So Much Mews!

It's been a couple of weeks since we've been able to write one of these blog posts!  We've been awfully busy between moving kittens around, trying to arrange for a new momcat, and obviously, the adoptions of Ivy's League and the Weathercats!

 

Dusty

When we are busy like this, we hope you keep involved by watching our Facebook page, or even more, our Twitter feed.  We try to keep some activity on the Twitter every day.  And of course, for those of you who are Patreon subscribers - even if only for a dollar a month - you get access to a 24/7 live chat, with some wonderful people.

 

Professor Custard and Dusty

So, on to the news.  Firstly, the most important thing to mention, is that Dusty is still seeking an adopter. [Edit:  DUSTY HAS BEEN ADOPTED!  THANKS EVERYONE WHO HELPED GET THE WORD OUT!]  Tomorrow is Saturday the 3rd of December, and Animal Outreach Society has decided that Dusty will go to the PetSmart in McHenry in the morning, and stay there until she is adopted.  She's a wonderfully sweet, loving kitten who is playful, gets along very well with other animals, and never tires of snuggles and pettings from humans.  And snuggles and pets back as best she can!  If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Animal Outreach Society.

 

Yale

The other kittens in the group have all been adopted, and some of them, in spectacular fashion!  Harv and Stormy were adopted together, by a family that made a six-hour round trip from far northern Wisconsin just for the kittens!  In any other Kitten Academy graduating class, that would have been the most amazing thing all by itself.  But we have another major milestone from this charming class of kittens:  Yale is being adopted by a "mystery adopter" who is flying in from another state, just for Yale.  They will be arriving at the Kitten Academy on Saturday morning, at 7am, and flying back home with Yale the same day.  

 

Yale

Yale's adopter will appear on the live stream at least a little bit, and we'll take whatever video and photos we can, for people who are unable to tune in live.  We wish we had the resources to give this event all the fanfare it deserves, but instead, we'll just bring our enthusiasm and sincere appreciation.

 

Finally, we think most of you are aware by now that we have Abby in the annex, a new cat from On Angel's Wings, who we believe to be pregnant (the cat, that is).  We don't know much of her story, only that she was relinquished at a shelter by her former owner.  

 

When we started Kitten Academy, our hope was only to raise a little awareness of the kittens we foster, locally.  Instead, you all have helped make Kitten Academy a global presence, and having half of the kittens in this last graduating class adopted from out-of-state is absolutely mind-boggling!  Thank you all for helping to get the word out, and for your support.  

 

Graduation Photos!

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Ivy's League and the Weathercats will all be at PetSmart, hoping to be adopted, beginning on "Black Friday," November 25th, from 10am-1pm.  Animal Outreach Society has asked us to provide some biographies and photographs for their adoption flyers.  This post is mainly here as an easy way for us to provide the requested information to them.

We'll miss them all when they go -- but on the other hand, they've stayed with us longer than any other Kitten Academy class, and they're really starting to feel a little crowded in the main Kitten Academy classroom!

These kittens are all amazing, loving kittens.  If you are interested in adopting one (or more!) please apply through Animal Outreach Society as soon as possible!

Happy Halloween!

All the kittens are out having their spay/neuter today, but we did a little photoshoot with some costumes yesterday.  The kittens will all return this evening.

Ivy is still at PetSmart in McHenry, IL, hoping to be adopted.  

Ivy's Adoption Event, and Upcoming Schedule!

This should be pretty brief; I just want to make sure everyone knows what's going on!  

First, a quick note to our Patreons, if you missed the news, we had to reschedule the Patreon exclusive livestream to 2:30pm Central, Saturday the 29th.  

Tomorrow, October 29th, Ivy will go to the PetSmart in McHenry, IL at 11:00.  There will be people from Animal Outreach Society there hosting an adoption event from 11am-2pm.  After that, they would like Ivy to stay at PetSmart until she is adopted.  However, it seems likely that if she is not adopted by Sunday evening, we will bring her back to the Academy and just have her at PetSmart for the weekends.  Maybe.  We have to work out the details with AOS and PetSmart.

 November 2nd, all six kittens will go to the vet all day for their "Graduation ceremony" (spay/neuter, microchipping, vaccinations, etc).  They will return to the Academy in the evening.

Animal Outreach Society has a lead on five new kittens, which are currently living with their mother in a barn.  They expect these kittens to be weaned and brought to the Kitten Academy on or before November 9th.  The mother is feral and will be spayed and returned to the barn.  The kittens are (naturally) somewhat feral, but reported to be interested in and friendly with humans.

