Friday Foster Stories

Instead of publishing days of the foster stories, I decided to dedicate every Friday to writing about our foster experiences. This means that I will sum up a week (more or less) instead of sharing just a day of kitten fun with you. This week is the first week that I will dedicate my Friday content to the fostering topic which is a genuine family effort mostly.

An unexpected Tuesday evening

During the day Aki was very active and wanted a lot of attention while playing. She starts purring immediately when you cuddle her and when she wants you to continue, she will let you know by talking to you in her own way. She's very cute and it was very fun to see that when my daughter placed the stick of the toy with a rope on the other end in between the top bunk bed, Aki was playing like madness for a long time, hunting the string attached to a stick. She loves it!

She's a true hunter, that's for sure! She runs after everything we offer her to play with if it's a paper ball from an old receipt or an actual toy, this lady is easy to satisfy.

Today I gave Aki the second day of her medication and today the tablet went in a bit smoother. Yesterday the dose she needed broke into two parts so that was a bit more difficult than having to give her just one tablet.

Percy's arrival

I should first update you on the fact that Percy joined Aki on her third day, which was actually my next post to share with you. This was actually planned for the weekend but when I spoke to the person taking care of Percy one evening, we decided you know what, let's pick the poor soul up today as he also tested positive for the Giardia parasite and Aki was on her second day of treatment, so only one day further than Percy.

Percy is a very scared and malnourished kitten, without any siblings and he's desperate to make friends with the cats in the other foster home, but he's in quarantine still. When we're moving him to come and stay with us, he can move around in the room freely during the day and learn how to deal with another kitten. We picked him up in the evening but before we could take him, my daughter was locked on the sofa with a huge furry friend on top of her who didn't want her to leave.

Meeting Aki

I will try to sum up the arrival and rest of the evening as well as possible. We went home, and Aki was curious about what we brought home, upon opening the carrier, we had a very scared kitten desperate for attention from Aki. She had other plans though, she showed him who's boss and literally chased him and I think she also hurt him, but it may also have been him whining as he was not used to being bossed around. Either way, I didn't feel like leaving them to it in the playpen during the night. My bad, should have picked the little guy up during the day instead.

I left Percy in the playpen so he was safe and tried to let Aki free hoping she'd fall asleep soon. That was wishful thinking, indeed. Although she did try to fall asleep on my daughter's blanket, once I needed to turn on the AC, she was too cold and immediately crawled under the blanket to play with my daughter's feet, haha. A scream came from the room and I went in to save her.

While I was very insecure about them being able to stay together during the night (I didn't have any other options to separate them) I had a good chat with the previous foster parent who told me that kittens always and she emphasized always end up being friends. I could not keep my daughter awake longer than this so I decided to take the risk and put them in the playpen together after her supporting words to not worry and things will be fine. I have to keep these babies safe so I needed that assurance as I didn't want to end up making a horrible mistake putting them together during the night.

I love that she was right!

They survived the night, I only heard one growl and then a hiss and they just slept separately. Percy slept inside the carrier (inside the playpen) and Aki was on top of the carrier inside the playpen, lol. The day started with a lot of bossing around by Aki and Percy who wanted to be her friend so badly but had to prove he was worthy of her companionship. It was adorable and a bit sad to witness at the same time.

At some point I felt comfortable just letting them figure it out by themselves, I mean I can keep an eye out for them, but I also have to respect nature's ways. I started to see that it was not just Aki handing out slaps to Percy, but Percy becoming more confident to chase her and attack her (from the back mostly, lol) while he had the chance.

Aki didn't disappoint and by the time it was evening, I felt comfortable to leave them inside the playpen together without fearing she'd hurt him or anything. They seem to be adjusting quickly, which is great!

Percy's change in behavior

In the next days, I saw Percy learn how to respond to Aki and stand up for himself, which I have to say was wonderful to watch. I witnessed how he started to become bold enough to make the first move instead of only tapping her but from behind while she didn't see him coming, lol. My heart absolutely melted when this moment took place:

I witnessed them sleeping together more often since:

Now that we have taken care of him for a few days, we see him changing in his behavior. Not only towards Aki but also more curious about everything around him and also less scared to come close to us. Where his heart was racing inside his chest the first day when we picked him up and cuddled him or gave him meds, he's now less scared, thankfully.

We're not there yet as there's definitely room for improvement but when you are suddenly thrown into a room with another kitten as well as strange humans, I can imagine that adjusting to the kitten is enough input for a few days before he can warm up to us properly. We have to give him more time, and so we will. It's great that he also plays with us.

A lot of changes for the kittens

Change from home to home, but I know for a fact that this was the best decision for both of these cuties, I'm happy that we took him in as he's making so much progress even in the first days. I can see he's very happy by the way he's playing, he's very content, which is great and I hope that by the end of this foster journey, we can say that we helped him get rid of his fears and deliver a very confident and sweet kitten.

Previous parts of Friday Foster Stories

If you really like these diaries about us fostering Aki, you may want to check out the "Bundle Of Beans Diaries" as well, this was our first time fostering. Five amazingly cute kittens were here for 18 days and I made sure to keep a diary and tons of pictures:

Friday Foster Stories - Aki Gets A Playmate - Meet Percy!