Cat Update, Adopting out 4 cats - February 17th 2015

February 17th 2015

The video above is of the mother cat we call Demi...I call her Demi like the goddess, she has taken in all the kittens as if they were her babies. All in all, Demi has accepted 10 kittens as her own: Her original 5 (Jackson, Raja, Silver Bells, Balushia, and Pear) along with Sevana, and the 4 babies (Ichi, Ni, San and Yon). Sevana and Jackson are missing because they have already been adopted out, but this is really what it's like with her. She is so sweet.

Here is a little update:

There are always positives and negatives to what we do, but I'll share them both.

On Thursday February 5th, we successfully adopted out 4 cats:

Maple and Luma have gone to Oliver and Lauren. They changed their names to Bob and Marley. :)

Sevana and Jackson have been adopted out by Genie and Ian Heppinstal. Their new names have become Milk and Coffee (maybe changed to Cream and Coffee after our visit).

So far it looks as though all of them are becoming aquainted with their new environments. Bob and Marley look relaxed together...a pair we were a bit unsure of. We haven't visited them yet so we haven't really been able to talk about the details with them. Maple still needs to get fixed though, but I know that isn't much of a problem because Luma is actually a guy no matter how many times we call him a her.

We visited Genie and Ian in District 8 yesterday. The neighborhood and the house are great for Sevana and Jackson. Really, the amount of space is exactly what we had hoped for them. They take the new freedom differently, Sevana roaming around, exploring constantly and Jackson mostly staying on the top floor of their house, obviously feeling uncomfortable when we bring him to the bottom floor. However, Jackson is even more comfortable with human contact than when he was with us. He has more of an opportunity now that there are only 2 cats and 2 humans in the house. It is really a relieving and rewarding thing to observe. They still haven't become friends with their pug, Candy, but I'm sure that will come in time as long as they keep pressing positive associations between them all. They said they were planning on moving to New Zealand where they will stay, but they had no intention on leaving the cats here in Vietnam :) :) :)


The not-so-good news is that Pearl Grey has now gone missing. It is tough because we weren't really focusing on her much. Since the influx of cats, Pearl Grey has chosen to stay outside of the apartment. She felt very uncomfortable with all of the new cats. Cargo would go outside of the apartment and hang out with her a lot. The last time I remember seeing her was after we got back from America....and I believe it was before Dominic got back...so it was somewhere between January 19th and when she got back...hmmm. She was on the top floor and had caught a mouse. I was just watching her and Cargo play with the mouse. I felt bad because she had been meowing but any time I would get anywhere close to her she would back off. Even when it looked like she would come into our apartment, right when she saw the other cats she would flee from the area.

We have a few theories on what happened to her, but in the end, it is just a sad situation to see her disappear just as we were adopting out the other cats....Maybe we will somehow see her again, I really hope so....

The other Cats

Cargo is good, still has a bit of a problem of randomly peeing in places....I think it is just stress for him along with being the alpha male pretty much since he was the first that we had. I hope I always remember one time when Hannah and I were sitting in the usual chairs in the kitchen watching something on the laptop. Cargo was standing on the right side of the laptop, when I looked at him. He shot a stream of pee across the screen...it all seemed like it was going in slow motion. I dodged the shot, and it ended up hitting the wall to the left of me. I was pretty lucky that time, but Hannah hasn't been so lucky. She was hit in the head once while she was sleeping and again recently in the lap. He just came over and quickly shot a stream of pee in her lap....bad news.

Gamgee seems to be getting more friendly with everyone. At first, he was picking little fights with everyone. I think it is easier for him now that two of the adult cats are gone (Maple and Luma), particularly Luma who would always randomly slap cats.

The same effects have been made on Demi. She doesn't really pick any more small fights like she used to.

Silver Bells and Raja are still a bit shy, but we are really working on that.

Ni really hit a rough spot after we gave her a vaccination shot. It was looking so bad, Hannah was convinced she was going to die. She had absolutely no energy and couldn't even eat wet food. We resorted to feeding her honey with a suringe just to give her a slight boost. The vet gave us an electrolyte mix to feed her, but she vomited it all up...it was the most I've ever seen a cat vomit, particularly because she was so small. Before she vomited she had a lump that was growing from her side. It was really scary, but strangely enough, after the massive vomiting everything started to get better. We refused to feed her any more of the electrolyte mix and instead focused on encouraging her to eat wet food with a lot of gravy. It has really helped to keep her in the bathroom by herself to eat the wet food. She is picking up the weight she dramatically lost when she was sick and has no problem eating wet food. She still has a bit of a hard time eating an entire wet food can, but I think this is perfectly fine. It has been good being able to focus on her since Tet holiday started. I'm a bit worried about going on vacation, but hopefully we will be able to find someone that can feed her just as regularly. I don't think she is at the point yet where she can rely on eating solely dry food.

The rest are doing really really well. Ichi, San and Yon are vibrant and cuddly. I don't think we will have any problem adopting them out. Pear and Balushia are also extremely lovable, Pear a bit more energetic than Balushia, but still both are great.

As far as adoption in the future, there was a guy that works at the British Council that stated he was really interested in adopting two of the kittens out, but he stated he can't take them until after Tet. He seems really reliable since he doesn't plan to move anytime soon and he is a foreigner with a western mentality about stray cats. Another girl just recently contacted us to adopt out the other two kittens. This would be lovely if it worked out.