Two Households, both Alike in Dignity!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

Mural has finally had her six precious kittens after the second-longest pregnancy ever* at Kitten Academy! But before that — literally the day before — we brought in Rue and her sixlets. So today’s mewspaper post is going to introduce two families!

(* Mural gets second place with 34 days spent pregnant at the Academy. The record continues to be held by Tempest who lasted 37 days!)

Rue’s Ruse

DJ’s Cheat-Sheet for the Ruse

Rue was discovered in the Bronx where she was rescued and brought to Hoboken, NJ and given the name “Rutabaga.” Reportedly very sweet and playful, she was a joy but soon concern mounted over her growing belly and a trip to the vet was in order. The vet quickly determined that she was pregnant with six little kittens, so her rescuers called the one person they knew could help — Mom! (Their mom, not ours or Rue’s.) Mom brought Rutabaga to Dr. Katz in Fairfield, CT where the kittens were delivered, and spent their first two weeks. Now that they’ve reached an age appropriate to more mobility, we’ve brought them in to the Kitten Academy to give them a little space to stretch out and zoom around! They are currently living in the “Second Annex” next door to Mural, with hopes that eventually the two families can come together.

“Mom” will be adopting Rue (so actually Rue’s mom after all) after she’s done raising her last litter of kittens (Rue, not Mom), and the kittens will go through the usual adoption process here at Kitten Academy when they are about three months old.

A Note on Applications

Speaking of which, DAWS — the shelter we work with and who process applications for Kitten Academy kittens — have asked that anyone who wants to apply for any of Rue or Mural’s kids use the Kitten Academy application here on this website. They ask that you don’t use the regular DAWS application. The Kitten Academy application will open after the kittens are a few weeks older and we’ve had a chance to get to know them a little better. We’ll be sure to put the word out here and on our Twitter when that day arrives.

Here’s the Rue crew, and see below for Mural!

Caper - Male “Classic” Grey Tabby

Hijinks - Male “Mackerel” Grey Tabby

Hustle - Male “Mackerel” Grey Tabby

Gimmick - Male Black with Ventral White Spots

Sham - Female Black

Gambit - Male Black with Grey-Flecked Prosterior

Rue - Momcat

Mural’s Tinypaints

DJ’s Cheatsheet for the Tinypaints

Mural is another momcat who was brought to Dr. Katz, this time from a sort-of cat colony near her practice in southwestern Connecticut. Mural was brought in with the intent of performing a spay and returning her to her usual place (TNR), but Dr. K discovered she was pregnant (Mural, not Dr. K) and very friendly so offered to have her attend the Academy. We initially suspected she’d deliver kittens within a week of her arrival but it turned out to take over a month! During that time she’s shown that she’s very comfortable around other cats, and spent most of her days just hanging around the Academy with the faculty.

Etch was born with a special talent for reviewing movies and Facebook posts.

Etch was born with a special talent for reviewing movies and Facebook posts.

Mural is a polydactyl cat, which in her case means she has one extra toe in-between her fourth toe and her dewclaw on her front paws. Four of her kittens are the same, each with one extra toe on each of the front paws, as noted below. This is an unusual, but not rare genetic mutation that is unlikely to have any impact on health or longevity. However, it does allow for an impressive thumbs-up!

 

Splotch - Female Brown Tabby- Polydactyl

Trace - Female Tortie with Orange Head Stripe - Polydactyl

Etch - Male Orange Tabby - Polydactyl

Doodle - Male Black - Polydactyl

Squiggle - Female Tortie with Half-Pink Nose

Scrawl - Female Grey Tabby

Mural - Mom

One more thing before we go — well, two actually. Two new fantastic merchandise designs on our Teespring shop! See here for previous designs.

A lovely painting of Mural by @alienswearsunglasses titled “Toof”

A lovely painting of Mural by @alienswearsunglasses titled “Toof”

Technically Etch, but the cryptid version by @tanize!

Technically Etch, but the cryptid version by @tanize!

