All Blacks, Fetal Rats and Mother Teresa

Last week I got an email from the new foster care coordinator for the animal shelter. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel, she said, desperate for help. Could we please take in a litter of five black and white kittens about two weeks old?

Setting aside my annoyance at being the bottom of the barrel (we’ve fostered a lot, and just sent back this year’s questionnaire having checked the “Call me first!” box as usual) I assured her that we would be happy to, as soon as I got back from Vermont. Two of our own cats are black and white, we call them the soccer balls, and we’ve never had a black and white litter, so it sounded like fun.

While I was away, she sent another email, telling me that someone had brought in a litter of four, one-week-old kittens, found without a mother, and that she had introduced them to “our” foster mama, who had accepted them with her own, and would that be ok with us and see you tomorrow. Ok, this girl is new, and very young. What Ever.

We collected the whole motley family. The black and white litter turned out to be all black with only a small patch or two of white on the occasional belly. In honor of the New Zealand rugby team, they are the All Blacks. The All Blacks are tragically cute as they wobble around and experiment with soft food (all over their little faces), swim in the water dish and learn how to play, with each other, the dogs and us.

The other litter was nowhere near close to a week old. Umbilical cords still attached, they weighed what two-day-old kittens do, according to our records of former litters. Two are white with splotches of gray, two are tigers. They look like rat fetuses. I suspect the white ones will morph into siamese, and simply hope they all survive! The rugged All Blacks easily muscle the Fetal Rats out of the way at the milk bar, so I have to be careful to supplement every few hours.

Mama cat, taking them all in with grace, and loving the ugly and abandoned as well as her own, can have no other name but Teresa.

So there you have it. We’ll have our hands full of kitten care and kitten love for a few weeks, and will love every minute.