Kitten Jail!

Belle and Dev continue to grow and develop. Belle wanted to play with Dev before he understood what that was all about, but now he is a play-fight freak! They both continue to use the litterbox. Amazing! They turned 5 weeks old this week. They are truly "little cats" now instead of "little dependent blobs".

Belle has started running. The first few times her back legs moved faster than her front legs, so she ended up tumbling, but now she's figured it out. She can also jump out of the suitcase we were using as a playpen! Dev is, of course, a bit behind and doesn't run, but he gets around pretty well. Both recognize Mr. A and go straight to him whenever they see him. They love to crawl on him and smoosh their noses into his face. We think they want him to clean them! So he does, using a warm washcloth.

They showed some initial interest in canned kitten food but have since turned up their noses to it. They continue with kitten formula about every four hours. The do not seem interested in plain water yet. In fact, we put a small bowl of water in their "nest" but it scared the daylights out of Dev! However, they no longer seem to need stimulation from Mr. A in order to eliminate. We'll be offering them canned kitten food more often to start the "weaning" process.

Our only concern is exercise. We received and assembled the kitten "playpen". They like it! However, we have two complaints: the shelves that come with it (as part of a "conversion" kit sold specifically for the playpen) are too wide and cause the cage to "bow" where they are inserted, and the shelves are missing screw holes. The instructions do indicate that some of the shelves might need to be drilled, but there is no mention of that in the description of the item in the catalogue. However, the benefits of this playpen outweigh those two flaws. We have a drill and we think we can modify the shelves to fit properly.

The above photo shows Belle and Dev in jail. Yes, they ALWAYS look that surprised!