Season’s Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
Not much to share here, but we didn’t want to let Christmas go by without posting the remnants of our Christmas photoshoot. We’ll also be posting the archive of the Santa visit … uh, eventually?
Also, just a quick reminder, Tailor and Brook still need adopters! We’ll post more about that soon.
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
Our annual-if-we-can-ual Halloween shoot didn’t go as expected this year - we cut it short due to camera malfunction. But we have several photos of the Tinypants from before the costumes came out and the camera quit.
But before we get to that, all the kitten news!
We have approved adopters for almost all the kittens! Culotte and Pebble are being adopted together. Fern, Moss, and Thistle are being adopted as a group! And Knickerbocker also has an approved adopter. The Tinypants will probably graduate in about a month, and the younger kids may take a bit more than two months.
Meanwhile, we still need to find homes for Brook, Tailor, and Blue Jean!
Brook “Sugar Brookie”
Brook is Pebble’s mom, and she’s super loving towards her humans. Don’t let her intense eyes fool you - she is the queen of the slow blink, which is cat for “I love you!” She also enjoys when we put her on our laps and snuggle, even if we want to hold her upside-down like a kitten. We know that in her past, she lived with a bunch of other cats, and while her reactions towards the faculty haven’t yet been super friendly, they also aren’t aggressive. So we think that if she found a patient adopter with other cats, she could be introduced to them slowly. Or she’d fit right in as an only cat! She also has exotic good looks with her tufted ears, dark colors, and colored muzzle.
Tailor
Tailor is Blue Jean’s mom and they’d make a great pair together. If you’ve watched the Kitten Academy Live Stream much, you’ve probably seen the two of them playing and wrestling like kittens. Blue Jean is certainly the most playful and bold of Tailor’s three kittens - she was the first to meet the faculty and usually the first to check out new toys and new situations. If she gets adopted with her mom, they can keep each other entertained pretty well - and if they are adopted separately, their adopters should be prepared to spend some time every day wearing them down! Tailor has some of the softest fur we’ve ever had at the Academy, and uniquely colored classic tabby sworls.
Blue Jean
Please apply to adopt Brook, Blue Jean, and Tailor! Or if you know anyone who might, send them here to apply! All adoptions are managed by DAWS and we’re willing to adopt to anywhere in the continental USA, as long as you’re willing to come to southwestern Connecticut to pick them up.
Here’s all the photos we’ve taken lately!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
We’ve got photos lined up in advance for another blog post tomorrow, so we’re going to save news and updates about the Tinypants for then. This post is just about the new kittens!
Three kittens showed up unexpectedly at DAWS, and they knew we were looking for some siblings for Pebble, so they asked us to take them in and add them to Brook’s class. Unfortunately, Brook has decided she’s done with kittens - seemingly even done with Pebble — so we’ve taken the kittens to the “second annex.” Pebble is getting along great with her new brothers!
Meanwhile, Brook is scheduled for her spay on Thursday and would be ready to go home with the right adopter shortly thereafter! She’s sweet, playful, and very pretty! So far, she’s not too happy about other cats, though that may change once she’s had her surgery. And she’s not aggressive, so we’re fairly confident she could be with other cats after a patient and extended introduction. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as we introduce her to the faculty while she’s here.
Pebble (Female)
Thistle (Male)
Fern (Male)
Moss (Male)
Brook (Pebble’s Mom)
Here’s the rest of the photoshoot!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
DJ’s cheat sheet is simpler and more complex than usual!
You’ve probably already noticed the latest attendees of the Academy, Brook and Pebble. Our new vet, Dr. Katz, was looking after them for T.A.I.L.S, who had rescued them recently. T.A.I.L.S. were looking for a foster and we fell in love with Brook and her kitten at first sight, so we offered to take them if no foster could be found - and if they’d be willing to sign them over to DAWS, the shelter we normally work with.
Of course, as soon as we offered, the fine folks at T.A.I.L.S. agreed to sign them over and have them put through the Kitten Academy! This is the first time we’ve had a class with just one kitten in it - it’s possible if not likely that we’ll ask DAWS if they want to add in more classmates later in the semester.
