Updates and Song's Quintet Photos!

April 30, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Cheatsheet, Graduation, Adoption

Two Mewspaper posts in one day is unprecedented, but it's been a special day!

Yesterday, the adopter of Star and Mocha also adopted Latte, and when he was reintroduced to his mom and brother, they filmed it! What a wonderful outcome after all the potential adoptions for Latte that fell through!

We've brought this up on the stream a number of times, but it bears repeating - DJ's big exams for medical school are coming up fast now, with less than a month left to study. She's therefore had understandably little time to help out with Kitten Academy duties the way she normally does. In turn, Mr. A. has been struggling to keep up with the usual activity. Naturally, we see to the kittens' needs first, so if something has to fall by the wayside, it's likely to be videos and communication on social media and the Discord chat.

If you're one of our Patreon supporters, -- thank you! -- the month ends tonight, and we haven't had our monthly Patreon stream, for the first time since we started. We'll also be sending out the paw print cards a little late -- not the first time that's happened.

After the exams are completed, DJ and Mr. A. will be leaving for two weeks of vacation. During that time, Kitten Academy will be managed by JimmyD and JenniD, whom you may remember as the adopters of Winnie and Gary of the Fonts. The live stream will carry on as usual, under their care. We're super excited to have "guest hosts" and we couldn't ask for better substitutes -- you may not want Mr. A. and DJ to return! The plan is to help them have an easier time of it by only having Song and her kittens at that time - so our next momcat or kittens will not be arriving until after our return in mid-June.

After that, we hope things at the Academy will return to normal! Thanks for bearing with us during this tumultuous time!

Now on to the real point of this Mewspaper entry... photos!

Fish Cheatsheet Number Two!

April 30, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Cheatsheet

Hello Kitten Watchers!

We realized today that the cheatsheet with kitten names and photos that's on the live stream for the Fish is their baby photos! It was a little out of date, so this post is just to provide a new one.

On Angels' Wings informs us that all of the the Fish are already adopted! They'll go for their Graduation on the 18th of May, and be collected by their adopters the following weekend.

As always, there were a lot of other photos we gathered during the shoot, and they're all here for you to enjoy!

Introducing Song's Quintet!

April 27, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Cheatsheet

Hello, Kitten Academicians!

Before we dive into the details of the newest Kitten Academy class, a few things we'd like to get out of the way:

As of right now, Latte and Arial are still looking for adopters! Contact On Angels' Wings in Crystal Lake, IL to apply.
The contest to help with suggestions for Sarah Donner's (PG-13 Link!) upcoming music video for Kitten Academy is closed now, but we expect it will take some time for us to parse through all the wonderful suggestions, and for Sarah to decide what she'd like to do!
We're still getting some questions about Angel - we apologize for not properly explaining the situation. We briefly addressed it in last night's close-up stream, just a few minutes in. The short version is, she's gone home to be with her owner, and we think it's good!

So, as most of you doubtless know by now, on Tuesday the 25th, our latest Kitten Academy class arrived! Song was picked up by the Logan County Animal Control about a week prior. They send out notices to shelters all over Illinois, and once a week, transport animals that the shelters are willing to take. Song was pregnant when Logan County Animal Control picked her up, but delivered her kittens on Tuesday the 18th, while she was still there.

That's everything we know about her history!

Here's your cheat-sheet:

As usual, here's the remainder of the photos from the shoot:

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!

Fonts Graduation!

March 17, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Graduation, Adoption

The Fonts have certainly been a memorable class at the Kitten Academy! Pregnant momcat Arial was taken in, and then immediately delivered her babies while in the care of Animal Control. Shortly after, she and her kittens were admitted to the Kitten Academy. When Charlie later joined the class, she instantly accepted him as one of her own. While Charlie played the rougher, bigger brother to the Fonts, the Fonts also taught him a lot about being a cat! And Arial was a wonderful mom to all.

Normally, these graduation announcements are thinly-veiled pleas for adopters to adopt our graduates. But the Fonts class represents a milestone in Kitten Academy history - this is the first time that you wonderful Kitten Academy viewers have adopted all the kittens prior to graduation! You truly are the best people in the world!

Zapf and Baskerville were adopted together, and so were Gary and Winnie. It's always a pleasure to see these kittens go in pairs, since they love each other so much already.

Our momcat, Arial, has some potential applicants -- and so does our former momcat, Velvet, who's still enjoying her time at On Angels' Wings. However, Velvet's already had two applications fall through, so if you're thinking of adopting either of these wonderful cats, please don't let the fact that there's a line stop you from putting in an application now. If nothing else, it will help ensure you're pre-approved when the next wonderful cat comes available!

