Video of Teddi playing with her dog food bag

3 kittens get sterilized, & Neri's b'day

2 Feb 2012:  Bill took Maia & Silva to Dr L to get them sterilized on 19 Jan.  The night before he caught Maia the large gray male kitten, by putting food in a jar with holes in it, into our kennel.  Maia loves to eat & thinks by his stomach, kind of like some humans.  We kept him overnight upstairs & he was really good & quiet except for a few meows.  The next morning Nerina put some kibble into the trap & then she put Silva the gray female kitten into it.  So off went the 2 of them to their surgeries.  On the way there Silva was lashing out in her cage, of course trying to get out.  The doctors had to turn the carriers around & around to try to jab at the cats to give them their punti for their anesthesia.  

Before Maia woke up from his sleep, Dr G was saying that she had a friend who wanted a gray cat with bella silver tips.  Then when Maia awoke he became wild & crazy, & Dr G reconsidered that he would not be a good choice for her friend.  After the 2 of them came home, Bill had them upstairs overnight so that they could recuperate & be warm.  The girls were pretty good about all of this except when they heard “meows” & then they started barking.  The next am Bill gave the gatti their freedom.  They shot like arrows running as fast as they could, up the tree by Giorgio M’s shed, & launched themselves over the 18 foot stone wall & into Germana’s giardino.  There they stayed for 2 days.  We had never figured out why they went there, like Mama Kitty before them, until Germana had told Neri that they were born in what used to be an old barn in her yard.  Maybe that is where they felt safe.  But Germana is smart, she doesn’t feed them, so of course they came back to Neri to be fed.  

On Monday 30 Jan. we were invited to Neri’s for caffe’ & birthday cake to celebrate her 80th birthday!  She had ordered a bella torta with soft cake layers, cream filling, & cookies on top.  Now I know where my family gets their sweet tooth from, their Italian ancestors & today’s Italians who seem to know how to make every imaginable dessert.  I remember while living in Germany that the Germans also made great ones.  We sat around & talked to each other & Giorgio.  We gave Neri a card with a cute gray kitten on the cover, & a cd of organ music composed on a fancy new church organ by Bill’s fratello Terry of Orlando.  Then Neri’s son Maurizio came over with his wife Ardea & daughter Chantal.  Bill & I left after awhile & came home, all of 10 feet from their casa to ours.

Bill had made an appt to get Stella spayed for the next morning, the 31st.  Bill had learned that it is best to try to catch the cats the nite before their planned surgery.  At night Maia accidentally got caught in the trap & Nerina let him out.  He didn’t remember that 2 weeks earlier he had got caught.  Bill went to bed having no luck catching the furba black female, Stella.  The next am he called Dr L about 8:30 to cancel the appt.  Then about 8:45 he called Dr L back telling him that he had caught Stella in the trap, using salmon juice.  So off they went to her appt.  Dr L waved a cat toy at her to distract her while his wife gave her a shot in her butt.  After her surgery Bill brought her home.  He kept her upstairs to recuperate in her cage.  She really is beautiful with her black hair, yellow bright eyes, & cute little cat body.  Dr L said about Maia that he will be a good cat to have around & that he will protect the females from males trying to bother them.  We think that he is very sweet.

On Tuesday evening Bill told Neri the good news about Stella, she seemed very surprised & said that she was contenta.

Stella was very quiet in her cage overnight.  She did not pee at all even though Bill gave her a little cup of water.  On Wednesday morning Bill set her free at 7:00 & she went over the wall.  On Thursday morning she was eating on our porch at 5:00 ravenously.

Wed the weather turned very cold with temps in the low 20’s, very windy with gusts about 20 mph, & snow on the montagne.  We skipped the girls walks Wed & Thurs because of the cold, but I did go shopping at the base Wed.