A brief history of our foster cats: Part 3

We were fosterless for maybe a month or so, and things got back to normal for our girls. My husband and I took our planned summer vacation. While away, I received a voicemail from the shelter's foster coordinator that four kittens, around four weeks old, found under someone's porch, needed to be fostered.

I was so excited to have kittens again. To be able to take kittens that are so young and give them a chance and show them human love, attention and socialization gives me hope that they have a better chance to become wonderful domesticated cats instead of wary ferral cats.

I picked them up on a Sat., in the early afternoon. All four clearly had an upper respiratory infection. Sneezing, eye goo, etc.

I took them home and spent some time with them. Within two hours, however, I noticed that the runt was a bit lethargic, and even more worrisome, was breathing through her mouth. I called the shelter and was told that they seemed fine that morning and it probably just had to run its course. I insisted that if they were open on Sundays, I might be convinced to wait it out, but since they are not, I really wasn't comfortable taking the chance. She agreed to let me bring the runt in to get checked out by their vet. And sure enough, they put her on an antibiotic, Clavamox, one of apparently just a handful of antibiotics safe enough for kittens that young. And as long as I had the Clavamox, I might as well dose the other three, too.

After a few days the sneezing, wheezing and watery eyes subsided. I hadn't been touching them much, trying to keep the germs from getting on my clothes and transferring to my cats, but as they got better, I started handling them more, and gave them baths to clean them up. That's when I noticed some "flea dirt," spots of blood in the wet fur...and on closer inspection, yes, a few fleas.

Again, panic set in, thinking my girls would get fleas now, too. Lots of internet searches revealed that virtually no flea product is recommended as safe for four-week-old kittens. What to do? I thought maybe giving them baths, and holding the kittens' bodies under water long enough to drown some of the fleas might help. It helped, but it seemed that many of the fleas could survive under water long enough to find their way to the kittens necks and heads, thus evading my efforts.

I also tried getting cat and kitten flea spray. The directions confused me...it is made to be sprayed directly on cats and kittens (albeit kittens that are older than these four), but the directions explicitly say that felines should not ingest it. I was highly confused by that. Cats bathe themselves by licking, so how are you supposed to keep them from ingesting it? I never found the answer to that question, but I wasn't intending to spray it directly on the cats, anyway. Instead, I figured that if it could be used directly on kittens over eight weeks old, then perhaps I'd be safe spraying it on the carpet around their cage to inhibit the growth of the eggs and larvae, preventing them from becoming adult fleas. I don't know if this is an approved usage for the spray, but it seemed to have worked.

But the kittens themselves still had fleas. The shelter suggested we just try removing the fleas with a flea comb. It was so simple. Of course! So, I invested in a flea comb, and one-by-one, I took the kittens into the bathroom, filled the sink with the hottest tap water possible (do NOT put the kittens in the hot water) and as I combed the kittens, the fleas grabbed onto the flea comb and I dunked them into the hot water to drown them. I've read other online accounts that soapy water works, too.

Several days of combing them twice a day, and I felt confident that we had gotten all the fleas off.

After that, they were pretty easy. We renamed them: Nea, Josie, Schmutz and Nibbler. They were wonderful kittens, playful and cuddly-sweet. So much so, that we started to discuss the possibility of making two of them a permanent part of the family. We were so in love with all four, but I couldn't resist the runt, Nea, and her play buddy of choice was Josie, the beautiful brown tabby, so that was my bittersweet selection.

Again, saying goodbye was the difficult part. We took all four in, since they all had to be spayed before we could officially adopt our two. When we went to pick our two up, the other two were on display in the lobby cages, and we got to spend some time with them. I cried, right there in the lobby. They had been such a wonderful part of our lives for four weeks, and I was feeling guilt at choosing between them, as if having to choose between my own children.

I just hoped that they would be adopted soon. And together, if possible. They were not adopted together, but they were both gone within a week, and hoped that that was a very good sign.