Hyper Furballs

There’s a good reason why I’m not a mom. Apparently I have absolutely no clue about anything remotely maternal in nature. A few days ago I blogged that I thought my stray Coco was pregnant. At least I got that part right, but either I completely missed the fact that she had an extended belly during the few weeks of her gestation period or she had the shortest pregnancy in cat history because look who showed up yesterday with her.

Four cats scattered when the sprinkler system came on yesterday evening. By all indication there are 3 little ones, two completely black and one completely gray. At first I thought, how strange, why does Coco suddenly have an entourage? Then it sank in. These are not her peeps…they’re her babies! And they seem to be around 6 weeks old already. One of the black kittens took off as soon as he saw me. The gray one hid in a patch of succulents to watch me, and the other black one came bouncing down toward me with not a care in the world. I suppose it saw that Coco didn’t fear me and followed her instincts toward me…and food.

My two cats are gray. I have a weakness for gray bags. The walls in my house are various shades of gray. I think I heart the gray baby–I’m trying to not name it so that I won’t get attached. I’m going to try to get a picture of it if today if it’ll let me. S/he didn’t come out till it got dark last night, but it was quite a treat to watch the two little ones roughhousing each other on my patio after they snacked on the food. There’s really nothing cuter than a couple of hyper furballs playing with each other.

So now, what next? I plan on taking them to the shelter because I don’t want 3 kittens to multiply to 10 in my backyard. I should be able to catch the one that’s not scared of me…but what do I do about the gray one? If I want to adopt him/her, I won’t be letting it go back outside. So would it be cruel for Coco to see her baby inside the house and never having contact with it again? Do cats have separation anxiety? Surely I will develop a major case of cat guilt if I see Coco looking in at her baby? I guess I should take Coco to the shelter as well? What if no one adopts Coco…but she’s too long gone at this point to be an indoors cat…am I better off just getting her spayed and then releasing her back to nature? Though she’s awfully cute and should get adopted relatively quickly, right? What to do, what to do…I can’t have 4 cats!

So many questions and so little time. Kittens grow up practically overnight so I know I need to take them in now that they seem to have weaned off Coco already….

Hopefully in the next entry about Coco’s family I will have some better news. Hey, does anyone want a free kitten?

June 9, 2010