Kitten Academy's One Year Anniversary!

April 20, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Thank You, Anniversary

Hello, Kitten Academicians!

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Kitten Academy Live Stream on YouTube! We started the live stream when our first momcat, Hazel, gave birth to seven beautiful baby kittens. At the time, we could never have anticipated all the wonderful support and encouragement we've received from all of you! We'd be fostering kittens no matter what - but it's all of you who make Kitten Academy special.

We didn't plan a party or anything, but once again, all of you have come to the rescue by sending an amazing number of letters! So our anniversary celebration will be a special mailbag segment, where we read your letters on the live stream. That will be live at 18:00 KATZ. I know that's kind of late for our European fans, but it's a regular working day for us during the day, so that's about the earliest we could find enough spare time in the day. If you can't join us live, we'll be sure to archive the event so you can view it later!

In addition, Sarah Donner (warning: link contains PG-13 language!) -- friend of the Academy, kitten foster, and woman of many artistic talents -- has generously offered to produce a music video for all of us! We thought it might be fun to have a little contest - we've got a whole bunch of Sarah Donner CDs and Kitten Academy swag to give away. So here's what we'll do! If you have an idea for the music video - any ideas at all for lyrics, themes, video to incorporate, big or small, tweet it at us using the hashtag #donneracademy and if it gets used, we'll send you something! Exactly what will depend on how many ideas Sarah ends up using. If we end up with just a few winners, we'll send them a bunch of stuff - if we have a bunch of winners, then we'll spread the stuff out a little. And if we have stuff left over, we'll send it to the ideas we liked the most that didn't end up getting used!

Here's a couple of rules I think we need to mention to help keep it fair. Firstly, if more than one person tweets the same idea, then the credit will go to the first! Secondly, if you don't include the hashtag #donneracademy, it doesn't count. Next, it would be great if we can private message you on Twitter if you win, so we can ask you for a shipping address. If you are a winner, we'll tweet you and you can private message us, but if you take too long to respond, we'll probably have to move on. So enable private messages!

We'll allow entries for the next week - from April 20th through April 27th. After that, Sarah will work her creative magic with no rush - so it'll be done when it's done! It could take a while to get it right.

So, get creative, and tweet at us! Thank you all so much for helping to make our first year a fantastic experience. We hope for many more great years, together with all of you!

Coffee Cats Graduation!

April 07, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Graduation, Adoption

Java was pretty excited to go to his adopter early.

This is our post to share the graduation photos of the Coffee Cats, but there's an abnormal amount of mews we'd like to relate ahead of that. Please feel free to scroll through if you're only here for the photos!

We all knew the Coffee Cats were latecomers who wouldn't be here long - but we certainly didn't expect to fall in love as quickly as we have! As you know, they came here from some other On Angels' Wings fosters, who couldn't keep them until they were fully ready to adopt. They sure did a great job of getting them off to a wonderful start, though - they're fantastic kittens! And there's no doubt in our minds that their mom, Star, is the finest momcat we've had to date.

Secret Agent Momcat Star is always prepared for the next mission!

Even better news; all the Coffee Cats have at least potential adopters! Star and Mocha will be adopted together, on Saturday, and at the moment, we're told that Caramel will be picked up this weekend as well. Latte, Bean, and Frappe will probably return to the Academy for the week, and meet their adopters next weekend.

The plan here at the Academy is to move Angel and her Fish to the main room on Saturday, then whichever Coffee Cats remain will have the Annex as their homebase - but be generally allowed access to the entire Academy grounds. They'll likely only be confined to the Annex at night.

Please note that due to timing issues, this weekend's mailbag segment has been moved to Sunday, at the usual time: 10:00 KATZ. As always, if you can't join us live for the segment, it will be on YouTube for later viewing.

We're told that Arial has an approved adopter, but that Velvet is still at On Angels' Wings, waiting for the right applicant. Momcats at OAW get to roam the thrift store and we're told Velvet is having a good time with her new friends. Nonetheless, if you have any intention of adopting any Kitten Academy momcat or kitten now or ever, put in your application today!

Velvet judges your apparel selection at the OAW store!

We would like to take an extra moment, and thank all of you for making Kitten Academy a huge success!

We're very near our one-year anniversary (depending on how you measure, it's roughly March 20th [Hazel's arrival], April 20th [Start of the Livestream], or May 20th [Creation of kitten.academy]).

Our primary goal has been to help get Academy graduates adopted, and we think we can say that goal is achieved -- and how! Some of the Fish had adopters within days of being born! You are wonderful - but we frankly cannot tell you how wonderful. There are no words - this is unprecedented. We think, not only for us -- but also worldwide. If anyone knows of a more successful adoption of fostered kittens rescued from local shelters, we'd love to know about it (and what they did right!)

Of course, that's not our only goal anymore. We aim to help get ALL kittens everywhere adopted, and also to help with care and feeding of cats and kittens that might not otherwise get the best of everything. With your help we've made amazing progress on those goals as well. We talked about this a little in our most recent Patreon live stream, but we'll be sure to cover it in more depth in a mewspaper article, soon!

As usual, here's all the other photos from our recent shoots. Unusually, not all of these are Coffee Cats!

Fish Photo Shoot!

March 26, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Cheatsheet, Adoption, Graduation

Hello, Kitten Academicians!

We've got some photos of the Fish and Angel for you -- some from two weeks ago, and some from last night. I bet you can tell which are which!

Before that, though, a moment of news: Java was picked up at On Angels' Wings today by his adopter. As he's left the academy before graduation, he's officially our first "drop out!" A lot of famous people have dropped out and still managed great things, so we hope for the best. But we'd encourage all of you to stay in school nonetheless! Don't be a Java!

His adopter will be returning to OAW with him when he's ready to be fixed, so that will be taken care of. Unfortunately, this adoption was arranged before he came to the Kitten Academy, so it's uncertain whether we'll be able to expect any updates later.

Star's doing very well in her recovery, and we're hopeful that soon we'll feel comfortable letting her spend as much time as she likes with her kittens. We'd also like to offer her the option of roaming the Academy grounds with the Faculty cats, but we're cautious about introducing too many new and exciting situations while she's convalescing.

So, that's all the important news - let's get to the photos!

Introducing the Coffee Cats!

March 20, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Cheatsheet, Introduction

On March 19th, the Coffee Cats transferred to Kitten Academy from one of the other fosters at On Angels' Wings. They're already nearly ready to graduate - we anticipate they'll only need to stay at the Academy for a couple of weeks.

We'll put together a video and add them to the weight chart as soon as we can! In the meantime, here's your kitten identification guide!

Latte can be identified by his lack of collar (if he is wearing it, it's blue, but he seems to prefer to not). In addition, his orange spots on his back are broken up with a lot of white, while Frappe and Caramel are more solid.

Caramel's easily identified by his black collar.

Frappe has a pink collar, and more white on her haunches. Frappe has already been adopted, but will still be staying to finish her classes at the Academy!

Mocha has a brown and pink collar.

Java has a distinct white tail tip - a little hard to see here. Java has also already been adopted, but will be staying on to finish out the semester.

Bean is black and white!

Here's some extra photos of the Coffee Cats!