Ridiculous Naming Conventions

[digitaldiscipline]

Provisionally naming the kittens, "Bear" and "Panda". If there is a third, it may end up something potentially more ridiculous.

Of course, they responded most strongly to my uninflected "Moo" and "Bark" this morning, so their species identification skills are... unrefined.

They have begun clambering after me when I got up to walk away. They have discovered that the laptop is a source of light, warmth, and motion, and were all up on my keyboard and screen.

In an effort to encourage their human socialization, I put an unwashed t-shirt in a cardboard box with one side torn down, so they'll get used to my smell and whatnot. I manhandled them for a good fifteen minutes or so while CS took a boatload of screenshots like this, most of which are ending up on the bookface.

Comments

[rachellll.livejournal.com]

Cute! I have a cat named Panda.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

black mask & tuxedo white - their secret mission names :)

which is which, is up to debate :D

#

[http://users.livejournal.com/project_mayhem_/]

KITTY.

So cute. I miss having kittens around.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Bear totally looks like a little bear.

I'd love to have kittens, but our cat would freak out, and the rabbit would probably bully them mercilessly.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Schweet.

The other black-with-white-bits ones are:

Cow-Cat (intact male, at least 5, presumed to be the housecat of someone who no longer lives in the neighborhood because he is both bold and social with humans, and contributing father to many of Rufus' litters)

Mayday (intact male, born in early May 2010 to Rufus in my garage, very skittish and more of a "hang out by the auto body shop next door and around the empty house across the street" skittish thing)

Our first "favorite" feral kitten, Tuxedo (pronounced, "too shay do," because we are dorks) was from the first litter of kittens born at the house; he was Bullseye's brother, but succumbed to an unknown illness suddenly when he was just over a year old, in 2006.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Piano black, maybe? Will have to see how their coloration holds up as they mature...

[etcet.livejournal.com]

How old are Steve and Ripley?

And.... Steve? What's the story there?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

When we introduced a young cat to our two older ones, they were nonplussed... so we got another young cat so they could pal around and play. K maintained custody of all four of them when we separated, but I get to see them when I take care of her apartment when they travel and stuff.

I know naught about rabbits.

[http://users.livejournal.com/project_mayhem_/]

His full name is Steve McQueen. The shelter's name for him was Stevie, and I couldn't call him that, but he sorta knew his name already. And when he was at the pet adoption day, there were all these dogs and little kids running around, and he was just chilling on his perch, like the king of cool.

Both he and Ripley were born near Halloween on different years, so October 31 is their unofficial birthday. He is six and Ripley is three. She's just managed to stay tiny all these years- she's only six and a half pounds. I maintain that it's a defense mechanism for being able to get away with being such a little shit sometimes.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

OMFG SCATTER MY ASHES AT SEA

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. Magellan is about six pounds and change, and would be far and away the smallest cat by weight if the official indoor cats hadn't gone with K; Lamia is about 10, Willow and Halloween (Ween) are about 12, and Loki topped out around 17 (he's back down to 15, and he is simply a long and tall cat, unlike the two pudgebucket rescues my parents have)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

.... I'm lacking some kind of context here. Halp?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

The cuteness has killed me and I am dead. *ded*

Scatter my ashes at sea. =D

[etcet.livejournal.com]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

there will be more, I'm sure.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

You might try taking your cat to a pet store on a day when a shelter is showing off their adoption candidates.

Some adult cats really dislike kittens, because kittens have terrible manners (I'm not kidding) and confusing body language. Just like some adult humans can't stand human children because they're loud and sticky and energetic and have no concept of boundaries, some adult cats are made very nervous by hyperactive, incessantly playful kittens, and that's compounded by the way kittens will use genuinely aggressive signals and body language when they just want to play. Kittens lack refinement.

Some adult cats, much like some adult humans, think that's adorable.

My ex has a cat he rescued as a kitten from abusive humans. She hates hates HATES all other people and most other animals. The first time he took her to the vet, to have her spayed --she was about three -- the vet was only waiting for him to come pick her up afterward, in order to watch her react to him, before calling the police on him as an animal abuser; the cat was that hostile. (And she was right about the reason for the cat's temperament, just wrong about the source of it.) He walked into the room and called for his "fuzzy pumpkin"; the cat came running and started climbing his bare leg; he picked her up gently and started cuddling her. She started purring and kneading his shirt like a happy kitten. The vet was... confused. Reassured, but confused.

And yet this super angry cat, who had never had the time of day for any other person or animal -- she only marginally tolerated my ferrets, being more afraid of them than aggressive toward them -- adopted the kittens I brought home one day on first sniff. They were hers from then until their adulthood, and anyone wanting time with them had to clear it with her. It became a real problem, since they were also rescues from a neglect/abuse situation, and had mange and ringworm, so they had to be quarantined; this cat stood guard by the door of their room, carried on sniff-and-trill conversations with them under the door, and attacked anyone who tried to go in there. Once they came out, she groomed them and taught them manners and just generally how to cat. Angry Cat even started treating me better as she saw me interacting positively with the kittens; I became the second human Angry Cat tolerated to pet her, even though I'd already lived with her (in a state of ongoing war) for five years.

The kittens, once they grew up, became of less and less interest to her, until she became as sullenly avoidant of them as she was of the ferrets.

So... yeah. It can be really hard to predict how your cat will respond to kittens just from the adult cat's personality, but you might get a good idea about it by watching her/him in the presence of a kitten you haven't committed to yet. If your cat responds badly to change or stress, it's good to be cautious, but even stress-prone cats can end up counterintuitively finding the presence of a kitten calming. And there's a lot that can be done to get even two hostile cats to sign a treaty and get along, even if they never like each other, just by reading about how cats negotiate territory and dominance, and how they accumulate and deal with stress. So don't give up on kittens too soon on your cat's behalf!

The rabbit, I dunno about. I've known three households with both cats and rabbits in varying stages of detante or even friendship, but I don't think any of them brought the cats in as kittens. A rabbit could definitely hurt a kitten badly before a supervising human could separate them if things got hostile; an adult cat has more hit points and finer control of natural defenses.