Post a Lookout!

arm nest sleep

He likes to hang out in his safe space, explore a two foot square area, run back to his safe place, yowl about what he discovered in the new area, and then come back to explore two more feet. As long as we’re sitting still he continues his adventures. He had done the whole house, but after he got scared of the chair, he wants to come explore all over again from the living room forward. I hid some treats around where I know he’s headed, and he gets excited to find a little feast like a proper hunter.

He’s eating about what the recommended feeding amount is for him now, and I’m glad about that! He’s not eating every last bite and making me wonder if it’s enough, but he’s eating enough for me not to worry that he has something wrong with his appetite. He likes to eat most when one of us is in the room with him, and we kind of have to stand around and not really do anything; just be a lookout minion. He is starting to go get some cronches on his own, though.

We wound up going with Iams kitten food. The extra fancy brands DIDN’T HAVE ANY KITTEN FOOD VERSIONS! UGH! But it seems like the Iams brand is good for them too, so we didn’t have to go with a food that just isn’t BAD for him, and that pleases me because I know he’s getting the nutrition he needs with Iams. He needs kitten food until he’s a year old to get the right vitamins and such.

The treats we’ve been giving him are the moist Pounce brand in seafood medley flavor, and Whiskas Temptation crunchy Tantalizing Turkey treats. He loves the moist treats, and I break them in half with my fingernail before giving him one or two to kind of coax him to like to investigate kitty friendly areas and do the ‘go here, not there’ type of thing.

OMG he’s so cute running around with these cheeseballs, though. He doesn’t want to eat them, just punch them all over the house. Hours of entertainment, and one cheeseball can apparently last a couple days before it’s collected enough dust to make me swipe it and offer up a new cheeseball. He’s been picking them up once they get cornered and taking it back (in his mouth) to the center of the floor to start the dance all over again. It’s so freakin’ funny and adorable to see him sprint by with a giant orange cheeseball clashing with his little gray face! I’m trying to get him to play more with all his zillion other toys, though, because I don’t know if he should constantly be licking cheeseball dust off his paws on a daily basis.

What are your kitty’s favorite toys and treats? Link to them for us so we can add them to our list of considered kitteh fun!

kitty bowls

Meet October (Toby Toebeans)

cropped-settling-in.jpg

Meet our kitten: October! He’s almost four months old. We’re gonna call him Toby for short, which sounds like toe beans, so I’ll probably wind up calling him Toebeans all the time.

OMG I LOVE HIM! We have him set up in the bathroom and closed securely in there so that he has his safe space to start out with. His open litter box, food and water, and his carry crate are in there so he has somewhere to hide if he wants; and I draped a towel over a rack and the side of the toilet so he has a little cave.

He’s really shy, but we have plenty of love and patience to coax him into letting loose. He’s meowing a lot and of course is ignoring his food and treats, but that’s expected. I’d like for him to get comfortable with us and to be regularly going in his litter box before we crack the door and let him explore the house gradually so the whole new environment at once isn’t too much on him. Kitties don’t like change much, so it takes some longer than others to get used to new places.

I’m going in there often, sitting down quietly and moving slowly, talking sweet, and offering to pet him, and dangling toys at him. He watches the toys, but he wasn’t so sure about me until my husband took a turn to meet him. He took a cheeseburger in there, the cheater! He offered him a little bite, and even though the kitty was too stressed to really eat it, he came over to him and started purring really hard, sniffing the cheeseburger like crazy, and rubbing his face all over him! I was jealous, haha, but so glad! The hubby called me in there so I could see how much the kitty was still loving on him! I was so excited! Then I gave him a sniff of a cheeseburger nibble, and he slowly came over and let me pet him! He rubbed his face all over my foot. He’s a foot kinda guy, I guess.

~Starling

(2-3-2020)