After A Long Time Away: Meeting Sugar

Since I started my facebook page Legends of the Little Furballs I seem to check that more than here but I can't say I update it on any specific timeline either.

So I decided to try and revive my blog...(shall see how that goes)

There was quite a gap between saying goodbye to Tiny and getting my next batch of kittens.

On the 30th of October 2014 I got my first foster for the 2014 to 2015 season.

I got off work to a message from the shelter manager wanting to 'talk'. Usually that means something bad. I was in the hopes that it was something good.

The Shelter Manager took me out the back and pointed to a white cat. She was pregnant but there were conditions as to whether I'd take her on.

Sugar was a beautiful girl. They guessed maybe she was around 2 years old, pure white with gold eyes and NOT DEAF. It was assumed this was her first litter.

Unhappy Sugar

There are always two sides to a coin. The big problem was Sugar hadn't been socialized in whatever home she had come from and she was absolutely terrified of humans. The other two that had come in with her, one was completely wild and the other was beginning to come around.

Sugar was in between. She didn't outright attack but she shook like a leaf and pressed herself in the corner trying to get as far away from people as possible. She flinched whenever a hand was laid on her. Poor baby.

Then I got the bad news.

At this stage Sugar would fail a temperament test. Her life and the kittens lives hung in the balance of one decision. Its always hard to balance life and death especially on the brink of kitten season. One has to weigh up the best outcome for the animal but also follow the written regulations of the shelter.

In summary, Sugar had been in quarantine for her eight days. She would most definitely fail a temperament test at the present.

The Shelter Manager is a beautiful person with a compassionate heart. She brought me in to ask if I'd take Sugar on in hopes that when her kittens arrived there might be a temperament change for the better. Considering I'd have Sugar at least six weeks (preferably eight weeks) it would give Sugar more than enough time to find we aren't such horrible creatures.

This was her chance.

I was more than nervous. I'd never taken home a pregnant cat, majority had all their kittens born before I took them on. Scenarios of emergency cesarean and dead kittens flashed through my mind.

In the end I'm all about giving chances. Sugar had turned up first and she needed me. So home she came (definitely not happily).

Probably the one picture I have where she doesn't look terrified

I set her up in my big cage found a cardboard box and made it into a nice bed. In the box she went and that's where she stayed if anyone was in the room with her.

"I'm watching you" ~ Sugar

I never got any thanks from her. Just hisses and growls. When I persisted with trying to pat her she would flinch like I was hurting her so I mostly fed and watered her and made sure no kittens had popped out.

From how big she'd gotten in the week that she'd been at the shelter they had assumed she was about two  weeks away from giving birth or maybe longer....

So the wait begins....

The doors open, I'm preparing to squish myself in the corner of this box...~Sugar