During quarantine, I used to jog in the car park. One day, I saw an injured kitten there but it was scared of me and ran away. I read street cats live up to 4-5 years while pet cats can live up to 14-15 years. That's why on September, when I saw a kitten behind the apartment's door, decided to rescue her but only managed to look after her for 10 days. She was black, skinny, and around 12 weeks old. Me and my friend decided to call her "Alfred Wallace" even though we knew it's a female kitten. I learnt some lessons from her as listed below:
1) How to give a kitten a bath?
When I brought Alfred inside the house, I first gave her a shower. She didn't like it and tried to run away but could manage to hold her until shower was done and dried her with a towel as best I could. Then left her alone on the couch as she licked herself dry.
Later I realized I should leave her alone from the beginning with some food and water, shower could be second step.
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| after first shower |
2) Identifying the kitten's sex
When I was thinking about a name, I was wonder how can I identify its sex. Based on my finding in Google, guessing the kitten's sex is a bit tricky especially for male kittens due to their undeveloped testicles. For identifying the kitten's sex, you need to look under their tails. So you need to be able to raise their tails gently and look at the distance between their anus and urinary organs. If the 2 organs are close to each other means the kitten is female but if they are far from each other, means it's a male kitten.
3) Cleaning kitten's ear
Her ears were very dirty. I cleaned her ears with cotton buds and baby wipes as best I could.
4) Litter box
Actually according to our apartment rental rules, I'm not allowed to keep any pet. During the day, I let her stay in the hall but at night, I had to bring her inside my room, so my housemate will not see her and complain to the landlord. That's why I was constantly worried of her pissing or pooping during the night while I'm sleeping. I bought litter and prepared the litter box for her. She was good at using her litter box. After scooping her first poop, I felt sick. So I decided to use 2 masks while scooping her first poop. Who could imagine Covid-19 virus couldn't force me to wear 2 masks, but my kitten did it with its smelly poop!
5) Never use freshener
Silly me, I was tired of her smell and decided to use air freshener. Then guess what happened later? She started biting her box, running in the room, then Voila! After 1 hour, she had diarrhea. The next day, I had to take her to the vet. Giving her medicine, was challenging. I had to give her treats until she gets used to her medicine.
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| going to vet |
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| her medicine |
6) Tuna, Tuna & Tuna
She loved her Tuna more than her dried food and every time I was in the kitchen, she would follow me and stand next to the fridge hoping I'd give her one more spoon!
7) Kitten shirts
She was coughing and I thought she might feel cold, so I upcycled a few shirts for her out of old socks & shirts.
8) Playing mouse videos
She was alone and I was busy with my job, no time to play with her and she spent most of the time sleeping or licking herself. I did play short mouse videos for her and she thought they were real and tried to catch them on my mobile screen, wasn't nice to fool her! Kittens are sweet but needs lots of love & care. That's why I decided to find a sweet home for her!
