The Siberian my niece got had to go back to the breeder/owner. He was having a nervous breakdown at their house. Just could not adjust.
They are now getting a Siberian kitten from the breeder. Expected to be born next week and the breeder keep them for 8 weeks. So won’t be until August that they can bring it home.
@emilybee, I hope the kitten works out. If she’s like me, she’ll be impatient to get the new kitty now that she’s made up her mind. I’m sure it was sad to have to send the kitten back.
Our kitten wasn’t allowed to leave the breeder until at least 12 weeks, and the one we got 10 years ago was the same. 8 weeks seems early.
Might be ten weeks. Just now it won’t be until sometime in August.,
The one they returned wasn’t a kitten. It was 4 years old and was having problem with his cat dad, so breeder needed to rehire him. They only had him for a few weeks but it just wasn’t adjusting at all. Wouldn’t use its litter box and wouldn’t let them touch him at all. It took 3 days just to get him in the cat carrier successfully and that was with cat on anti anxiety med!
When they brought him back, he sauntered out of the crate and jumped onto the top of the living room sofa and was happy as a clam to be back in his own home.
Their 6 year old wasn’t even disappointed because it’s not fun having a cat who won’t let you go near him, let alone pet him. He is very excited to be getting a kitten.
Several times tonight I thought I heard my sweet Juliet’s collar bell coming up the stairs. Then I remembered…
Love hearing kitten stories. D1 and her DH have adopted some adorable kittens after losing their two cats within weeks of each other with surprise cancers. The babies are two little boy siblings who are inseparable. The photos and videos are just too much, these beautiful kittens exploring, playing, wrestling, and snuggling. They wrap their arms around each other when they sleep. I just can’t…
My son who will be starting vet school in the fall got a kitten yesterday. He has been wanting one for a couple of years but was waiting until he had an apartment (he moves in August 1). The apartment does allow pets and his roommate already paid a pet deposit since he has a dog (that likes cats).
The kitten is only 5 weeks old at the moment (a pretty little gray and white boy). The litter of 3 kittens was abandoned by the mother (or she was killed). A lady found the kittens and watched to see if the mom came back. When a raccoon tried to get them she brought them to the vet where my son works this summer.
They ran tests and the kittens are healthy. My son fell in love with Athens (the gray kitten). The other two are black. He is going to keep it at the veterinary hospital where he works until he leaves in late July. He will care for it there and on the weekends.
Now he has a very long drive to get from West Virginia back to Kansas (will stay in a hotel one night). Anyone have any tips or pointers about long car rides with a 12 week old kitten?
I think this afternoon is the end of the line for our oldest cat. She’s a 16 1/2 year old Tortie who I adopted from a former co-worker 10 1/2 years ago when the woman was marrying a man who didn’t like animals. This cat is a mean old girl- loves my husband and me and absolutely won’t tolerate anyone else. She’s had a good life. We’ve spent a fortune on insulin for her- twice a day shots. She has bad arthritis and just this week she has faded away. She’s a bag of bones and barely moving. I think it’s time. We’re sad, but sometimes you know… We’ll see what the vet says, but we are prepared. She isn’t eating hardly at all- still drinking water, though. We have 3 more cats and 2 Golden Retrievers.
@MomofWildChild, so sorry to hear. My vet told me it would be “time” when my cat either quit eating or started rejecting the litter box.
In the end, it was her extremely high respiratory rate and sudden refusal to go upstairs to her litter box that got me to take her in finally. Chest x-ray showed severe metastatic lung cancer, so I guess it was actually past time.
And wow, you have a menagerie!
@MomofWildChild, sounds like you know it’s the right time. Never easy, but humane to let them not go on suffering.
@momocarly, my advice would be prepared for some kitty screaming. I’ve only been in the car with my kitten for three trips, all shorter than an hour, but she lets me know how unhappy she is. I don’t know if he could do a couple of rides with her before then, but it would be good to try if he can.
He should have a crate for sure, and he may even want to consider a leash and harness if he’s going to have to stop with her. (May be overkill, but don’t want the kitten to get stuck behind some immovable object when he’s got to be on the road).
@MomofWildChild you are doing the right thing. Hugs. 
