Getting a kitten

[Catscankim]

I'm so excited. I love kittens. I have always had two cats and my Sophie died over a year ago, so I knew it was time to take on another to keep Betty company (I hope LOL).

Anyway, she's only 2-3 weeks old, so I can't have her yet. A bunch of weeks ago I told this girl that if she ends up with a Calico, it's mine. Well wouldn't ya know, there is a Calico amongst the litter!

She plans on taking them all to the shelter, so I told her that as long as she is eating solid food EXCLUSIVELY then I will take her early...I have a lot of experience with very young baby kittens, not that it replaces the mom experience, but she doesn't want to hang on to them.

My only concern is the dog. She is used to cat sisters, but not itty bitty ones. I don't want her to think she can rough-house with her like she does with Betty (she's a Catahoula, so has a strong prey-drive), but maybe her momminess will kick in lol. But I will have to keep the baby in a room while I am not home. Not sure how else to do it.

 

[Babyshoes]

How exciting! I hope you don't need to take her before 8 weeks (ideal is 12 weeks, of course, but that sounds unlikely).
If she takes the others to the shelter before they are fully weaned, they are unlikely to have a high chance of survival unless they happen to have kitten fosterers on hand.

Can you persuade her to get the mom neutered, since this sounds like an oopsie litter? She can get pregnant again while she's still feeding the kittens, so needs to be kept in and neutered the second they are eating solids.

If you're in the UK, there are plenty of cheap or free neutering schemes she could access if needed. I can point you towards a few folks who are plugged into that network who could help.

I don't have much experience with dogs, but I think giving the kitten her own room is a good idea anyway. Once she's settled into the household and is coming out with the others some of the time, you can put a pet or baby gate across the door so she can get through if she needs to get away from the dog, but don't leave them unsupervised until she's older regardless.

 

[Catscankim]

How exciting! I hope you don't need to take her before 8 weeks (ideal is 12 weeks, of course, but that sounds unlikely).
If she takes the others to the shelter before they are fully weaned, they are unlikely to have a high chance of survival unless they happen to have kitten fosterers on hand.

Can you persuade her to get the mom neutered, since this sounds like an oopsie litter? She can get pregnant again while she's still feeding the kittens, so needs to be kept in and neutered the second they are eating solids.

If you're in the UK, there are plenty of cheap or free neutering schemes she could access if needed. I can point you towards a few folks who are plugged into that network who could help.

I don't have much experience with dogs, but I think giving the kitten her own room is a good idea anyway. Once she's settled into the household and is coming out with the others some of the time, you can put a pet or baby gate across the door so she can get through if she needs to get away from the dog, but don't leave them unsupervised until she's older regardless.

When I got my Sophie, she was 4 weeks, from a similar situation....guy ended up with kittens that he didn't want to deal with...why are people so stupid. We can't fix that. I would take all of them if I could!!! She was blind/blue eyed.

There's free neutering here. People just don't take advantage of if.

I have bred Persian cats. My girl had her first litter in my bed next to me while I was sleeping. Her next litter was born under my bed. Both times she would "give" me her kittens when she apparently needed a babysitter LOL.

Oh my gosh, her kittens were like gremlins that were given water!!! They were so bad...and there were 6 of them both times!! One got into a bag of doritos with orange stuff all over its face, another had blue icing all over its face from my birthday cake. I found one IN a bag of potato chips.

I'm gonna delay it as much as possible..but she really just wants to get rid of them. I could only put the stipulation that she is only on solid food

 

[Babyshoes]

...
There's free neutering here. People just don't take advantage of if.
...
I'm gonna delay it as much as possible..but she really just wants to get rid of them. I could only put the stipulation that she is only on solid food

You *get* it!

As a fosterer, (and occasional cat taxi, microchip checker, donation unloader etc) I'm on the periphery of rescue, but we still hear a lot of the stories and often despair at folks not neutering. So many of the other sad cases we see could have been avoided if someone further up the chain had neutered their pet...

We need to have a totally non-judgemental face when dealing with owners, so they'll cooperate to do the right thing for their pets, but there is a lot of pent up frustration that gets let out in the group chat. Gets pretty sweary at times, as you might imagine! Of course if there is a genuine reason for the cats coming in to rescue, that's different. We fairly often get pets whose owner has passed away, which is just sad.

I'm glad you were at least able to delay until she's eating solids. Hopefully the owner will see the sense in delaying taking the rest to a rescue until that stage too.