Author Archives: Squeakandpurrcrochet

I journal about what I love.

Foster Cat (Sylvester)

Sunday 4/12 (Day 3)

Sylvester has opened up today. He’s told me his life story, if only I could understand meow.

What’s he talking about? 🤔
I call this sort of cat meow “yelling”

When I woke up this morning Sylvester’s dry food bowl was empty! It’s always a relief when a new foster starts eating well. Cats can develop “fatty liver disease” in just a few days if they stop eating well.

The litter box had been used again! I was worried about his litter box use, since Sylvester is adjusting to being an indoor only kitty.

Sylvester’s met everyone, well all the humans, in the family now. He’s determined they are all his friends – and happily accepted pets from them.

It’s interesting how everyone has their own way of interacting with/petting pets. My husband said “oh this guy won’t last long”, as he exchanged head bumps with Sylvester. My daughter talked away to him, and pet him from head to tip of tail (which he loves as he circles back and forth in front of her). My son is the calmer voice, gentle hand out, then lots of head and cheek scratches.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…

Sylvester continues to settle in well.

His brush arrived Monday. I call it the “brush of magic”. It’s actually a fairly cheap brush off Amazon. I keep having to order new brushes as foster cats fall in love with their brush and I pass it along to their forever family.

Link to Magic Brush: https://a.co/d/02bE449k

Today, Wednesday, I’m waiting for the new foster kitty condo to arrive. It will be our first plastic one.

The last foster kitties had Giardia. They required 3 rounds of treatment, and I cleaned non stop to get rid of it. Carpeted cat condos aren’t really cleanable, and Giardia cysts can live for months on surfaces. So hopefully plastic will make foster life easier and safer 🤞

Sylvester loves looking out the window. I’ve slid in a random end table into the bathroom so he has a window seat as we wait for the condo to get here…..

I LOVE…Foster Cats

Hi, you’ve stumbled on my journal.

Here is where I will document my life & all I love.

The title of my page, “Squeak & Purr Crochet”, is the name of my recently opened ETSY shop. Currently it’s only offering an ALIEN & UFO crochet stuffy, but I have made many different patterns for my first ever market in May. Most of the stuffies I’ve crochet have been CATS so far.

Which will lead into my first post about something I LOVE which is –

FOSTERING CATS

Meet Sylvester. He’s about 3 years old. He appeared at a feral cat colony at the end of last year. He wasn’t neutered and had no collar or microchip.

The kind lady who cares for the colony noticed how sweet he is. She wanted him to have a family of his own to love on him and an indoor home to keep him safe. (The average life expectancy of an outdoor cat is 2–5 years, whereas an indoor cat on average lives 13–17 years.)

She reached out to FELT (For Every Living Thing) of VA. I picked him up early Friday morning (4-11-26). He hid all of yesterday under my bathroom sink (very, very normal for a new foster). I visited him throughout the day. Each time, I got down on the floor, spoke to him, and gave him lots of slow blinks (a kitties way of saying “I feel safe with you, and I love you”).

By the afternoon, he would gently meow to me. He never left the safety of the little bathroom sink cave, but the meows felt like a conversation.

By evening (since he had enjoyed head scratches when I picked him up in the morning), I slowly put my hand under the sink toward him. He stretched his little face over to sniff my hand, which I took as a great sign. Before I went to bed, I tried this technique again. This time, I gently scratched near his ear. He leaned into it, but when I moved my hand away, he stayed in his spot.

This felt like a good first day. 🙂

The next morning, this morning, when I visited, he meowed to me and crawled out from under the sink to greet me! He leaned into all the pets (he adorably stands up on his two back legs to soak all the pets in) and did lots of little biscuit making steps. I snapped some adorable pictures of him, including the one shared above.

Seeing how happy and comfortable he was, I let my 7-year-old daughter come in to meet him. She is my foster assistant and has been eagerly waiting. When she first entered the room, he hid again, but with some soft words, he came right back out. He was thrilled to have 2 friends petting him and telling him how good of a boy he is.

I’m excited to get to know Sylvester better and help him find his forever home.