Oh the temptation of kittens!!

[Crewella]

I got to do one of my favourite jobs the other day - go into the bigger 'cattery' and take pics of the mogs for rehoming, including 14 kittens that had come in over a period of about 24 hours!

It's always a real temptation (I tell them to make sure to frisk me on the way out) but this time there were some real heartbreakers including a mini Daz-alike.

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There was also a young mum, still a kitten herself really, with a troupe of 6 kittens. Thank goodness she'd been spotted and handed in, she's a good mum and her coat's in good condition so she must have been in a fair condition before the kittens, but she was obviously struggling on her own and scarily thin, and the kittens are teensy and about half the size they should be at around 5 weeks (I think). When we opened the door and they all came trooping out it was more like a horde of ants than kittens! Hopefully they've not missed out on anything vital and they'll be OK now that they have access to plenty of regular grub, but I must admit they look incredibly cute!

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[Lilith]

Awww! ...babies!

You've reminded me of a dream I had a few nights ago. About a tiny bright ginger kitten with some white on him, here with my lot. Molly the fierce was washing him! He was all fluffed out and pleased with himself.

I've thought that when the time is right and the right cat appears and is meant, that it'll fill Finn's place but I've always thought of an older cat, with the shortage of homes for older ones.

But (and I'm sure this has happened to loads of people) my dreams can be irritatingly prophetic

Hope all the babies find good homes, and their mothers too, paws crossed!

[greenkitty]

Awww mini Daz

[bobbys girl]

It's always a real temptation (I tell them to make sure to frisk me on the way out) but this time there were some real heartbreakers including a mini Daz-alike.

Sounds like Paul O'Grady at Battersea!

Baby kitties, how could ANYONE resist?

[Crewella]

It's probably a good job that the rescue and I have agreed that I shouldn't have kittens or young cats here because of the road. Saves a lot of soul searching!

[MarkB]

Focus on the negatives Helen. Great that you can visit some, but nice to be able to leave them to someone else to deal with!

Although Ingrid and Munchkin (name still tbc) aren't tiny kittens, they are still a handful. Anything that moves is either played with, chewed or destroyed. I am trying to do a simple job of fitting a lock this morning.It is taking me 10 x as long with inquisitive youngsters around. I have to keep stopping. I will get those 8 screws done at some point!!!

[nannymcfee]

Little grandson came yesterday, and disappeared , only to find he had managed to open our very large American style freezer, where i have wedding cakes, and desserts stored ready for 150 wedding guests....

'Oh did grandma shout at you ' the little s*d.

I think i do prefer kittens Mark at the minute, have you ever known one to open a freezer??? !

Mini Daz ....is gorgeous ...

[Lilith]

One of my oddest experiences concerns kittens.

Well, it would, wouldn't it!

Picture a quiet autumn evening, by the fireside in the front room, thirty years ago, with Adrian, my then partner, Jacinth, our first Siamese, and two of her first litter snuggled against her on the hearthrug. The other three kittens were upstairs, as they liked to be, causing mayhem; we could hear the gallop of tiny paws overhead. As time wore on Adrian got a bit restive. Time those kittens came down; they might need their tray. Lazily I agreed; I'd go up in a minute...

Presently I did go up - and they hid. Under the bed or somewhere. Oh well, fetch 'em down later. I returned to my cosy sloth and my book in the front room, as the galloping feet sounded again over our heads and presently Adrian nagged me again, and eventually I went upstairs, and kittens hid again...

This happened a couple of times more and in the end I decided to fetch them out of their hiding place in case they DID need their tray. Couldn't find them anywhere.

In a corner of the front room was a deep log basket, lined with vetbed, where Jacinth and the kittens slept. Back downstairs I glanced inside it and there were the three, blamelessly asleep as they must have been all night...

My other cats and my Alsatian were in the huge dining/living room; Jacinth, territorial abut her kittens, owned the front room. The house was an end terrace; our bachelor neighbour was, inevitably, down the boozer and had no pets. We definitely had no mice or rats, not with that lot in the house!

Oh well, mystery over. Adrian and I settled down again with Jacinth and five kittens...and over our heads came the noise again, of a horde of small paws, galloping about and having fun...

Kittens are a lot craftier than they make out...

[bobbys girl]

I think i do prefer kittens Mark at the minute, have you ever known one to open a freezer??? !

No, but I did have a Lurcher who could open the fridge!

[Crewella]

Ghost kittens ...... I could have those ...... no problem with the road!

There is a midnight fridge raider in this house ..... he tries to blame Daz but I know it's OH!

[Lilith]

LOL - animals do come in handy don't they? After Hannah the Alsatian we had a pair of terriers, Fanny and Lizzie, and if Adrian made a errm rude noise (forgive me Adrian!) he would look at Fan and say, in shocked tones, 'Fanny!'

