Introducing Kira

A couple of weeks ago, I received a message from a friend about a deaf dog at a local animal control facility.  When I arrived at the shelter, I found this dog:

I fell in love with her cute face and gigantic ears right away. After spending a few minutes with her, I knew I would be taking her home to foster.  The dog was very well behaved during the evaluation.  She didn't jump up, she wasn't mouthy or pushy, she wasn't fearful, and she tolerated being handled and held with no issues.  She was the perfect size (around 25 pounds) and she seemed to be in good health. 

At her vet visit I learned that she is believed to be a French Bulldog mix, and she is between two and three years old.  At home I learned that she is mostly deaf, although she may have limited hearing.  She is great with other dogs, fine with my cat, and she loves to cuddle.  And it didn't take long before I started thinking about adopting her myself. 

I haven't decided to keep her yet... she is still new and I need to make sure once she settles in she will be okay with all the different dogs and cats that I foster.  But so far she is doing great.  And although I originally wanted to name her something to do with her large ears or the cute paw-print shaped spots on her back, in the end my husband called her Kira, and since he agreed that we could keep her if I wanted to, I thought it only fair that I also keep the name he gave her! 

Whether she stays permanently or not, I just have to say that I love this dog!

Introducing Kira, Kona and Kimba

But first, my neighbor would like to have a word:

Moo!

I believe what she's trying to say is "Please, for the love of cows, stop taking my picture!"  I'm sorry, I can't help myself. 

What do you call a grumpy cow? 
Moo-dy. 

Okay, on to the introductions.  First is Kira.   Kira was found as a pregnant stray by a family who couldn't keep her, but they let her stay until she had her two kittens and we could make space for them in a foster home. The kittens are around six weeks old now. 

Kira is a beautiful cat who couldn't decide if she wanted to be a tabby or a tortoiseshell, so she picked both.  Her coloring is called "torbie" - a mix of the tabby pattern and the tortoiseshell markings.  She is small and quite young, although I'll have to wait until she goes to the vet to get a good estimate of her age. 

Kira is very friendly with people, but after one unfortunate encounter where Ziggy decided to break into her room, I quickly learned that Kira does NOT like dogs. 

The kittens are another story.  They aren't really afraid of anything, and see themselves as mighty hunters.  I'm pretty sure they would have gladly taken down Ziggy if Kira had not done such an excellent job of telling Ziggy to get out of their room in no uncertain terms.  Instead they had to settle for taking down my tennis shoes.  And each other.  And the collapsible cat cube.  And anything else they could get their paws on. 

The kittens and Kira are sharing an empty room in my house that I have specifically designated as a "cat room".  Since it'll still be another few weeks before the kittens are old enough to get vetted for adoption, I wanted to give them as much room as possible to run and play.

These kittens were very lucky - they've never known life in a cage.  Even so, I feel sorry for them being relegated to only one room of the house, with very little interaction with me and no interaction with any other pets or people.  It causes me to buy them lots and lots of cat toys to keep them entertained.  And to say, if you haven't considered it, think about fostering!  One momma cat and two kittens isn't very much work, and the entertainment they provide is well worth it!

This is Kona.

 And this is Kimba.

They're both girls, and they'll hopefully be ready for adoption in about three weeks!