We would really love to see Brook and Pebble adopted together, and hope some of you consider applying for them as a pair. It’s never too early to put in an application!
On that note, we’d love to see the Tinypants adopted in groups as well, with their mom, Tailor! They’ve got approximately a month and a half left until graduation now, so it’s a great time to apply!
Finally, Twist is the only one of the Wiggles still at the Academy, and we expect her adopter to pick her up on October 23rd. She’ll be going home all the way to Arizona!
Here’s our first photoshoot with Brook and Pebble, and some bonus faculty photos and Whimsy too!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
Just a quick post as an excuse to share new photos of Tailor’s Bespoke Tinypants!
Graduation dates for the Wiggles:
September 26: Fidget, Cartwheel, Twiddle
October 1: Flip
October 2: Whimsy, Twist
All the Wiggles and Whimsy have confirmed adopters, although we haven’t set specific pick-up dates for all of them yet. We know Twiddle will be going home on the 1st and Cartwheel should be going home on the 2nd.
We’ll let you know more as we learn more!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
DJ’s cheat sheet!
Our newest momcat, Tailor, arrived a week ago from near Savannah, Georgia. She delivered two of her kittens on the transport up from GA, and the third and final kitten at the Academy. Her paperwork says she may be half Bengal and despite her diminutive size, her amazing colors seem to bear that out! Thanks to Tabby Tales and DAWS for coordinating her arrival at the Academy!
Before we get on with the official photos, we have the results of the Basepaws poll from our last entry. You have chosen Magnolia to be the faculty member that we test first! We’ll be sure to let you know when we submit the test and the results when it comes back!
All right then - on with the kittens!
Knickerbocker - Male
Culotte - Female
Blue Jean - Female
Tailor - Momcat
And here’s the rest:
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
We’ve got an epic-sized photoshoot to share with you but first, some stuff to talk about!
Firstly, we asked the fine folks at DAWS - that’s the shelter we work with here in Connecticut - to start looking around for our next momcat. The Wiggles still have a month or more with us, but we’re ready to open the annex soon! I believe DAWS will begin processing applications for the Wiggles soon, so if you still need to apply to adopt, you can do that here! If you already filled out an application, don’t worry - DAWS got them all!
Next, the KA-Con planning committee has asked us to remind you, if you are attending KA-Con, you can still purchase raffle tickets in advance online. You can also purchase them at KA-Con, but if you get them there, it will be cash sales only! So if you want to use a card, hop on over to the raffle page and get them while they’re hot!
Sorry to say, if you are not attending KA-Con, you can’t participate in the raffle. So don’t buy raffle tickets if you won’t be there!
You might recall that our friends at Basepaws sent us a free DNA testing kit a couple weeks ago. You can see Mr. A talk about it for way too long on this mailbag. We’re really excited about the work they’re doing to help pre-screen genetic diseases and we’re also super excited about the possibility of identifying familial relationships in the future!
We’d like you to vote on which of the KA Faculty gets the test! You’re on your honor to only vote once.
Polling Closed - Here’s the results!
[Edited 2019-09-07: Removed the poll and put in the results instead]
We’ll post the results of the vote in our next blog post! Meanwhile — here’s the photos we promised you!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
We’ve got some great new photos of the Wiggles but before that, we need to take a minute to talk to you about KA-Con! We’ve got a lot to say and it’s all really important so I hope you bear with us and don’t just scroll down to the adorable photos!
We had a ton of fun meeting so many people at last year’s KA-Con, and all of the fun stuff the planning committee put together for it - I think our favorite part was the KA Jeopardy hosted by JimmyD; that’ll be back this year! There were questions even we couldn’t answer! And then there was the Q&A panel… where there were also questions we couldn’t answer!
Plenty of room for this years’ tattoo!
