SMEAR TACTICS

Our kittens reached a milestone today....they're one week old! It seems like it's been longer since Kelly delivered them and I'm still a worried cat mama. All my worry doesn't take away from the fact the babies look and seem healthy. They're nursing vigorously and sleeping more, which I take to mean they're getting enough milk, but I still have not been able to get them to eliminate properly even though I know how to do that and have tried various, shall we say, "techniques". It's entirely possible that Kelly is doing what she's supposed to for them, and that I simply have not seen her cleaning them. But I don't want to take any chances so I have a call in to my vet. I feel silly in a way, asking about their elimination, but it's been awhile since I had newborn kittens here and when I did have them, their mamas most often did all the work and I was basically on stand-by. As I mentioned, I know the mechanics of what to do and I've done all that. It hasn't worked.

Yesterday I resorted to lightly and gently "smearing" a very small amount of canned cat food juices onto the kittens. I was very careful and only applied it to the tops of their heads and the middle of their backs. Kelly loves her canned food so she immediately began to clean her kittens from top to bottom - "bottom" being the operative word here.

All in all, they seem like a content little family and after I have some assurances from the vet that everything is going as it should, maybe then I'll be able to relax.......or not.