Done. She had lost 2 pounds since January - 9 down to 7. At one point she weighed 13 pounds. The vet thought she was probably in kidney failure and there were some things we could do (IV fluids, tests etc) but it would probably only get her a few days. We said no to that and the vet agreed completely. She was enough of her old self to growl at the vet and the tech, but she gave up pretty fast. We will miss her, but I know it was the right thing.
Remaining cats are 15, 12 and 6- all Ragdolls.
So sorry @MomofWildChild .
@momocarly - I was just about to google that very thing. I have been fostering kittens and my daughter is adopting one. She is 10 weeks old and cries in the car. I just took her for a final booster shot and listened to it for 30 minutes. Tomorrow they will go almost 3 hours. I’ll let you know if they are successful. I do plan to play very hard with her before they leave tomorrow. Hopefully she won’t cry as long before she collapses due to exhaustion.
@momofcarly,
Try putting a light weight blanket/sheet over the top cat carrier. That would stop my cat from crying when I was schlepping her 24 hours in car to get from home to college and vice versa.
Very sad loss MOWC.
So sorry, MOW .
My S got a kitty a couple months ago. We helped raise her when she was really young & couldn’t be around his older cat. She is awesome, but I have never had a cat who had such a predatory streak. And she wants to play all.the.tome. Seriously not like any of the many cats I have had in my lifetime. She attacks his cat, so we thought about taking her. But she clearly needs to be with other cats & she is most likely a mouser. Her parents were barn cats. So regretfully, S returned her to the coworker from whence she came. She will join some of her siblings on the farm. H is so bummed. She adored him, and he adored her. But an outside cat won’t work for us, and she is too wild for us to keep inside. She will be much happier where she now lives. It’s hard, though!
@kelsmom, so sorry it didn’t work out. Sounds like your son made the right decision though.
My kitten playfully “attacks” my older cat, but we are expecting her to grow out of this habit. She’s already calming down compared to a couple of weeks ago.
Sad update. The kitten my son got passed away over the weekend. The vet feels he may have had congenital issues that led to the mom abandoning the kitten and the kitten eventually passing away. My S worked so hard with that kitten, getting up many times through the night and giving it medicine, keeping it warm, trying to get its sugar levels up, etc. It just could never get its strength back after it had a hypoglycemic/hypothermic event (not due to lack of care or being kept too cold). My son is very sad. He couldn’t even tell me for a few days because he was so upset.
He does want to get another kitten and would like to get it before school starts so he has time to bond with it before classes begin and so his vet can run all the tests to make sure the kitten is healthy (free while he works there). His gf is looking online at all the rescues and shelters near the WVA town he is in for a female kitten for him. The sad part is they may not approve him to adopt because he isn’t in his permanent location and lives in another state. He is living with a vet so I don’t think the kitten could be in better hands but rescues can be picky. Cross your fingers he can find the right kitten for him.
Hugs to your son @momocarly. So sad. 
That is so sad @momocarly.
Hopefully your son can get a healthy kitten soon.
Oh, how very sad. My condolences to your S. The little critters grow on us quickly.
Fellow cat lovers, I would like to ask y’all for advice.
The elegant tabby in my avatar is quite an elderly lady, 15 this summer. Her dominant litter mate passed away a few years ago, and it was a blessing in disguise because with every new kid in the house, they got along worse. In the end, they were fighting so badly that we barely saw her.
Now that she’s a single cat she is clearly much happier and has turned into the sweetest of companions for all the kids. We’ve recently moved into a much bigger house and she’s tolerated the move well, but lost her interest in the outdoors somewhat.
Now that in theory, we do have the space and with Covid restrictions, a lot more time at home, the kids are lobbying hard for at least one new kitten to join her, probably hoping we’ll never be “catless” (yeah, I know, it doesn’t work like that…).
An experienced pet person told me to get a kitten of the opposite sex. A lady at the shelter told me to avoid pairing a kitten with an elderly cat, because it too often leads to the kitty having to go back to the shelter because the elderly cat can’t handle the stress. Her solution? Either get an adult cat or get two kittens, they’ll keep each other busy!
Not sure what to do. You can imagine which solutions the kids have fixed on. Apart from the problem of having to find space for and clean out three litter boxes, what would be the best solution for smooth sailing, do you think?