…and here’s some bonus photos, mostly of Custard’s silly expressions:

Happy Graduation to the Catterns!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

Loom and Basketweave

Loom’s five wonderful kittens, born on May 27th, are big kids now and ready to go to their new homes with their adopters! It’s been a wild ride, starting with Loom being just a kitten herself and not really sure how to momcat. We helped her provide for the kittens until they were old enough to be weaned. And we, in turn, got a lot of help from a few very special vets including Dr. To at the Animal Medical Center who helped Chevy when he bit off more than he could chew, and our regular vet Dr. Katz at Aristokatz who never seems to take a break — unless it’s Herry’s.

The adoption schedule, as we know it so far, is below. But the most important note is that Basketweave still needs qualified applicants for his adoption! He’s Loom’s clone and certainly the best climber in the group. He’s the only one in the entire family to have mastered climbing over the fence and therefore comes and goes throughout the house whenever he likes! A very clever kitten indeed, who’s certain to bring joyful mischief to his future family. [Ed: Basketweave now has an approved adopter!]

  • Loom and Herringbone - September 12th

  • Argyle and Chevy - September 3rd

  • Paisley - September 19th

  • Basketweave - September 22nd

Our new momcat, Mural, still hasn’t delivered her kittens but it can’t be too much longer now. She’s definitely almost ready to go and we’re hoping that her reportedly extensive experience in momcatting will lead to a nice, relaxing birth followed by a couple months of playing Kitten Academy on easy mode! We got some nice photos of her the same day as the below photoshoot — August 13th — and we’ll just save them until it’s time to make a blog post all about her.

One last note - the URL for the regular Kitten Academy Live Stream has changed. If you ever have trouble finding the stream, you can always check here for the latest link.

 

Paisley

Basketweave

Chevron

Herringbone

Argyle

Loom

Everyone

Merchandise mArt!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

Once again, our very own Banksyl has created a month-long art “challenge” — although how challenging it may be is entirely up to you! All you have to do to participate is anything you want to do! Whether it’s a photoshop, or an oil painting, or a musical composition, poetry, even a batch of KA-inspired artisanal cheeses — anything goes! All you need to do is tweet a photo of your art using the hashtag #KASummerCamp2021 or mail a sampler to “Kitten Academy Official Cheese Taster, PO Box 186, Monroe, CT 06468.”

As in previous months, we’ll be sharing some self-selected entries from the previous art challenge at the end of this mews article. If you’d like to see all the entries, you can check the previous hashtag: #KASpringIntoArt2021 — There’s some amazing stuff there and we feel like maybe we didn’t see all of it ourselves the first time around so we may be due for some retweetings!

But before we get to that, we need to take a minute to tell you about some things that are — and aren’t — on our Teespring store! The first thing that isn’t is the word “Tee” - they are in the process of rebranding as just “Spring” so you may notice the links we’re about to share go to various spring-related domains.

Jay and Syl, who manage the Teespring store, have added several brand-new designs that we’re super excited about! And there’s also several older designs that are being removed from the store, so this is (probably) your last chance to get them if you’ve been waiting.

Good TODAY ONLY (Monday the 2nd) at Teespring/Spring you can use the code “BACKTOSCHOOL” to get 10% off whatever you order! That savings is entirely from the Teespring portion, so it doesn’t cost us a penny.

Two quick notes - some of these designs are showing you the rear view initially and you have to click to see the front. This appears to be a bug on Teespring. Secondly, don’t forget that for each design, you can choose different styles of shirt (or bag or phone cases, etc) and colors in the menus on the right-hand side.

“KA Summer Camp” White by Jay

“KA Summer Camp” White by Jay

“KA Summer Camp’ Black by Jay

“KA Summer Camp’ Black by Jay

“I’ve Made a Puge Mistake” - Puget Art by “Captain Sokira”

“I’ve Made a Puge Mistake” - Puget Art by “Captain Sokira”

“Catterns” by Waithamai

“Catterns” by Waithamai

“Don’t Panic” White by Mushi-shi

“Don’t Panic” White by Mushi-shi

“Don’t Panic” Black by Mushi-shi

“Don’t Panic” Black by Mushi-shi

Those are all fantastic and exciting! And here’s a fun fact: the “Don’t Panic” design based on Garbanzo’s paw, who was our last polydactyl, up until the new momcat arrived this weekend who is also polydactyl! Timely option to represent our lovely new mom, “Mural.”

