If the bunny fits...........

Kaci on her bunny chair

We just love our twins, Jason and Kaci. We’ve had so much fun with them. They came to us in a “round about” way three years ago.

We have a dear friend, Kim, who I met at my office back in 2000. Jezibel had just had her 7 babies in March and I was looking for a home for them. It just so happened that she was looking for a kitten and I had all of the pictures in an album to show. She came over and picked out the little boy, Pinto. But, of course, she didn’t stop there. She now has 5 cats. Like ours, all of hers are rescue cats one way or the other.

So, here is the “round about” story of how we got the twins. It's much longer, but I've condensed it.

In 2005 Kim noticed a little long haired calico cat at a house near work. She stopped to ask the man who lived there, if he owned the cats. He said no, but she was eating whatever food she could find there. He did not want the cat so Kim decided to catch her, have her spayed, and then release her.

She had the cat spayed and discovered a skin problem which had to be taken care of with several follow-up shots. Charlie and I told her that we could keep the cat in a kennel in our garage and Kim could make sure that the cat got her shots and then we could release her.

Well it didn’t turn out that way of course. We named this little cat “Holly”, because it was near Christmas when we got her. She was afraid of us, but she was pretty good and eventually we could pet her. After several weeks of having her, we couldn’t think of putting her out on the street again, so we decided to keep her. Taming her and finding a forever home for her was the idea we had.

Fast forward two years. Our animal shelter here has more cats and kittens than they can handle, especially in the Spring time. They always want people who can foster kittens that are too young to put up for adoption. I have never volunteered because I know it would be too hard to give the kittens back to the shelter.

Kim decided to try the foster program. I applaud anyone who will do that. It saves a lot of lives. She brought home 3 kittens, all grey tabbies. Two were brother and sister. She named one “Bam Bam” and the other, yes, “Pebbles”. The third one, an unrelated female, was “Lily”. Kim had them at her home for about 3 weeks. She then had to return them to the shelter where they were spayed and neutered and would be put up for adoption. By that time they were 8 or 10 weeks old.

Kim checked the shelter regularly to make sure the kittens were adopted. She didn’t want to leave them there and risk losing them if it became too crowded. “Lily” was adopted right away, but “Pebbles” and “Bam Bam” had eye problems and were still there when Kim checked back. They had watery eyes which caused crustiness and they didn’t look well. But, they were healthy every other way. They were always playing with each other.

Kim and I talked about it and we were both afraid that the kittens wouldn’t be adopted. Kim adopted both of them and brought them home. She set up a room for them to keep them from the other cats she had. They had all kinds of toys in there and a cute little pink bunny chair. Both kittens were so small then, they could sleep together on the bunny. When Kim took a two week trip, I went over and took care of her cats. I got attached to those kittens right away.

I asked Charlie if we could have one of them and he said “NO! we have enough cats right now.” Of course I couldn’t get those kittens out of my mind. We only had 9 cats!

We wanted to keep the kittens together, but if they had to be separated, Kim and I talked about her keeping “Bam Bam” and me taking “Pebbles”. At lunch one day, I tried another approach with Charlie. I said “So, what do you think we should name our new kitten?” It was half a joke and half determination. He didn’t protest, so I thought maybe he was weakening. But I still had some work to do.

One night in September I was over at Kim’s visiting with her and the kittens. She asked me if I thought that maybe we could take both kittens IF she took Holly. I said I’d ask Charlie about it.

Well, the rest is history. Charlie thought about it and said “OK”. It only took us a few days to do the cat/kitten exchange. We also got their pink bunny chair.

We re-named them the twins, “Kaci” and “Jason”. Because of their great personalities, they moved right in our household of cats and made themselves comfortable. Taz would never have accepted just any cat. These were special and I’m glad that the twins got to spend so much time with Taz. It was good for all of them.

Yesterday Kaci was curled up in her little bunny chair. That is when we noticed how big she’s getting. Her leg was hanging over the edge. Charlie said “You need a bigger bunny chair!”

More later………