Before the supposed Ida tropical storm, Jannese and Debra made an attempt to capture one or more of the kittens in the lot to make sure they would be safe. Over the weeks Debra had acquainted a kitten through playing so that she would trust them and get near them.
"Little tiny (kitten) has the craziest play drive so she was so entranced by the game that Debra was able to sneak grab her and we quickly put her in a crate and brought her upstairs," said Jannese.
The kitten was not pleased a bit. She was growling and hissing like nothing they had seen before. Debra and Jannese gathered all the necesities from the pet store and contacted a couple foster parents for help to calm a feral kitten while trying to coax the kitten to move from the crate into a large cage.
"I assumed that kitten would high-tail it out of the crate into the cage, but no sir, she was refusing to budge even when I tipped the crate forward. The only choice we had was to just leave the whole crate in the cage overnight with the door open hoping she'd come out."
"In the morning when I woke up to walk my dog Budda, I figure I'd made an attempt to get her out of the crate. I took apart the crate like the vets showed us once, so the top was off and she dashed towards the back of the cage and hissed at me. The next day the hissing had calmed down. Debra got out the baby food left by (a foster parent) Kim and fed her on a spoon and with a big wooden spoon she pet the kitten, and while I took Budda out for his evening walking, Debra managed not only to pet her, but give her a belly rub and carry her and put her in her lap for a pet. Amazing!"
"This little miss also allowed me to give her a long pet and to hold her in my arms. After we came back from dinner, Debra was back at it, and had that little kitten belly up in her arms with her eyes closed and getting a belly rub. I got to do the same thing the next morning."
The little girl is called Bunny. Slowly Bunny came out of her shell, spending more time with Debra and Jannese on the sofa, snacking on some baby food, napping on their lap and even giving the occasional purr. "If it wasn't for baby food we'd still have a snarling spitting kitty." She was still a bit timid and uneased when she was on the floor, but it was not long until she finally adjusted to her new life. Jannese's dog Budda had been nothing but a great friend to her.
Bunny got to stay with Jannese and Debra for almost 2 months. What a transformation she had made. With their help, Bunny found a wonderful loving home. "It was with mixed feelings that we handed Bunny over to her lovely new family, we had been torn for weeks to keep her or to place her in a new home. We knew going in that we would be fostering her but we never anticipated how attached we would become. Bunny came into this home as a snarling, spitting, tiny kitten, and left a well adjusted loving young cat. Her new family has a spacious home for her to run in, 3 other cats who will provide the feline family she probably craves, and two lovely tween/teen girls, Lucy and Maggie, who will give her tons of love and attention. I knew when the younger of the two sister's took off her sweater and was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the word KITTEN, in silver studs, that we made the right decision."
One of Jannese's fosters, Björn, is desperately searching for a loving home. Click here to check out his story.
Photos courtesy of Jannese Rojas (Check out her Tiny Beast Town blog and flickr page)