November 12th, all six of the current Kitten Academy kittens will be brought to PetSmart in McHenry, IL, from 11am-2pm, for their own adoption event.

If you want to adopt Ivy or any of her kittens, now is an excellent time to contact Animal Outreach Society in McHenry, IL, with your application!

Ivy's been a wonderful cat, both to her kittens, and to us.  She was a kind mother to her three kittens, and still enjoys visiting with them.  She loves to play, especially with catnip toys, and she also loves vigorous belly rubs.  She likes to sing to her humans with a hearty "MAOOB" while carrying her toys around the house.  And she loves relaxing in a lap while her humans work at the computer.  She's the first Kitten Academy momcat to have her own Twitter account, where she uses her trademark disapproving glare to entertain her followers.  She gets along with other cats and dogs acceptably well.

Here's some of our photos of Ivy over the last few months.  We'll certainly miss having her around!  She'll make an excellent companion to whomever adopts her.

A Little News, a Lot of Photos!

Sorry we haven't done an update in almost two weeks.  We've been pretty busy between integrating the new kittens, working on getting things in place with the new cat run, and all the bits of daily life.  

No news is basically good news, though - everyone has been healthy and happy!  Though Ivy's been a little unwell in the last 12 hours; we're keeping an eye on her and if she's not feeling great again by tomorrow, we'll bring her to a vet.

Animal Outreach Society has scheduled the spay/neuter for all the kittens for November 2nd.  So they'll be out pretty much all day then.  And they are up for adoption with their first showing at PetSmart in McHenry (presumably - we'll update as we get closer to the date) on November 12th.

First, some photos of the Kitten Academy staff cats in the new cat run.  We'll post more about it when it's completely finished, including a bit of a tour.  

And then... all the kitten photos!

New Arrivals!

First off, thanks to all of you who went through the archival videos in our last blogpost and helped decide what was worth keeping.  We'll be using your suggestions as soon as we have time to go through and edit them!

Now on to the real news - most of you know that Animal Outreach Society sent us three additional kittens to help fill out the class roster until graduation.  They are exactly the same size as Ivy's kids, and so should all graduate together (in a month or so).

They were bottle-raised by their first foster parents, then were taken over by a second foster for a while.  Now they are coming to Kitten Academy to complete their education before adoption.

The new kittens will be living in the Kitten Academy Annex for the first few days, until we're all comfy with each other and sure they are healthy.  Then, probably on Wednesday, they will be brought into the main Kitten Academy room with Ivy's League.

Sorry about the quality of the Live Stream camera that's in the Annex.  We have a replacement coming on Monday - until then, we just have to make do.  [Edit: the camera didn't make it, we pulled one from the main room instead for now.]

Our naming chart for Ivy's kids is pretty far out of date, too, so we're including recent photos of them here with the new kids.

Dusty - Female - Purple Collar

Cloudy - Male - Black Collar with Pawprint Design

Stormy - Male - Green Collar with Pink Design

Cornell - Female - No Collar

Harvard - Male - Red Collar

Yale - Female - No Collar

 

As usual, here's the bonus photos from this first new kitten photoshoot!

Giant Photodump!

Not much news here - Ivy is getting along very well outside of the kitten room lately, and while she's not best friends with any of the Faculty, they do well enough.  

We're still waiting for possible new kittens to turn up via Animal Outreach Society.

In the meantime, we've taken quite a large number of photos in the last few days.  These are a selection of those photos, but not an especially discerning selection, so there may be some varying quality.  Some of these you may have seen already on our Twitter!

Ivy's Moving Out - New Kids Moving In?

Just some quick updates for those of you who don't see us giving them live on the stream!

Harvey in the cheese-house.

Firstly, we think we've solved our technical issues in a very practical way.  We configured a server in another location (Texas, actually) so that it will stream a "Technical Difficulties - Please Stay Tuned" message whenever the stream is down.  The good news is, it works, and probably means that we'll not change URLs or lose our statistics again.  The only bad news is that YouTube is a little sensitive and will put it up even if we only glitch for a second.  I think we can live with that.  Special thanks to viewer Tania, who created the graphic we are using as a placeholder until we can put something more permanent in place.  Tania intended it as a business card, but it's just so cute!

Thanks, Tania!  We love this image!

