Spoiler Alert: for cat lovers

Sometimes the unexpected happens that you’re not sure it is meant for you. That was the case for John and I when we found ourselves with two more cats. Kittens actually. Very young ones.

When you visit Italy, you’ll find big cities and little villages and all in between with town cats. Many cats are domesticated, living with a family, but wandering the streets and countryside are feral to semi-tame cats, in abundance.

Italians love cats so much that there are laws to protect feral cat colonies. Cats can freely roam wherever they want – even in famous historic landmarks. Anyone who harms a cat in Italy can be charged with a crime. Cats can also live wherever they like – and must be fed. They cannot be relocated. Local Italian authorities are responsible for neutering local street cat colonies. Reference

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone is a cat lover here in Italy or even an animal lover. You will find, just as in other countries and even the USA, that animals that have been domesticated don’t necessarily be treated with kindness or consideration. But thankfully, there are laws in place, veterinarians and animal refugios worked to make a difference, and public awareness for animal rights is becoming more widespread.

You may know that we have two adult inside cats; Pierre & Sofie. Two were plenty for us and they have enjoyed having our house as their domain. Little did we know that this would all change for all of us in May of this past spring. There was a knocking on our front door, one day, by our neighbor, Federica, calling out that there were two gattini (kittens) outside on the street! Rushing out, I found two tiny babies on the doorstep just down from our house. Barely eyes opened, frightened, cold, hungry and momma not in sight. We knew that a local stray momma, that we had been feeding, had babies, but a wandering dog had attacked the babies and her. She had been hurting but healing but the babies missing, presumed dead. A very sad situation. But it turned out that two babies of the four had survived as she had moved them to a new location under a house down the street. To make the whole situation even worse, their crying at this location was heard by the homeowner, he removed the kittens from under his house and placed on his front door step. Still no momma arriving. (Sad side note about their momma – she was seriously injured by a roaming dog and had to be euthanized.) So, we brought the kittens into our home, had our local town vet, Dr. Silva, help us get them started on bottle feeding and they stole our hearts completely. We can’t thank Dr. Silva enough for her selfless care of our kittens in those early days. She is a part of a clinic about 30 minutes from our house and would stop in before, after work or on her days off. It really got the boys on a healthy path from day one with us. Addition to our family ; Max and Oscar.

As they were about 3 weeks old, the time and care involved making certain that they survived and grew to be healthy cats, took a lot of our day, but so worth every minute. We had to make sure that they were warm, bottle fed, loved as well as contained when not under our watchful eyes. When they first came to our house, we contained them in our shower with a heater set outside of it. Inside their bed, we had heated rice-filled socks to give them extra warmth and to be a substitute for their momma. In a few days we were able to move them to this playpen that we purchased online from Amazon. We moved them upstairs nearer to us with the heater, which eventually wasn’t needed. Inside the pen was a fuzzy bed, small litter box (which they figured out immediately when in the shower), a few toys and a bowl of water. When it was time to bottle feed them, we would let them roam and play in a small area that we supervised. But in the meantime, this playpen was a lifesaver for us all up until they outgrew it around 8 weeks old.

The kittens progressed well and we headed them off to our wonderful vet at Clinica Veterinaria Dell’adriatico, Dr. Monica Besca, for their deworming and eventually a round of vaccinations. This clinic along with Dr. Monica, Dr. Marco and others have been seeing all our pets for the last 6 years or so. Not only are they highly skilled professionals with an amazing relationship with all the animals they care for, but are well loved and respected. They are a Godsent.

As the summer went by, the kittens enjoyed lots of exercise throughout our house, got to meet up with our two adult cats, and grew into adorable lovebugs. We became their mom and dad at the start and to this day, they seek us out for love and comfort, warmth and of course food. Were we stressed at all raising 2 kittens from 3 weeks old? Absolutely! This being our first time as kitten parents was a bit daunting but with help from friends, our vets, Google and just instinct from having animals our entire adult lives, we were able to bring these two scared and hungry babies along to 6 months now. Whew!

Even though we keep our cats inside, we do offer them a large cage (catio) on our terrace. The adult cats have enjoyed that outside space when weather permitting. We hope to introduce the kittens to a new catio that John is building outside our kitchen door from the original catio that he dismantled from our terrace. (We have other plans for our terrace, such as to use by humans only.) I will keep you posted at a later date as this project is completed.

At this point the kittens had turned 6 months the beginning of November, so off they went to be neutered. Oscar’s procedure went off (literally) without a hitch. Max only had one visible testicle, so a small exploratory incision had to be made. The second one was not evident so we will watch his behavior of the next few months to see if there is an indication of that missing one. If so, he will return to have it removed. Now, Max is the instigator of the two kittens, with a hellbent disposition. He had to wear this custom made (by me) t-shirt so he wouldn’t lick his incision. We called him ‘Rambo’ for the week. Thankfully, it is off now and all is well. (You will notice Sofie babysitting in the lower image of Max.)

So how are Pierre and Sofie adjusting to the kittens. At this point in time, Pierre isn’t hissing as much and is actually sleeping nearby the boys at night on our bed. Sofie has adopted them and loves to be in their company playing or sleeping. It can get crazy at times having four cats in our townhouse, but everyone gets plenty of exercise and downtime when they need it. John and I adore these new boys, immediately capturing our hearts. They are our unexpected gift. We are so very thankful.