Mama Callie and Her Kittens

Mama Callie was an outside feral cat that had had several litters in a backyard colony of a friend’s house already. I offered to trap her, bring her to my place to help raise the kittens, and get her fixed. They agreed. She was a total bitch and spitfire when I brought her home, and she had her babies the very next day – five girls!

She was fiercely protective of her kittens, and really didn’t want us messing with them at ALL, which was a problem to overcome since I wanted these to be sweet and adoptable kittens – not backyard ferals.

I had to feed her in a cage, and lock her in there, in order to get some time socializing with the babies. After a short time she’d just go in the cage, without all the fuss and anger. After working with her quite a bit, she finally decided people might not be so bad after all. This, mind you, after she drew blood at least once from all three of us!

Her kittens didn’t suffer from her attitude because of all the work we did with them, and eventually she actually got quite sweet, especially once she was spayed! She even got okay with us playing with the babies in her presence! She returned to the colony as an outside pet, and became a total sweetie. She was as much of a success story as the kittens!

We used her for the watchkitty photos (the first and last of which are seen here) for which we took pics at different ages resting on Aidon’s arm/wristwatch for scale.

She went to my dear friends Sue and Michael, along with her littermate Mysteria. Sue knew she was taking them when they were pretty small still, but wasn’t ready for them until they were much bigger. I love situations like that – I get to enjoy the kittens, without worrying about rehoming them!

Oreo lives in San Leandro now, where she owns two dogs along with her sister. The cats apparently have the dogs completely whipped.

She got her name because some of the markings on her back/side looked a lot like a question mark, making her a mystery… thus, Mysteria.
She had a regular quirk of getting into your pants, while you were on the toilet. My friend Sue, who adopted her, tells me she hasn’t really given that up.
She is living happily in San Leandro, where she has totally pussy-whipped Sue’s two dogs, and insists on regular baths from one of them.

Reeses was named after Reeses’ Pieces because she had dots of different colors on her. She’s mostly calico, but a few of her dots are tabbyish.

I was showing my kitten pics off at the dentist’s office, and one of the young hygenists fell in love with her. She adopted her not long after and named her Bella.

Doodlebug was one of the two longer-haired kittens from Callie’s litter. She and her sister Snickers looked a lot like their mama with their fluffy calico coats.

They ended up going to their forever home together, as well, and became Clio and Thespe. I’m pretty sure Doodlebug became Clio 😉

Snickers was the other longer-haired kitten in Callie’s litter, and looked very much like her mama.

Snickers went with Doodlebug to their forever home together, where they became the very floofy and gorgeous Clio and Thespe. I’m pretty sure Snickers became Thespe.