Sunday morning, 7/12, I went to check on Miss Dora and her foster kittens. Imagine my surprise when I looked into their enclosure and only one kitten was in there!
Miss Dora had moved the foster kittens, and I started searching. While I was searching, I was also trying to figure out why she had moved them and why she had left one kitten behind. [I think I have solved the second riddle - I think she was coming back for the last kitten, but I interrupted her work.]
I looked in the usual places - corners, on a blanket, in a dark-out-of-the-way place. My husband's '73 240 Z is parked in the same garage where we keep the foster kittens. The windows on the car were partly open. I looked in the car - just looked through the window, and I didn't see or hear the kittens.
I started to panic a little since I couldn't find the kittens right away. My daughter started helping me. I heard her open the car door and look inside. I eventually hollered for my husband to come help us search.
Like me, he checked all the usual places. He finally looked in the Z and shouted, "Here they are!" I said, "But we looked there and didn't see them." He told me to come see where they were.
I looked in the car door, down at the floor board and could dimly see little eyes staring back at me. The inside of the Z is completely black, and since the kittens are mostly black, it was hard to see them.
Amazingly, they were sitting in the floorboard - quietly - not making a sound. I think they were probably wondering why and how they got there.
We gathered the foster kittens and moved them back to their home, but Miss Dora had other plans. She kept trying to pick them up and move them - not an easy task because she had to jump a high wall to get them out of the enclosure. She kept going back to the car and trying to jump in the window.
We racked our brains trying to decide what was suddenly wrong with the home we had made for Miss Dora and her babies and why she felt the need to move them. I could go through all the ideas we came up with, but we just decided to go with the flow and "move house."
My husband found a new area in the garage that he thought Miss Dora would like (with much more natural light available). He built her and the foster kittens a new area to live in. We moved everyone to their new home including their box and the food dishes and water bowl.
So far, so good. Miss Dora is staying put and has not tried to move the kittens again.
Miss Dora has such good taste. She was attracted to the antique, souped up, fast car! I think my husband was flattered. We actually had to put the car cover on the car so she wouldn't scratch it and wouldn't try to keep getting in the window. The lady's got taste!
The foster kittens still aren't interested in cat food - just their mom's milk - which is okay. But I don't think Miss Dora appreciates it when they walk through her food bowl.