Here are the designs that will be leaving the store on the 7th:

“Truffle” by Waithamai

“Truffle” by Waithamai

“Loganberry is Importanter” White by Jay

“Loganberry is Importanter” White by Jay

“Loganberry is Importanter” Black by Jay

“Loganberry is Importanter” Black by Jay

That concludes the Merchandising portion of this blog post! Here comes some fantastic art from the previous art prompt! We’ll be back soon with a mewspaper post to tell you all about the new mom, Mural, after we get some good photos of her.

What Mew, Loom's Catterns?

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

We took some photos of Loom and her kids for you to enjoy! Not much else to it. They all got collars but that was after this photoshoot, so the collar colors are noted by their names but you won’t see them — don’t try looking closer!

Brief health updates: The Catterns are all over their Calicivirus as far as we can tell! Herringbone took a spill and we’re still consulting with the vets about whether there’s anything we can or should do - meanwhile he’s kittening perfectly well on three legs! We’ll keep you informed as we know more.

Here’s a cute new design in our Teespring store featuring Puget.

 

Loom

Paisley - Female - Lavender Collar

Basketweave - Male - Grey Collar

Herringbone - Male - Red Collar

Chevron - Male - Blue Collar

Argyle - Male - Orange Collar

Bonus Photos!

Port Oranges and Catterns Updates!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

As you no doubt are aware, Port Oranges have been getting picked up by their adopters and as of this writing, only Bombay, Rotterdam, and Sydney remain. And Millet, of course. They will be picked up in due time:

  • Bombay - Friday July 9th

  • Syd and Millet - Saturday July 17th

  • Rotterdam - TBD, after neuter on the 12th

We would have liked to have done another studio photoshoot with the entire group but unfortunately, time did not allow. We did, however, catch a bunch of action shots with the oranges and the A-Door-Able bird toy. You’ll find some of those at the end of this post!

Meanwhile, we managed another brief shoot with the Catterns. We’ll split that up by kitten here as it’s still difficult to tell Chevron from Herringbone. The Catterns are finally eating well on their own and all seem very active and happy! There’s good evidence that the Calicivirus that Rotterdam had earlier has been picked up by some or all of the Catterns but they seem — like Rotterdam — as though they don’t even notice.

Paisley

Basketweave

Chevron

Herringbone

Argyle

Loom

Here’s a few extra of the Catterns

Here’s some photos of the Oranges at play!












This Post Stuck In A Holding Cattern

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

The headline might be a bit of a stretch, but we’re almost a month late in introducing Loom and her Catterns here on the website! Loom came to DAWS on a transport from West Virginia and at first, we were skeptical that she was even pregnant. But Dr. Katz confirmed it with an X-ray and a few days later, on Thursday May 27th, she delivered five healthy little kittens.

It seems as though — for one reason or another — nursing with Loom hasn’t been able to provide them with all the nutrition they require, so we’ve been supplementing them with frequent tube-feedings. As a result, they’re all fat and happy three-and-a-half weeks later, and just now in the process of transitioning to solid food!

Paisley - Female

Basketweave - Male

Chevron - Male

Herringbone - Male

Argyle - Male

Loom - Mom

And here’s everything else!*

(* there’s some good photos in these shoots that we haven’t yet had the opportunity to edit and publish here but perhaps we will, “in due time.”)

Oranges! Photos! Updates!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

We’ve got updated photos of the Oranges for you below, but first, some news:

Port is scheduled for her spay on the 1st and will be eligible to go home with an adopter about two weeks later. All of the boys are scheduled for their neuters on the 22nd and will be eligible to go home pretty much the next day!

