Meet our new kittens--Day 1 through 3

We lost one of our cats on April 1. We had her for 18 years. For the past couple of months we've been looking for a new cat. We attended several of the local organizations and shelters to look for the perfect one, but none jumped out at us. My husband was specifically looking for a calico cat.

My sister had a litter of kittens and we found one we liked. It was a calico, just like my husband wanted. Unfortunately most of the litter died from a cold.

My sister worked hard to save the litter, even taking one to the vet to see what problem they had. The vet prescribed medication, but it didn't work. She had a litter of six and ended up with one still alive. It wasn't the one we wanted so we went looking in other locations.

Tuesday we went to the local Animal Shelter in Martinez, CA to look. I was really set on getting a kitten because I was hoping to find a cat that didn't have a lot of history and maybe bad memories. 

We searched through dozens of kittens and cats and found two we just adored. They were in the same cage at the animal shelter.

One was a male and one a female. They were both three months old, but they were not from the same litter. The male is a week older than the female.

The female is a striped, grey and black, tabby. The male, although listed as a tabby, is actually an American Shorthaired. His body is filled with the swirling markings of the breed. Who knows their may be another breed in there as well, but he definitely is strongly American Shorthaired.

We had to wait until Thursday to pick them up, which was nice because that was my husband's birthday. They needed to have their surgeries and a wellness check up before we could take them home.

We have a 9 year old male Siamese mix at home already. Eevee (my son at 7 years old named him after a Pokemon character) hasn't taken well to the new additions yet.

We put the kittens into our bedroom with the master bath closed off at first. It has a tile floor in case of accidents.

The paperwork all said that they would be quiet and probably groggy on the first days home because they had their spay and neutering done.

Not these two. They were so excited to be out of those cages they were running all over the place and playing with the toys we got for them. We spent quite a bit of time with they. They were also both very hungry and ate up a storm.

They barely settled down the whole day.

Day 2

The second day was a little quieter. At least in the early part of the day. They quickly learned their way out of the bathroom and moved into our bedroom. They played under the bed, chasing each other about. Finally they settled in for the morning and most of the afternoon.

At one point in the day we put them back in the bathroom behind the kid gate and brought the older cat into see them. They were curious. Eevee didn't like them. He growled and hung out by the door. At one point the little girl went in to use the box. Eevee became curious by the sound, but only got close enough to go see what was happening. He quickly moved back by the door.

Finally, after his continued hissing, we just let him back out. The whole thing probably only lasted five minutes or so. We did this again later in the day, still Eevee didn't take to them.

After Eevee went to bed with out son, we let the kittens come out of bedroom by opening the door to the rest of the house. They explored a little but eventually made their way back into the bedroom on their own.

Day 3.

We are quickly learning that these little ones enjoy waking at 6:30 a.m. Too bad it is Saturday morning.

I made sure they had some dry food and water and then went back to sleep. By the time I woke up a few hours later they were sound asleep, but once I was up and moving around they followed. When I feed them the canned food, they acted like they hadn't eaten in a week, even though I heard them crunching dry food earlier.

While they love playing together they are getting more social with us. The little girl is a wildcat. She's not going to be shy. The little boy gives as good as he gets, but he's a little more patient and just waits for her to come to him. She's more into chasing him. He is quick to come see us, while she still watches from under the bed, until he comes out to make the first move.

Once they are up and in our arms they purr away. She much louder then him. Very cute.

We did the introductions with the older cat again this afternoon which didn't go well again. Eevee hissed and growled and stayed at the door. We'll have to try again later.

Now they are back to sleeping the afternoon away under the bed.

Tonight is July 3, our city is having our annual cityhood celebration. There will be fireworks and I'm sure, since tomorrow is Independence Day, we'll have our share of kids, and adults, around the neighborhood with illegal fireworks and firecrackers. Who knows how the two will handle those. Even our older cat doesn't handle them well.

By the way, it took a while to name them but we've finally settled on Katy Purry, for the female, named for pop star Katy Perry and Del Rio (although the Del part might change) for the male, named for the Spanish name for "of the river" to correspond with the swirls on his back.