Kittens 4, Humans 1

My very funny nephew has a very funny t-shirt that features an adorable kitten on the chest, with the caption:

KITTEN DREAMS OF MURDER ALL DAY

Where I always thought it was funny/weird, it never made much sense. Why, kittens are cuddly, sweet, precious little beings! Or so I thought until now.

Every summer, it seems, I respond to emergencies and find myself fostering and adopting out a passel of new cuties. Some efforts have gone super smoothly, but most have had major complications. Last summer, it was the heartbreak of two deaths from “kitten fade.” The summer before, the wiley babies eluded my traps so successfully I had to make umpteen trips to the harbor to catch them all piecemeal.

This summer, I was alerted to a quartet of babies living under a shed in the equipment yard of produce growers. I was enchanted by their sweet, big-eyed adorableness, and estimated they were only about 4-5 weeks old.

It only took a few tries to get mama and four babies; these same two were the last to be trapped.

But I learned right away that these two were… it must be said… evil monsters. Don’t be deceived by their big-eyed adorableness! They are a two-kitten wrecking crew.

I am not kidding about this. On day one, they leapt up to an impossibly high shelf in the half-bath where they were confined. It knocked down a very heavy conch shell, which landed on the top of the toilet, shattering the lid. Kittens 1, humans 0.

I moved them quickly to my walk-in closet… where they immediately used their claws to climb up my hanging clothes so they could reach the high shelf reserved for Crap I Never Wear, destroying a few nice items in the process. (Kittens 2, humans 0.) Getting them down from there was life-threatening; rose-pruning gloves were used. And all clothes were relocated.

In the following weeks, the other two kittens – the nonmonsters – learned quickly to not only enjoy the free lunch I put out for them several times a day, but the touch of my hand. They were adopted recently and are purring up a storm in new homes. But these two destructo-kittens – spotted tabby boy is Sage, Russian Blue girl is Zinnia – are going to take more time. Maybe much more.

I moved them to the guest bathroom and set up an elaborate folding gate situation that is about seven feet tall. Even so, Sage figured out how to scale it. God knows how long he was up there before I discovered him. He’d lost his nerve and I had to push a table below for him to jump down in stages. (Kittens 3, humans 0.)

Thankfully the experience scared him enough that now they don’t try to escape that way. And I can keep them confined in an area where I can reach them at any time – which is what needs to be done to socialize feral kittens. Not that it does a whole lot of good! Where I can now sneak up on them while they’re relaxing, the second they wake up, it’s a chorus of hard-eyes-and-hisses, as if I’m the monster and not them. (Kittens 4, humans 0.)

Adhering to the time-tested rule of socializing, I began giving them just a little food, several times a day – really, almost hourly – so they would have to deal with me, and maybe even look forward to seeing me, even if it was the way prisoners look forward to seeing the meal cart creaking down the hall.

It’s been about a week of this and there have been times when I’ve nearly been in tears at their lack of progress. I’ve looked them squarely in their angry eyes and told them, “you will not win this. I have never released a KITTEN to the wild, and this is not going to be the first time.” And still I wondered if I have the skills required to turn them.

And then…

Today I found them sleeping under the sink, in their preferred hiding place. I talked to them soothingly, and to my surprise they did not rear back or hiss, but looked at me with – god help me – soft, sweet eyes. And I touched them gently. And they didn’t freak out. And with that, I melted. Kittens 4, humans 1.

Hey. it’s a start!

And okay, they’re not monsters – just at the mercy of their DNA, which probably goes back generations of ferals. And I will win them over, make them purr, and want to sit on my lap. And then I’ll tell them goodbye when someone wonderful adopts them. Because it’s what’s right for them. And because it’s what I do. Thanks, St. Francis, for the reminder.