Secondly, the shelter that is ultimately responsible for these kittens has suggested that we move Ivy out for the next couple of weeks, so that she completely stops nursing and we can have her spayed.  I think that's an idea that Ivy herself would approve -- many of you have seen that she prefers to be out of the room lately, anyhow.  So, it's likely that she will not be coming back to the Kitten Academy room, though you may still see her in our YouTube videos and our Periscope sessions.  The Periscope sessions get announced on Twitter to our Twitter followers, and if you don't follow us there, you should!  It's worth it just for the Periscopes!

Ivy is all too happy to get some peace and quiet away from the kids!

Finally, we've put in a request to Animal Outreach Society for some more kittens that would be of a weight or age that is compatible with Yale, Harvey, and Cornell.  They are going to keep an eye out for us, so we may have some additional kittens joining this session late!

Here's all the photos from the most recent photoshoot, some of which you may have seen already on our Twitter or elsewhere.

 

 

Expense Report and Health Updates

This is going to be another one of those wordy posts, but we'll break it up a bit with some photos.  Those of you who really have to skip straight to the spreadsheet can click here.

Cornell already doesn't think this will be a fun post...

First off, we're glad to report that Yale seems like she's doing just wonderfully.  She's still several ounces behind her siblings in weight, but she's gaining at a very appropriate rate now, and playing, and generally being a healthy kitten!

Yale being playful.  

Ivy had another hair-pulling episode the other day.  She's not doing it very often, but nonetheless, we've arranged for a vet visit for her tomorrow afternoon.  We'll be leaving shortly after 1:00.  The kittens are old enough now to stay home, so it'll be just Ivy going away for the afternoon.

Ivy disapproves.  Of everything.

As you are probably aware,  Kitten Academy is really just a couple of people who foster kittens out of their home.  We're super appreciative of all of your help and contributions.  We think, because so many people have donated and sponsored us on Patreon, that it's about time we start to open the books, so you can know how much money we are spending -- and also how far we are from "breaking even."

Harv is stunned by spreadsheets.

Before we share the (still very incomplete) actual numbers, please allow us a moment to explain them.

The spreadsheet is broken into three sections:  vet bills, food costs, and miscellaneous.  

VET:  This section contains all the vet expenses from Kitten Academy kittens and momcats for this year, to date.  We believe all the vet vists are here, but our records don't always include what each visit was for, so some of the data is empty.  We can say for sure that these bills were entirely for Academy kittens and momcats, and not for faculty, since the faculty goes to a different vet -- Grayslake Animal Hospital.  

FOOD:  Unfortunately, we have not, so far, tracked food costs separately for Kitten Academy expenses and for our own faculty cats.  We don't want to put misleading or incorrect data on the spreadsheet, so this section is mostly empty.  We will start tracking it separately going forward, and fill this out as we go along.  There's a couple of entries here, because we ordered some food off Amazon specifically for Toffee and company.  We previously estimated the food cost minimum at $335/month for a Patreon goal, which is almost certainly low.

MISC:  This section contains the technology that allows us to do the live stream, as well as things like our scales, cat trees, thermometers, and other items that are specifically for Kitten Academy use.  This, too, we've not tracked well.  We started it out with a few things we know, but there's plenty that we've spent that's not accounted for here.  We want to be perfectly clear that these are not items that will be paid for with donations; these are completely our own expenses.  There's a couple good reasons for us to include them, however.

Yale: "Do tell..."

Firstly, we might open up a separate option to donate for infrastructure concerns like this.  If we do, then we need to be able to explain what's being paid for.

Secondly, we've been considering becoming a legitimate non-profit.  So far, it doesn't make sense financially to consult with the required lawyer, accountant, and to pay the filing fees, and so forth.  But there's a chance that in the future, it might.  Once it does, we'll want to be in the habit of tracking these kinds of expenses for the non-profit.

Can has spreadsheet now?

Hopefully that's all the necessary explanation, but please let us know if you have any questions.  You can email us at headmaster@kitten.academy

Click here to access the spreadsheet.  

Bonus Photos:

Today's Photoshoot

First, some quick news to get out of the way.  Everyone seems to be using the litterbox consistently and successfully!  And we've observed Cornell and Harvard both feeding themselves from the food bowls.  We haven't seen Yale doing the same yet -- we'll keep force feeding her to try to keep her weight up in the meantime.  Her limp isn't gone yet, but it does seem like she's improving a lot.

We took some photos of varying quality today.  Here's a gallery of all of them - as usual, you can click to get the fullscreen version.  Also includes a few of the faculty cats!