Weakened By The Cuteness!

We inturrupt your regularly scheduled blog entries for a Cuteness Alert!

You can't escape it! Just succumb to the cuteness!

Another Terra Update...

So, my parents came over last night for dinner, and we went to get Terra to bring her home. She'd met Luna before, so that wasn't a huge adjustment...

My parents' dog, King, on the other hand, took some getting used to. She first met him in the barn, and she "exploded" at him (as my Dad puts it). Which is to say that she hissed and took a swipe at him. He's the sweetest dog in the world, and just wants to sniff and play...but the poor kitten didn't know that! The way I keep putting it is to "imagine if a dragon was trying to play with you!" Later, when we got home she ended up getting used to him a little and tolerating being sniffed and licked (even though it was making her head wet!).

Luna follows her wherever she goes!

"Ooo...look! Another cat!" Terra likes the mirror. She keeps going behind it to try and meet the "other cat" she sees!

She likes to climb up on people's shoulders. Dad says he used to train his cats to ride up on his shoulder.

I was thankful that she got used to Dad. She took a swipe at him about 5 seconds after she swiped at King in the barn. The theory is because she smelled King's scent on Dad and associated Dad with King and still felt threatened. But by the end of the night, she seemed to tolerate everyone really well.

I'm pretty sure Terra and Luna love each other!

And they like to play together!

Terra Update...

I realized that in my post for Terra, I didn't get to include any pictures of what her siblings looked like (because I didn't take any. I was just so enthralled with Terra). I took pictures yesterday. Here's a picture of one of Terra's siblings. I'm not sure if it's a brother or sister, if it's "Jack" or"Ginger" (as the little girl at the farm has named them)...the other two kittens look really similar, but the grey on this one is darker than the other.


The kittens' favorite hide out is underneath the air compressor in the barn. I'm curious if that's where Stripe had them and so that's where they consider "home".

I was told yesterday that Terra is eating solid cat food and so is ready to go whenever I'm ready! I still need to get cat paraphanelia (food, food dish, toys...my parents are giving me the litter box from when they had cats). I'm hoping to bring her home sometime this week.

Terra

Our friends' half stray, half domesticated barn cat they affectionately call "Stripe" had 3 kittens recently. Last week as we were walking to the truck, our friends' little girl comes running up to me to show me one of the kittens (she knows I like cats). As we were driving away, CJ says "I wouldn't be adverse to taking one of those kittens if they are looking for homes for them". So today I looked at all the kittens and this grey one was my pick.

We've decided to name her "Terra" (as in the latin word for "earth") since our dog's name is "Luna" (latin for "moon"). We figured we'd continue with the latin celestial bodies theme. We are such geeks!We introduced Terra (formerly known as "Doughy") to Luna today as well. No issues. We think Luna was even trying to groom her! The whole reason we have to get a kitten instead of an adult cat is because adult cats have preconceived negative notions of dogs, and will tend to lash out when Luna just wants to play. Then after the unpleasant experience, Luna will growl and bark at this animal that's just scratched her.

But Luna gets along with Terra very well so far since Terra is too young to have developed those dog fears, and too small to act on them if she is scared (the poor thing was shaking like a leaf when I first brought her up to Luna). I think they'll get along fine. The next thing will be to see how my parents' big, but docile Rottweiler, King, will react... and how the kitten will react to King!

She's still nursing though, and is too young to be taken away from her mother, Stripe. So it will be a couple weeks before we can bring her home.