The Three Orphans

As best as I can estimate, The Three Orphans were born in the middle of July.  My mother found them in a trash heap underneath an abandoned rental house in Hyattsville Maryland.  She called me and asked me what to do, since in her inexpert eyes, they looked bad.

(Forest Gump, Ethan Hunt, Sophie Petrillo)

(This photo was taken a few weeks into their bottle feeding phase.)

I told her to watch for the mom cat and that I would call FancyCats Rescue and ask if they would be willing to take in these babies.  

FancyCats Rescue said yes, but that they didn't have anyone who knew how to, or who had the time to, bottle feed kittens as young as these guys were, 2-3 weeks old.  

I told them I'd bottle feed them, (I had experience from Josie's 5 boys) but I needed fewer cats.  I still had Josie and four of her babies.  And 7 cats, not matter how you slice it, or how big they are, is a lot of cats.  

They obliged by letting Josie have a newly opened window cage at Springfield's PetSmart.  She spent 2 1/2 days there before getting adopted by a little girl also named Josie.  I had the privilege of meeting her new family and telling them all about her to make her transition into their family smoother.

The mom cat never came back, so my mom brought them home in a woven basket, ringed with plastic, made to hold large flower pots.  At the bottom, their three tiny emaciated, lethargic bodies huddled together and looked at us with big eyes.  

Their fur was matted, mud had dried on it, and fleas crawled freely over them.  Despite this, they were beautiful.  The smallest, Ethan Hunt (named after the daredevil actor in Mission Impossible movies) had the most fleas on him and was in the worst shape.  After spending more than an hour washing him, watching the water turn red from all the scabs and flea poo on him, and carefully combing out more than 50 fleas, I realized just how close they had been to death. After washing them all, the process of de-worming, vaccinations, antibiotics, cleaning them, training them to use the litter-box, and bottle feeding every 2 hours began.

After the first few days, their personalities really began to shine through and this is when they got their names. 

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Ethan Hunt

Ethan Hunt was a cuddling sweetheart who would daringly go forward and climb or balance on what he could find.  This darling boy never seemed to stop crying for food.  In the beginning, it was difficult to take any photographs where his mouth wasn't wide open calling for food.  Ethan also made it difficult to feed his brother Forest Gump because of his preponderancy of pushing his siblings away from the bottle.  But Ethan was very much a good boy, it was obvious that he very much wanted affection and to please people.  He learned very quickly what behaviors gave him positive attention and had a very expressive face.  Ethan's face portraying happiness, confusion, shock, fright, love, and intent interest, would give many persons who say that cats are just animals and are all the same, a reason to doubt themselves.

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Forest Gump

(Forest Gump @ 1lb)

Forest Gump looks very much like his brother Ethan Hunt, but could never be mistaken for him because of his long super-fine fur.  Forest Gump was named after the movie and character of the same name.  Forest was extremely affectionate, but only with humans, and he never wanted to play.  Forest Gump would come over saying he was hungry and then forget he was eating and wander off to watch whatever action was occurring around him.  Forest's looks caused me to initially believe he was part Maine Coon, but after much discussion, research, and accounting for his fur type, tail length, and miniature size, it has been determined that he is likely a Persian mix.  Forest's slow development, Persians, and cat Dwarfism will likely be in a future post.

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Sophie Petrillo

Sophie Petrillo, of the three, was the easiest in that she was willing to drink warm milk from the lid of a chinese food container, which was the absolute smallest container I could find with a tiny lip.  After letting her eat on her own to start her meal, I always finished her off with a bottle to ensure she was full and not just tired from the way she had been eating.  Of the three, Sophie was the most cautious, most intelligent, spunky, and most often awake.  These traits earned her the last name of Petrillo to honor the actress who played Sophia Petrillo's character in The Golden Girls, she had just passed away.

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Ethan Hunt and Sophie Petrillo were adopted together by a young, married couple via a pre-arranged meeting at a Fairlakes PetSmart fair.  Ethan was renamed "Max," but Sophie retained her name.  They are quite happy now and as normal and healthy as they can be.

Forest Gump, on the other hand, has proven to have an abnormal constitution, with both food consumption, and internal and external development.  For a long time, his tiny size and continual poor health made certainty of his survival questionable, but he is doing much better.  Special care will put into ensuring that his eventual forever home is the right fit for him.  He is, and will always remain a special needs cat needing exacting, time consuming attention to his physical and emotional needs.  As a dwarf, even part of an ounce difference in his weight matters.