We're still alright

So I haven't been writing in here regularly. And it's not because things haven't been going well, or I am not still insanely proud of Freya. Life has been busy for the past few months, and I haven't been able to take pictures or post in here. Last fall, I went back to University to finish up my Biochem Degree. And I was able to do so, while working full time, and Freya was a great comfort to me. In fact, Freya is so awesome that my roommate was convinced that she should get a kitten as well. This introduced Eris, another tabby into the house.

Eris is a wonderful little kitten. She is incredibly blonde, and klutzy. And all at once took the place of daughter and little sister for Freya. They have a wonderful relationship, and play with each other often (and by often, I mean often in the middle of the night, all around the house!) They took a couple of days to get used to each other, and since then Eris has been the brat of a kitten that Freya, and myself, can't help but to love.

Other than the new kitten Freya was fixed back in November, and caught an eye infection from Eris that took a couple of weeks to clear up. But she was very tolerant about taking her medicine. She didn't like it, but she didn't scratch me or attack me because of it either. And she had fleas for a little while, but that's taken care of, and frontline every month is going well.

And of course Freya continues to be very empathic, and snuggles up with people who need good snuggling. She talks with people whenever she's in the kitchen. She was cat-sat by a friend for a few days, and was a perfect house-guest.

So, in short, everything is going well. I'm rather busy, but my kitten is still awesome. I'll try to get  more pictures up soon.

Kitten Play Date

Sorry for the delay. I have had a busy few days. But I once again have an update. Something unique and fun.

Background for this post. I adopted Freya as one of 4 kittens in her litter. One of the other three kittens was adopted by a friend of mine. She knows that with her schedule and life, her kitten will have to get used to the idea of traveling. So, she and I decided that having kitten play dates would be a fun way to give our kittens some time playing with another kitten that is of the same age and would get her kitten more used to the idea of traveling.

So meet Sevilla! She was the runt of the litter. And was only slightly less energetic than Freya. She visited Freya on Tuesday.

Freya and Sevi met each other and were wary at first. Sevi's tail poofed, and Freya examined this interloper. And then they began playing and romping. At first Freya was significantly taking advantage of Sevi, following her and pouncing her. But as the day went on, Sevi was pouncing on Freya at least as frequently. I had to give Freya a talking to when she was playing a bit too rough for my liking, but after that, the two of them played very nicely, and there was a minimum of growling or yowling.

The kittens decided to snuggle up with us as we were sitting down at the dining room table after dinner. Then when we stood up, they started playing again.

And they were even polite enough to eat their own kibble from their own half of the dish. Of course immediately following this, they were at it again. romping and tumbling from the hanging ball tree. Up until the point . . . .

 Where Sevi fell asleep while sitting on the upper tier of the tree. Ready to pounce from above at a moments notice!

And Freya was sleeping on the ground with her claws dug into her favorite toy. Yes, she was sleeping on her toy being very protective of it.

And it is hard to see in this picture but that is Sevi's face peaking out from under the box spring of my bed, and that is Freya's body in the background. They were playing hide and seek from us. And getting along without needing to romp the entire time.

In fact, in the morning they were snuggling together and even giving each other little kitten baths. They were too cute and adorable. I am sorry to say that I don't have any more pictures of videos. Especially of them playing. But for a first Kitten Play date, it was a purring success. If my friend sends me any of the pictures or videos that she took, I will be sure to upload them as well.

But the next time I visit her with a car, I plan on taking Freya up with me to return the favor. And of course, I will try to take more pictures and videos. But I am definitely noticing that Freya is getting bigger. I will need to start taking reference pictures for her size. I also need to stop by the Vet's to get her first round of shots and such. Bleh. Oh well.

Still very proud of my little lady. She is awesome.

-ProudPapa

Chicken is Delicious!!

Well, the first attempt at raw food seems to have gone over rather well. I started off with Chicken.

 Specifically Chicken leg quarters which were a mere $0.39/lb

 Yes, I got the big back with 4 quarters. It seemed to make the most sense. I can always freeze anything that I'm not going to use or eat myself.

But I did take one quarter out and I started by cutting up some of the fat and rich meaty parts around the vertebrae, I was not worried about the bones because they are smaller and haven't been cooked. The bones become brittle when cooked, before then, they are somewhat flexible (kinda like your bones bend a little before they break).

 I cut it up pretty fine. Which was probably over kill, but I wanted it about as small as the kibble she was used to eating was. You can see that I didn't put a whole lot down. Actually, when I was cutting up the rest of the thigh, I cut off a little bit more of the pinker meat and put that on the plate as well.

I set the plate down, and called Freya over. And she knew exactly what to do. Om nom the goodness.

 Much like many kittens (and children up to a certain age), she did not eat all of her food at once. She is still very small after all. But you can see that she made a good start.

  And shortly after I put my chicken in the toaster over to cook it to a human safe internal temperature of 160 degrees. Freya had finished all of her chicken.

 In fact, the little bugger decided to cuddle up to me and sit on the couch while I waited for my food to cook. A very happy and contented little cat indeed.