This year we’re aiming to be bigger and better and pack in even more fun - even if the real draw is meeting each other. We’ve got a raffle (and you can get raffle tickets in advance!) that includes all kinds of fabulous prizes for cats and their humans, including the grand prize of a visit to the new Kitten Academy in CT to meet the Faculty and the current students! And perhaps best of all, the amazingly talented local(ish) kitten foster Sarah Donner will be there, and she will be putting on a concert for the KA-Con attendees!
This is the first year we’ve opened KA-Con to the public, and that makes the planning process a lot trickier than what we’ve been through in previous years. The planning committee guesstimated about 200-300 attendees and has set up the contracts with the venue to reflect that. So far, roughly 100 of you have bought your tickets and confirmed you’ll be there. Thank you!
We need to ask the rest of you for some help. It’s super helpful for the planning committee if you buy your tickets soon. In fact, a lot of the committee’s ability to plan absolutely depends on you doing just that. So if you’re pretty certain you’d like to go - and you should! - it would be a great idea to head over to the KA-Con website and get signed up now. In order to encourage folks to get in early and not at the last minute, the ticket prices are going to go up quite a bit in a couple of weeks. We’d certainly prefer not to have it that way, but we hope you can understand the necessity. And the venue has required that we stop selling tickets completely by Sept 1 so they have final numbers for the lunch on Saturday that’s included for all attendees. So if you plan on waiting until the last minute - it will be too late!
We also know a few folks have expressed some “sticker shock” at the current price, even before it goes up. We can understand that. Last year we were able to go cheaper due to many factors, such as a generous anonymous sponsor, and a venue that was way off the beaten path. Even so, we fell short of breaking even on the event costs. This year we’re looking at a much larger deficit, even with the new ticket prices. We’ll end up covering that difference ourselves, and it’s worth it to have a chance to meet so many of you - but obviously, the more of you we meet, the more favorably that math works out!
TL;DR: We really want to meet you at KA-Con and it would help us (and you!) a lot if you got your tickets now! Now here’s the cute kittens we promised!
Fidget - Female
Flip - Female
Twist - Female
Cartwheel - Male
Twiddle - Male
Whimsy - Mom
As usual - here’s the rest of the photoshoot!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
Today we have the fifth and final (for now!) installment of our Kitten Academy fan art series! Sorry this last bit was such a long time coming.
The only real news today is that Whimsy is feeling much better and the kittens are all healthy - things are all good at the Academy right meow!
Banjo by Jay (mlem!) TheSmokefall
Elsie by Jay (mlem!) TheSmokefall
Chili by Jay (mlem!) TheSmokefall
Magnolia by LilyCatsMom
DJ with Chili Beans by Olivia
Ivy’s League by Olivia
Pennyloafer by Xaph11
Hushpuppy by Banksyl
We absolutely love all the art so if you feel inspired, please tweet your art @kitten_academy, or email it to headmaster@kitten.academy!
Greetings, Kitten Academicians!
DJ made a cheat-sheet!
There’s one more post in our five-part art series, but not today. Also, don’t forget about KA-Con 3!
Today we give our official welcome to Whimsy and her five wiggly kittens! Whimsy is our first cat brought to us through our new shelter, the Danbury Animal Welfare Society. They are completely awesome and you should check them out!
As you know, Whimsy has been fighting off a bit of an upper respiratory infection. She’s still sneezing a bit but otherwise it seems like she’s feeling much better lately! She’s been eating and drinking on her own again and we’re continuing her treatments of antivirals and antibiotics until she’s completely well.
Her five little kittens seem super healthy so far! Here they are:
Fidget - Female - Torbie
Flip - Female - Dilute Tortie?
Twist - Female - Tabby
Cartwheel - Male - Tabby
Twiddle - Male - Tabby
Whimsy - Momcat
It can be difficult to tell Twist and Cartwheel apart on the stream. Twist has a bold white ring on her back right leg, and also a white neck under her chin. Cartwheel doesn’t - so that’s an easy way to tell who is who if those parts are visible. When they get big enough, we may consider collars to help differentiate them.
Here’s all the rest of the photoshoot!
