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June 10-15: The Kittens are Sequestered

When we returned from Florida, we were still transitioning the kittens from milk to canned kitten food. This transition would need the better part of another week, so we decided to keep them in the family room for another six or seven days. We were also trying to give the vaccines they've received in Florida time to take hold before we introduce them to the other cats. So while the other cats and I were together in the rest of the house (and we just left the big cats litter boxes in the downstairs bathroom for the duration), the kittens had the run of the family room.

The Kittens at Play (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

We spent as much time with the kittens as we thought they needed, and once while I was up there, the kittens were tussling with each other; since I had my phone handy, I took a short movie of them playing, and I think you might enjoy it.

We also took quite a few pictures. We'd borrowed Nancy's cat tower while she was gone, and the kittens spent time climbing on it and sleeping atop it. Here are some of the pictures we took of the kittens while they were sequestered:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

June 16: "Lord God Almighty, I'm Free at Last!"

We've brought the kittens home from Florida, but won't take Nancy's back to her until she returns from a trip, so we are able to enjoy them some more. And since the best guess we have of their birthday is April 17th, that means that either today or tomorrow they will be two months old.

For the last two days, Bob and Tobisina/Dora have been sequestered up in the family room while we let the vaccines that we started giving them in Florida time to give them immunity to the virus Zack brought home from the shelter that causes him, and the other cats, to sneeze occasionally.

Today, though, we have opened the door to the family room and waited for them to come out and down the stairs. We did not have to wait long for them to come downstairs. In the picture at left, Bob is already down into the kitchen while Dora has a few steps still to go. She seems a bit hesitant.

This is odd in that it has always seemed that Dora (I am going to call her that in these pages for a couple of reasons. One is that it's shorter, and the other is that it expresses her inquisitiveness and eagerness to explore.) was "ahead" of her brother in development, probably because she was the first born. She was larger than Bob when we picked her up, and in Florida maintained that lead. But it has seemed in the last week as if Bob has been making up for lost time. The difference in their sizes seems to be disappearing, and it is also no longer true that she is always in the lead as far as doing new things is concerned.

This morning, this became apparent when we opened the door to the family room to allow the kittens out for the first time. Bob was right there at the door, eager to get out, while Dora was a few feet back into the room and only followed him after a half minute or so. I was at the bottom of the stairs with my camera, and Bob was the first one down into the kitchen. It also seemed to me as if Bob had filled out in the last couple of weeks, and now he seemed to me to be at least as big as Dora, if not a bit bigger. We will have to weigh them sometime soon and see how they are doing.

Fred sat down on the bottom step and we waited for the other cats to approach as they wished. Zack was the first to come sniffing around, and you can see his reactions in the left-hand movie below. In the movie on the right, you can watch Dora take that last step down into the kitchen to follow her brother around and explore:

Zack Meets Bob and Dora (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The Kittens Exploring Terra Incognita (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Later on in the afternoon, I came across Dora sunning on the back stairs landing, and I thought she was too photogenic to pass up:

A few more items of note today and I'll add to the album. First, you saw some pictures above of Dora on the stairs; I also made a movie of her that I thought showed her rather endearingly. There is a movie player below, left for it:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Just after I made the movie, I thought I would take a still picture of her, and right when I did, she raised her paw as if she were a movie star warding off the paparazzi. I thought the result was cute. And in the movie, you heard Fred talk about putting Bob on the cat wheel to see what he would do, and a little while later I got a picture of both of the kittens on it. Click on the little thumbnails below to have a look at these two photos:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

June 17: Cats and Their Toys

Today, Fred and I are beginning to train the kittens (even though Dora's "training" will be temporary, as she'll be going back out to Nancy's in a few days. First, we would like to have Bob keep his front claws, but he can only do that if we can train him early to use one of the three scratching posts around the house- and not the furniture. So we got out the small post and brought it back to the kitchen (the kittens are not quite to the point where they are exploring the whole house) so they could play on it:

The other thing we'd like to get Bob to do is to use the Fast Cat exercise wheel. The other cats will use it with a great deal of coaxing, so we'd like to start Bob out on it early.

The Kittens on the Exercise Wheel (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

As it turned out, Dora reasserted herself and took the lead when Fred used the laser toy to get her to walk on the wheel. She is so small, though, that she had to get way up the side of the wheel for there to be enough weight to make it turn. This was not helped when Bob got on the wheel behind her, and added even more resistance that she had to overcome. But they were both very comical as they walked on the wheel, and you can see this in the movie at right.

I took a great many still pictures of the kittens on the wheel, and thought that four of them were worth including here:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

June 18-22: Candid Camera

It has started to seem as if we get out a camera or a phone to film and photograph the cats every other day or so, whenever they do something interesting or are particularly photogenic. We are also documenting the Bob's growth in pictures, as it turns out. In putting some of these pictures here in the album, it begins to be clear that having a section for each day is overkill, so for those candid shots that we take day by day, I'm going to group them into half-month groups- like this one. The reason for doing this is not only to minimize all the titles and stuff for the sections, but also to better record Bob's growth (invisible day by day but more obvious when you see him every couple of weeks).

So, at least while Bob is the main focus of our photography, I'll do a section like this one twice a month (in addition to any trips we might take with any of the cats). In each of these sections, there will be a slide show of pictures (in chronological order) and then players for whatever movies we think are interesting or humorous enough to include. Remember that to work your way through the slide show, just click on the little "backward" and "forward" arrows in the lower corners of each slide; you can track your progress through the show with the numbers in the upper left corner of each slide. So, here is the slide show for the last half of June:

1/15 2/15 3/15 4/15 5/15 6/15 7/15 8/15 9/15 10/15 11/15 12/15 13/15 14/15 15/15 < >

I should point out that we haven't forgotten the other cats; we try to not stint on the attention they get while we are amusing ourselves with the new arrivals and we take pictures of them, too, as the slideshow above makes clear. I have one other picture I didn't put into the slideshow, which is Zack in an unusual pose on top of the cat tower in the study. And, as promised, here are the best of the many movies we made in the last two weeks of June; in all cases below, use the movie player to watch each movie:

June 18: Dora and Bob on the Cat Wheel (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

June 19: Dora and Bob Tussling in the Study (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

June 19: Dora Climbs the Cat Tower- Almost (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

June 19: Dora and Bob at Play in a Chair (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

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