{"id":6440,"date":"2019-06-24T15:40:06","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T22:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=6540"},"modified":"2019-06-24T19:05:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T02:05:43","slug":"my-weekend-beware-the-cute-kitten-sneezes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/my-weekend-beware-the-cute-kitten-sneezes","title":{"rendered":"My Weekend: Beware the cute kitten sneezes"},"content":{"rendered":"

My weekends usually aren\u2019t as exciting as Steve Lowery\u2019s. He spends his weekends going to cool shows<\/a>, talking to other humans and being very cultured. I like to spend my weekends staying home, reading books and generally avoiding excess humans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Except this time I had a cute kitten to keep me company.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, it\u2019s what animal advocates call \u201ckitten season,\u201d<\/a> where the weather is perfect, so stray and feral cats just start breeding like rabbits. The shelters are inundated with kittens and cats. And with the Fourth of July coming up\u2014illegal fireworks tend to scare pets<\/a> and cause them to run away\u2014the shelter is expecting a deluge and needs to make room.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Long Beach Animal Shelter put out a plea last week on Facebook for kitten fosters and Kate Karp<\/span>\u00a0wrote about<\/a> their new emergency foster program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t resist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve wanted to foster kittens for a long time and since moving recently, we now have the space. I talked to my husband and he was down with it too.\u00a0<\/span>So my weekend started on Thursday, when my editor and fellow cat-lover Melissa Evans and I took a trip to the animal shelter to get us some kittens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And of course, Kate happened to be there to pick up two foster kittens herself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MOVIE.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Melissa and I were roped in immediately to a litter of babes: two all-black ones and two gray tabbies. I had my eye on a black kitten who looked like she liked to play, but also wanted to cuddle a lot. Melissa had her eye on a frisky tabby with a lot of energy. And Kate would take the last two: a sleepy tabby and a playful all-black kitten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then Staycee Dains, the shelter\u2019s director, told us since the kittens came in a litter, she wanted to keep them in at least pairs so they would be able to play together. And a Long Beach Post reader happened to come in at the same time willing to take a pair.<\/span><\/p>\n

Staycee knowledgeably told us that if we went with our first plan, we would just clear two cages, but if Melissa and I each took a single kitten (taking up a cage each), we could all clear three. Which, the goal of fostering is to clear the cages, not to pick your favorites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our temporary bonds with our chosen kittens severed, Staycee took us to another room where she had our kittens picked out for us already: for Melissa she had a gray and white 10-week-old boy who just started reveling in her head rubs immediately. For me, she had a teeny tiny 6-week-old brown tabby boy with big ears and some muck on his nose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I gingerly picked him up and held him, cooing at his <\/span>wittle face.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

He tried to fly out of my hand a second later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, I caught him. Then Staycee assured me, \u201cThey\u2019re rubber at this age.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Officially a foster cat mom to this lil baby \ud83d\ude0d he's still getting situated in his room but be prepared for kitten spam.
He's about 5 weeks old and I'm to keep him till he weighs 2 pounds and I can bring him in to get fixed. pic.twitter.com\/GGSvwzRONq<\/a><\/p>\n

— Valerie Osier (@ValerieOsier) June 21, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n