittens hold their head up for the first time when it bobs like a little bobble head or when they take their first steps and their butt does the bobble bob. Initially they were in a carrier in a big crate. When they started venturing out of the carrier, I replaced it with a big comforter in the crate.

This was one of the more challenging kitten and mama rescues we've done. This lucky cat is blessed with two wonderful feeders and two sleeping places. Because she was fed by humans as a kitten and because she was exposed to her feeders a lot, she's semi-feral. Her feeders can pet her and she walks between her feeder, Maryann, for food. With 2 feeders, when the feeder withheld food for an hour so I could trap, Hoover decided to go to her other feeder and take 2 kittens with her. Can't even begin to explain the details of this- lets just say, it was interesting and I should write a book! It took 23 hours to get the 4th kitten to her and 30 for the 5th, thanks to the hard work and determination of one of her feeders, Joe.

They're all waiting to go to their foster home then to be adopted out through Animal Care League mid August. Hoover, tho she's feeder friendly, will probably go back to her home with her two feeders. She may be able to be domesticated but it would take more than the resources CatVando has. With a cat as lucky as Hoover, she has a home, it's in the streets. There are so many adoptable cats that don't have homes as good as she. So, unless someone falls madly in love with her in the mean time, she'll be going back to the only home she's known. Spayed, to live out her life without kittens.

Our focus is Trap Neuter Return. Sometimes, as with these kittens, we're diverted. With TNR sometimes, cats just don't 'fit' on the street. And, when kittens can be taken this young, they stand a better chance of being adopted because they can be socialized to human touch and love.