Relatedly, applications for the Oranges are now open! You can apply by clicking the application link in our menu above. The Danbury Animal Welfare Society manages processing of the applications and selection of applicants. They have informed us that prior applicants who weren’t able to get kittens in previous classes have accounted for several of the Oranges already having adopters, but Port and some of the kittens (we don’t know which) are still available. As always our suggestion is to go ahead and apply! If you don’t get the kitten you were hoping for, you’ll at least be in a good position for when the next right kitten comes along!

The big news, of course, is that Loom, our newest momcat, gave birth to five beautiful kittens yesterday. We had suspected there was a sixth pending, but we’ve since changed our opinion - seems like 5 is it! The kittens all seem quite healthy and Loom seems quite healthy and happy and they are all making the right motions, so it’s a bit of a mystery so far why the kittens don’t seem to be getting much milk from Loom. Until we’re able to solve the mystery, we’ll be tube-feeding the kittens on a rigorous schedule and we’re communicating with Dr. Katz. We’ll be able to discuss this in more depth in an upcoming post with their newborn photos!

Finally, quick update on Millet, who is doing wonderfully! We don’t yet know how effective the treatment has been but we should get our first update on that after his next visit to Dr. Lansdowne at the Central Hospital for Veterinary Medicine in Guilford. That will be on Wednesday the 2nd.

Here’s individual photos of the oranges and then a bunch of everything all together!

Halifax - Male - White Collar

Bombay - Male - Black Collar

Puget - Male - Purple Collar

Rotterdam - Male - Checkered Collar

Antwerp - Male - Pink Collar

Sydney - Male - Blue Collar

Rio - Male - Red Collar

Port - Mom

Group Photos!

…and here’s the rest!

A Ship Full of Oranges!

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

This is a whole lot of photos!

Because it’s so tricky to tell the oranges apart, we’ve separated the photos into galleries for each of them, as well as a very large gallery at the end of candids and miscellany.

Photos with the boat and the whales in the background are from April 4th. Candids with DJ are from April 9th, and the photos with the blue mottled background are from April 21st.

Here we go…!

Halifax

Bombay

Puget

Rotterdam

Antwerp

Sydney

Rio

Port

But wait - there’s more!

Bready Bunch Sunflower Shoot!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

Today we have a single giant blog post with two complete photo galleries. First, a set of the Bready Bunch chasing a feather toy around the living room and learning to fly, along with a couple bonus photos of the faculty. Second, a gallery of arranged photos in the “studio” with a sunflower theme for the sons of Flour. I hope you enjoy! Don’t forget if you click the photos and scroll through you have to do each set separately.

We’re still working on arranging the adoptions for Flour, Corn, Rye, and Potato and the surgery for Millet so we don’t have exact dates yet but we can tell you that Flour and Corn are being adopted together, and Rye and Potato are being adopted together. The three boys are going for their neuters on the 19th and Flour will be in for a recheck that same day to see when we can take a second go at her spay. Millet will be staying around the Academy for a few months while we arrange the correction of his pectus excavatum and then make sure he’s got a good adopter to take care of him!

[Edit: Millet is scheduled for his surgery with the amazing Dr. Taylor on Thursday, May 6th, but he’ll be going in on the 5th and returning on the 7th.]

Don’t forget - it’s not too late to participate in the April Art uh, thingy — not exactly a ‘challenge’ — on Twitter!


Flying Toast Shoot!

Sunflower Studio Shoot!

For this shoot, the kittens and Flour had special collars provided by Bizzicat. Potato is in the yellow collar and the others are wearing their usual colors; Rye is red, Millet is green, and Corn is blue.

Art - Late as Usual!

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Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

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Syl’s put together another fun and excellent art prompt for the month of April, over on Twitter, and there’s already a bunch of entries! (Because we’re very late in posting about it - entirely our fault!)

To participate, all you need to do is make an art based on the prompts and tweet it using the hashtag #KASpringintoArt2021. Anything goes, whether you draw or paint or sculpt or sing or something completely different!

 

Here’s a selection of art from the last prompt, and you can click through here to see everything! Thank you so very much to everyone who participated in the Winter Break art!