And thus ends the first attempt at raw food for Freya. I think she enjoyed it. and we shall see how she feels over the next few hours. I am leaving the kibble down for her to graze on as she needs to eat more. But I have extra chicken in the fridge for her in the morning. :-)

Oh, and I did cheat a little bit and gave Freya a little bit of Bacon the other day. Cooked chewy and cut small.

Her name is . . . Valfreyja

So, it took us a little while, and a couple of test names, but we reached back into mythos and antiquity, and decided that the kitten's name will be Valfreyja. Or Freya for short. Yes, I did name my pet after the Norse Vanir Goddess associated with Love, Beauty, Fertility, War and Death.

But can't you see how I could be inspired to name he such?

She's been rather adventurous lately. And is surprising me a lot. When she first got home she absolutely hated the stairs. Didn't like me carrying her up or down the stairs. She would even go so far as to romp up to within six inches of the stairs, rear up and run away when she saw me walking up the stairs. Now, she will romp up and down the stairs to find me if I am on a different floor than she is. It took a little bit of training with and ball on a string toy, but she is much more confident.

The surprising thing, that I was not expecting, is that she does not like canned food. She prefers the kibble. I was working this weekend and didn't have much free time, so I wasn't able to start on a raw food diet. But I think tonight I am going to cut up some chicken into small kitten sized bite sized portions for her to gnaw on.

Oh, and she uses the litter box exclusively. She doesn't leave me any surprises around my room. And I respectfully scoop the litter box almost daily.

She was described as the most rambunctious and wild and rammy of all the kittens in her litter, and I am finding that she is full of energy, but also loves to snuggle. Especially when I'm reading a book in bed. She curls up next to me and purrs away. Sometimes she will curl up on my chest if she wants to be petted more while I'm reading.

Impossible, I tell you.  :-)

That's all for today. I'll try to post the results of the raw chicken either tonight or tomorrow.

-Proud Papa

The new kitten is settling in. I picked her up last night along with her hanging ball tree which she absolutely  loves. She had a pretty good night. Slept from about 10:30 until 3 AM, at which point she happily started romping around my room. She seems to like my bedroom most in the house right now. It has just the right amount of clutter and open space for her to hide and romp. The rest of the house is rather spartan and open, so she doesn't really like the large open spaces yet. The home that I adopted  her from had lots of clutter and stuff to run around, hide under, etc. I think she will be fine.

I was a bit worried about myself. This is my first pet of my own, and I went through the fairly typical thoughts, "What the hell do I think I'm doing? Do I really think I can care for another living creature? Is this really a good idea? I guess it's too late now, here goes!" I got some advice from a friend last night before I went to pick up the kitten.

First and foremost, I get out of it what I put into it. And there will be an abundance of emotion and there will be a lot of new emotions as well. Some of them might be "NOT THE COUCH!" But it will be good and emotionally building and maturing.

Next, I do not own the cat. She is her own creature, and she knows it. She does not own me, but good luck trying to convince her of that. It's going to be more of a partnership than anything else. We will give and receive from each other. And going back to the first point, I will get from it what I put into it. But I shouldn't be discouraged by things that I expect "my cat" to do, that she doesn't, or vice versa.

By the time I picked up the kitten and took her home with me. I had a fairly good idea that I was in way over my head, but it would be alright. and now, we are working on training each other. :-)

Intro to Tabby Kitteh!

Hello! This is my Tabby Cat. She was born April 6th. She doesn't have a name yet. But that's okay. She will be named soon enough. Sometime in the next week or two. Maybe. . . . .

One of my friends once said that people who get pets instead of having children look at their pets as children. She also mentioned that I was having a "Proud Papa" moment when I was talking about her. My answer to that is thus: Hell yeah! I will probably spoil my new kitten. Lots of treats and toys and attention. Heck, I'm already planning on kitteh play-dates with a friend who is adopting another kitten from the same litter. But on top of that, I want to take good care of my new kitten. I was talking with some coworkers of mine about commercial pet food, and about how I wanted to take care of my kitten as best as I can, as any new pet owner would, I imagine. I was referred to an article that was kinda disturbing.

Pet Food "Ingredients"

This led me to considering a Raw Food Diet. The basic idea of a raw food diet (from what I understand, I am in NO WAY an expert) is that you should feed an animal approximately what they would eat in the wild. Now, I'm not going to release mice for my knucklehead to chase and eat. But the idea of cutting up raw meat, sinew, tender bones, and organ meat for my kitten is a possibility.

I'm not going to say that I am going to go completely raw food, or that I think everyone should. But, being the Proud Papa that I am, I am going to supplement the commercial Kitten and Cat food with Raw food. I started looking at food today in the grocery store, and found that Cat food is DISGUSTING! and Expensive! and quarters of raw chicken are $0.39/lb, while canned food and kibble ranges from $1.30 to topping over $4.00 a lb. And I can't eat "Cat food!"

*sigh* Well, in any case, I am going to be a Proud Papa and as often as I can, and remember, I will post updates of the Kitteh, and how the hybrid raw food diet seems to work out.

Kitteh arrives in 2 days . . . . .

With much happiness,
Proud Papa