The Adventures of Porch Kitty (Pt 3)

Yesterday, our foster mama kitty PK (Porch Kitty) decided to move her kittens under an end table in our bedroom. I understand she is trying to protect them and natural instincts and all that, but it made me really worried. They had no cover or anything to stop them from crawling away. No to mention the drawers are open underneath so could easily clip them when they get a bit bigger.

So I decided to try to find a better place for her to keep them that both she and myself are satisfied with, because clearly just a blanket lined box in my closet was not cutting it.

I was all over Google trying to find out what kind of places cats like to have their kittens. In the "wild" (I still can't picture domestic cats as ever living in the real wild) they are like most other animals mamas. They like dark, warm caves. They want protection from the elements and any predators.

Now, we don't really have "elements" or "predators" here, but we do have two other cats and two dogs (who I have been keeping away from the kittens, mostly for their own protection because PK can be really defensive). Not to mention a one- and two-year-old.

So I racked my brain for a place that was safe, dark and quiet. I thought of my craft room closet, but it is quite cold in there with no heating and being in the outer corner of the house. Maybe the hall closet? But there were a lot of shelves she could decide to put them on that would not be good if they fell from.

I finally decided on our upstairs bathroom cabinet. It has three doors, so I made a bed out of fresh blankets behind the far left door, closed it and left the far right door open, so that they were away from the open. I wrapped a blanket around the water pipes with twine, so no little kitties would get burns (not sure if the pipes can even get hot enough but I didn't want to take the chance). I put mama's litter box and food dishes close by, and closed the blinds over the window. I also made sure the heat vent was fully open. All in all, not too shabby.

Our bathroom has two doors, one to the hallway and one to our master bedroom. During the day I let her roam the house, but at night I try to keep her contained, so open the door to my bedroom but close the one to the hall. She is a huge snuggle bug, so she loves crawling into my bed in the middle of the night and meowing until I pet her.

Well, for now at least, our problem is solved. It has been almost 24 hours and still she hasn't tried to move them. Here's to hoping this lasts!

God bless.

- M

PS: Here is a picture of the three cats having a stand-off. They literally sat like this for almost two hours. The calico is Halo and the ginger is her brother Dexter. They were both too scared to move because PK kept growling at them. Eventually Dexter tried to run and PK chased him and Halo chased her. A few minutes later PK returned to my side please as punch. Silly kitty.

Disclaimer: No cats were hurt in the making of this picture.

You can read PK's story here and here.