The Fonts had their spay/neuter, vaccinations, and microchipping yesterday. They will go to their adopters tomorrow, Saturday the 18th. Except Arial, who will go to On Angels' Wings in Crystal Lake.

Here are our graduation photos. As a quick side-note, the less awesome camera we are currently using had some issues focusing, and so just by chance, the majority of the good photos we got were of Gary. If you're following the saga of our good camera, which Custard broke when he knocked it off a desk, we've just recently been informed by Sony that as an apology for the length of time the repair has been taking, they are just going to ship us a brand new replacement for the good camera! We expect that to arrive in a week or two. Then maybe we'll be able to get back on track with some good video and photos!

As usual, here's the rest of the photos from our shoot:

Mewsbits, Photos, and Yearbook!

March 13, 2017 by Mr. Academy in Adoption, Graduation

Hello everyone! We'd like to open this Mewspaper entry by expressing our sincere appreciation for all of you! You are over 5,000 Twitterers, nearly 200,000 YouTubers, almost 500 Patreons, and almost 3,500 Facebookers! The outpouring of love and support for the kittens and the live stream are nothing short of amazing. You are surely the best people in the world!

And speaking of numbers, Charlie's adopter set up a Twitter account to share photos of him (which you can find by clicking here) and roughly 1500 of you had followed it within the first twelve hours! The mind boggles!

The Fonts are scheduled for Graduation (spay/neuter/etc) on the 16th! They will return here to recover for a couple of days, and then go to their adopters. In a Kitten Academy first (but hopefully not last) all four of the Font kittens have been adopted already! Gary and Winnie will be living together in their forever home, and likewise, Baskerville and Zapf will be sharing their adventures post-graduation. While there's at least one or two applications in for Arial, nothing is certain for her quite yet. If you're interested in Arial, who is a perfect and affectionate cat for a quiet home with no other animals, please apply via On Angels' Wings in Crystal Lake.

On the subject of adoptions, we're told that Velvet is in a similar position currently - there are a couple of potential applications, but nothing certain yet.

We don't have a new momcat or kittens lined up for after the Fonts' graduation yet, but we'll be sure to let you know when we do! We plan to have the main room empty for at least a couple of days, so we can properly clean and sterilize it. During that time, we'll have extra focus on the Angel Fish. Probably shortly thereafter, we'll be ready to announce the next class!

The new mailbag segments on Saturday mornings at 10:00 KATZ have been a huge success. Thank you all so much for contributing. I hope they are as fun for you as they are for us! And the donations have been so vast in number that we've had to share some of the overflow with other fosters at OAW. Someday, perhaps, we'll even need to share with other fosters at other shelters!

We've sadly been too busy here at the Academy to produce any of our special videos - and of course, a contributing factor is the continued absence of our best camera. We hope to be able to make some soon! Also, we're constantly a little behind in responding to e-mail, but we love hearing from you. We'll get caught up!

All right - we have a whole bunch of photos that we hadn't yet shared with you, which are at the end of this post. But first! The "Kitten Academy Fans" on Twitter have put together a yearbook for us, which is really wonderful, and must be seen! The photos are below, after the Yearbook.

That is amazing! Thanks to Ellie and Bates! And thanks for letting us share it here!

Here's the promised photos!

Charwee's Adventures Continue!

March 07, 2017 by DJ in Adoption, Graduation

Just a quick update regarding the next stop on Charlie's adventures! Charlie is going to be picked up by his adopter tomorrow, the 8th, at roughly 11:00 KATZ. We will archive the stream for those of you who want to see it but can't tune in live.

Charlie will be taking his favorite blue ball, his 'space age bachelor pad,' and a bag full of goodies that you all have donated. Thank you so much for your generosity!

We know we're all somewhat sad to see him go - and it's OK to be sad. But we can assure you that this is what's best for Charlie! As we were saying on the stream this morning: many people have asked us to keep Charlie. But as special as Charlie is, it's not fair to only give him 1/17th of the love we have for cats (our six cats, plus the 10 fosters we have, plus Charlie = 17)! It's much better for Charlie to go to a home where he can have the lion's share of the love, as he deserves. On top of that, his adopters have promised to keep us up to date with a constant stream of news and photos. So it's not 'goodbye' - it's just 'see you later!'

We can also tell you that Charlie's adopters are wonderful people, and we're certain you'll agree. We can't say more today, but after the adoption we'll be able to tell you more about them. You're going to be thrilled for little Charwee!

Here's some of the most recent photos of Charlie.