Starfish

There was once a wise old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. One day as he walked along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man, and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead was reaching down to the shore, picking up starfish, and very gently throwing them into the ocean.

“Good morning! What are you doing?” asked the wise man.

 

The young man paused, looked up, and replied, “Throwing starfish into the ocean.  The sun is rising, and the tide is out. And if I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that there are miles of beach and thousands of starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man, listening politely, bent down and picked up another starfish, throwing it into the sea past the breaking waves. Turning to the old man, he modestly replied,

“It made a difference for that one.”

 

Doing rescue is like this.  You do what you can with the time and resources that you have.  I'm coming up to the part of kitten season that I hate the most.  The part where I have to say "no".  The part where someone asks if we can help take in precious babies and we say sorry, we don't have any room.  Luckily, today wasn't that day.  But I'm at the point where I just got a round of cats adopted and the next round won't be ready for a couple of weeks.  While I'll enjoy playing with all my kittens, it is going to be really hard to start turning new ones away.

 

Today I went to the shelter to pick up paperwork and boy were they glad to see me.  I must have had "sucker" written all over my face.  Someone had brought in a pair of 4-week-old babies and they didn't want to keep them at the shelter because they'd need intense care and they were worried they'd get sick.  So I have them now, or rather Venice has two more babies!  Luckily she's a good mama and accepted them right away.  I showed her the babies, she sniffed them and then licked them and then laid down to offer to nurse them.  I haven't seen them actually nursing yet, but they've been sleeping in the bed with all the other babies, so I'm going to keep a close eye on them and hopefully they're taking advantage of her.  They're close to being able to eat solid food, so I'll supplement if they look like they need it.  I also made sure to have them tested before adding them to the existing litter.  There are still health risks to mixing litters, but in most cases the benefits of having these guys raised by a feline mother outweigh the risks.

 

Since they're being raised with Venice's litter, I gave them Italian names to go with the theme, so I proudly introduce Sicily and Palermo!  Sicily is the grey tabby female and her brother is Palermo, the orange tabby.  I wish I could get a picture of how swollen their gums are with teeth that are about to come through.

They're so round and soft!  Their tails look like little hamster tails at this point, hard to believe they'll get to be long, sleek things!

I'm going to have to give them a bigger bed!  The kittens all fit just fine, but there's not enough room for mama and the kittens!  This picture shows off Palermo's beautiful classic tabby bull's eye markings.  I just love classic tabbies!  I'd say that these guys are about a half week younger than the others, but they're bigger!  Venice is a very petite girl, so I'm assuming that's why her kittens are smaller.

 

I may not be able to say yes tomorrow, but at least I could say yes today!  I made a difference for two kittens today!