Ha - you wouldn't say that when all the little darlings woke up and started zooming around. We should have had a notice up saying 'beware of low-flying Siamese!' One afternoon I fell asleep (out of exhaustion) and they all trooped up to the back bedroom and stripped quite a lot of wallpaper off and quarrelled over the scraps (that's MY mouse!)...happy days though!

What happened was strange though. (And we hadn't been over-indulging in the homebrew either lol!) I once read about the poet/painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who visited friends in Scotland and every evening went up to his room and read aloud. Presently he left and went back home to London, but for a while every evening his hosts sat downstairs and heard his voice up in his room, reading aloud...There's a theory that places can absorb people's vibrations and 'play back' sounds and presences, which I don't attempt to understand, but ghosts will be ghosts it seems and I'm certain the personality of even one Siamese would be strong enough to saturate a house with its vibrations for centuries!

[bobbys girl]

There's a theory that places can absorb people's vibrations and 'play back' sounds and presences, which I don't attempt to understand, but ghosts will be ghosts it seems and I'm certain the personality of even one Siamese would be strong enough to saturate a house with its vibrations for centuries!

I've heard that too. The Comedian Michael Bentine was in to that theory. He said Brick and stone can store dramatic events like magnetic tape (or something like that). 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth...'.

Some buildings have different feelings to them. Our local Catholic church does have an overwhelming feeling of peace about it, while the Protestant one feels somewhat 'uptight'? I have no axe to grind - I'm Baptist

I think animals pick up on these 'vibes' much quicker than us humans - and we call THEM dumb!

[Lilith]

Ha, it's funny you should mention Michael Bentine - recently I read 'The Door Marked Summer' and though personally I'm not into seeking after all that kind of stuff, it can still happen to anyone and things happen that just can't be rationalised. For some years I worked as a cleaner; I'm a loner and liked working alone; a lot of the buildings were old (I know what you mean about atmospheres) and I usually had company. Only once did I feel nervous, on fine summer evenings, and I left that job before the autumn; just as well because the villain had a whale of a time with other women on the team; he/she moved from my section to all over the place, turning out lights and banging on metal waste paper baskets. But that's unusual.

I've seen cats respond to someone I couldn't see; in the 70s when my black cat Sulah died on the road, I was in the front room in broad daylight when a black cat ran between my legs into the room...I didn't have another black cat! I closed the door and searched but no black cat. Sulah was still with us. For a good while her daughter Katie used to go to the hearthrug and jump over a cat who wasn't there! The last time was in the house where I live now; as soon as I moved in I felt nothing but calm and welcome. Two of my charming neighbours rushed to tell me lurid tales about the place being haunted - a previous occupant had been too terrified to live there after two days. The bathroom was haunted! Scaremongers.

After the local feral colony, or part of it, moved in, late at night Tess, sadly departed now, was playing in the bath and froze, staring at someone between me and the door. She was clearly puzzled/scared and I picked her up and thought firmly, 'there's room for all of us.' And so there is.

The funniest episode wasn't supernatural at all. Almost Halloween, waking in the small hours and hearing what I thought was someone moving about in the bathroom, which I have heard before, even with all the cats asleep on my bed and before the snakes, who can be noisy at night. But this wasn't an 'in-viv' noise. Oh well, 'tis the season...but really, old chap, must you? Keeping me awake.

The soft scrabbling and rustling went on and burglars (I'm far more nervous about intruders) sprang to mind although if it was, they were taking a hell of a time nicking my valuable spare shampoo and toothpaste! I use a laser gun to read the temperatures in the snakes' vivariums and if I ever encountered a naughty person breaking into my house I'd have no compunction about shining it into their eyes...I share my bedroom with 8 vivariums and enough infra-red light to see by; all quiet in the vivs, nothing untoward there, and armed with my trusty little gun and feeling like Kinsey Millhone, I crept round the house, ready to take aim, fire...nothing.

Back in the bedroom I turned on the overhead light, just to be on the safe side - and THERE was my ghost/burglar! A fat black and gold tail hung down over the top vivarium in the stack - Shahi! My senior royal python, who'd somehow broken out of his viv at the bottom and was now dangling his handsome backside over the window belonging to Surahi, another very pretty female royal. Well it WAS the mating season! Royals are tubby with slender necks, hence Surahi's name - how he'd made the climb I don't know. He wouldn't go back into his viv so I took him into bed with me to warm him up, where he explored my face with his feathery tongue and fell asleep on my stomach though I'm sure he'd have preferred to be tucked up with Surahi lol.

'Dumb' animals? No way!

Oops sorry Crewella I've just hijacked your thread big time!

[bobbys girl]

Perhaps we should start a new thread? I think I've mentioned before a couple of 'odd' experiences with animals, cats, dogs and horses. I'd like to hear other peoples experiences of 'dumb' animals and the lessons they've taught us.

[Lilith]

Ah good idea - working on it!