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Rockets Blast Off +
Meet the Hobos

Monday
4/27/2009

The thermometer on our back deck was pushing 100 degrees on Sunday afternoon (in April!), so we flipped the AC on and were cooling our heels watching ice hockey on TV when the shelter called. Someone had just brought in a litter of bottle babies, and if we couldn’t take them immediately, they would have to be sent out to the veterinary hospital for overnight feeding and monitoring until another foster home was found.

We said we could pick them up in 30 minutes, and our shelter coordinator requested that we bring back the Rockets at the same time (i.e. a day early). This concerned us a little, since Arnie had barely reached the 2.5-pound threshold for neutering, and the stress of returning to the shelter could easily set him back an ounce or two, while an extra day at 50K would probably give him a safety margin.

I expressed this thought and offered to drop the Rockets off Monday afternoon instead, but my concern didn’t seem to register with our coordinator, who explained that by returning to the shelter on Sunday, the Rockets might go on-view Monday… before going off-view again on Tuesday for neutering, then back on-view (hopefully) on Weds. Unless of course Arnie gets rejected for neutering because he loses an ounce, then has to spend a week behind bars by himself. Uhh, sure. Good plan.

So we scrambled into gear, gathered up the Rockets, and shot a few goodbye pix before loading them into the carrier and taking them down to the shelter.

In return we were given a carrier with four little black and white kittens, three of whom were clearly hissy little spitfires. The smallest had a pink nose and would wander to the front of the carrier to say hello while her bigger siblings huddled in the back and growled and looked tough.

When we got home we quickly scrubbed the bunkhouse, then unloaded the new gang, who we’re tentatively calling the Hot-and-Bothereds, or Hobos for short. All four are black and white, but unlike some previous litters (Dominos, Nanos, Naugs) they’re easy to tell apart.

Martha named the littlest one Pinky (for obvious reasons) and the black male Jeter. I named the bigger female Harley because she seems to be the leader of the pack and growls like a big motorcycle. And I named the brother with white facial markings Dice.

All the Hobos seem healthy, though Pinky gave us a brief scare when she seemed to crash an hour or so after arriving. Nutrical revived her, and she’s been eating well since then. We’re bottle-feeding them slurry every four hours, partly because they’re not weaned yet and partly to familiarize them with us. But their nipple-chewing tendencies imply that they’ll be lapping slurry out of a bowl within a day or two. No evidence of vomiting or diarrhea, and Pinky has even delivered two nice poops in the box without our help. So far, so good.

So an otherwise uneventful weekend ended with a bang, and now we have a posse of little Hobos with big attitudes to keep us busy while our old pals Arnie, Caddo and Lois head off to new adventures.

filed by: TS

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