We're on the highway! We are headed to pick up a one-day-old
little calico from Pasadena.
This is a kitten
who came in off of the street.
She was really, really cold and they got her warmed up and then called me and asked, "Do I know anybody in the area
who would want to help?"... and I was like "Do I know anybody? I am somebody!"
Let's take her! The exciting thing is that
Sonja and I are driving on the highway right now and we're getting this little calico and Andrew is at home, and he doesn't know
that we're going and getting this baby!
So it's gonna be really, really fun to surprise him!
Andrew is obsessed with calicos, so when he wakes up
He's going to have a beautiful little calico baby to kiss. The person who asked me about this kitten is Chris the cat guy
He's an amazing rescuer up in LA. He does tons of TNR,
he does tons of kitten rescue and sheltering work and
I adore him.
So I'm super stoked that we get to see him on the side of the highway,
I think we're gonna meet him in the parking lot of a mall.
Yup, we're gonna meet at a mall
So maybe we'll go shopping with the kitten?
Probably not.
Um, but yeah, let's go get this baby!
*whispers* OK, here we are.
There's a carousel here! This is fancy!
Where's our kitten? Um, should we ride the carousel while we're waiting? I'm trying to ride that carousel. If we have to wait,
Then we're going on a carousel. California's got fancy malls!
And no parking ever. And no parking ever. I feel like the carousel is a good landmark though to tell him
Yeah, meet us at the carousel bring the Calico.
It's kind of a dream. I know! It is like a weird dream.
Ooh, is this the spot?
(♪ upbeat background music ♪)
Oh, that's a point
Chris: Hey, how are you? Hannah: Hello!
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!
(Chris:) she's underneath there.
Hi! Baby!
She's really little she still has that
First day poop. Yep. Chris: Yep. I actually got nervous about it. It's like wait you're not supposed to be pooping yet?
Meconium
Hi beauty
She's beautiful
She's so pretty. She looks squish face to me. I might just, have I just not seen a neonate in a couple weeks?
Chris: She's gonna, ah she's beautiful. I mean any shelter, pretty much any rescue group is gonna be like uhhh
Day old? I can't.
Hannah: you think?
People don't want day-olds
Chris: It's tough, I mean the success rate with it
The band width that goes into it?
It's, it's tough
I love her. We have stuff for her in the car, which is over there. Do you wanna...
I'll walk with you because I have some paperwork to leave with you. Hannah: OK
We have heat pad for her we have a soft blanket, we have a snuggle companion and we brought
Formula and like a way to heat it up. Ok. She's hungry
OK, so we'll feed her before we go
Oh my god, she's like so small she disappears into
Hi. Hii
So this is like a
Bottle warmer for a human baby, which I don't know much about human babies, but they do get some really cool stuff
So check this out. This is like squishy
and then it has this little
Coin looking thing and so feel it right now. It's this like feel this is like not warm,
Chris: right Hannah: So you do this
And watch
It
Becomes hot. The whole thing becomes hot
Chris: Is it single-use? Hannah: once it cools down then you have to boil it and then you can use it again
So I think this thing is amazing
you can just
Warm up whatever you have on the go
So I always keep this in my car
With formula and bottled water in case you need to do like an emergency feeding
You can make it warm while making it fresh. Chris: That's rad. Hannah: pretty cool. I do a lot of like looking at human baby stuff because
People are very invested in human babies. Chris: Makes sense. Yeah. Hannah: and they're not so invested in cat babies
But a lot of the products can be used for both so and it feels good on your hands. I brought her a toothbrush
So we can brush her if we need yeah, and I brought a
miracle nipple and a syringe. Chris: When she came into the shelter she
Wasn't very alert. She was pretty cold
So the first thing we did was put her onto a heating pad
After about 10 minutes her body started to warm up. Her paws were still kind of cold. For the past couple of hours
I've kept her on an external heat source
And now she seems to be bright and alert. Hannah: All the time when I go pick up kittens
They're cold and I'm like the easiest thing to do even if you don't know how to feed
Even if you don't have supplies, is just get them warm like do something to get them warm
Microwave some rice in a sock and get them warm
I mean these little ones they can't regulate their own body temperature at this age. They have no gag reflex
They're blind. They can't hear anything. (Chris: so vulnerable.) The only thing that a kitten this age can do is
Move towards heat and move away from heat. Like heat is everything for kittens of this age. So
She knows it feels good to be warm. Are you hiccuping? What's that?
Oh my god, her little speckled face. She is gonna be spectacular looking, Andrew's gonna freak out
Chris: I forgot that he had a thing for tricolor cats
He's obsessed with calicos and I'm obsessed with singletons. So this is- this is like you just
Intersection of everything, we love we would love her anyway. That's one thing that I have in common with kittens is we both like heat
That's why I moved to California. Chris: I was just about to say that
Are you gonna eat for me? When they're this little they like so rarely just like
Pop right on but we'll see. What do you think little one?
I mean when I'm feeding them when they're this little it's like
one drop at a time
You are not super stoked on that.
Are you swallowing at all? I'm putting like one drop in her mouth and it's not going
I mean, we have tube feeding supplies at home if we have to tube feed her
But I would very much like to not have to do that. Chris: Right
You don't want to eat?
One drop
That poop that's so dark and sticky that's actually like the first poop ever that's called meconium
And that is basically like the digested waste products from being
inside the mama still
She's got her umbilical cord
She's trying to poop
Push that poop out! Make room for some more food. I think she's just not feeling good
What are we thinking?
That felt like something though, I'm not thrilled with how she's eating, but I'm not
Freaking out. I think we got to get her in the incubator
Sonya: She needs the incubator
While I'm thankful that you're taking her, I wish we didn't need to do this
If somebody had trapped her mom got her spayed this wouldn't have happened
I know
One of the one of the most frustrating things for me about taking on kittens where I don't know where they're from
Is that like I'm gonna put my time and energy and resources into saving this life, which is completely worth it
but her mom and dad are still out there breeding and that's
Why we have to do TNR, that's why we have to do the preventative side too - yep
There's usually not a litter of one which means - there's other babies out there. Hey if you find kittens
They're probably not abandoned. Mom is probably in the bushes over there watching us right now
I know and like you think mom's not there but mom's not there because you are there (Chris: exactly)
I'm like wait for the mom try to get the mom too because if we had the mom we would be able to like
Have her get all of those precious antibodies that she needs to get from Mom's milk
She would be able to get raised by her mom and I'm pretty good at raising babies, but I'm no cat. (Chris: right.)
Um, and then, you know, we'd be able to spay the mom. I'm like, please we gotta spay the mom
We've got about half of our nurseries full right now, and there's two moms. Wow
We need more foster parents. - We do - We need more foster parents for like the little teenie teenies
Chris: yeah.
People don't want to take the little ones. - It's tough. - It's not that tough
The emotional part of it is tough. - Well, she's cute, but we don't need any more kittens. No, she is cute, but uh
I lucked out thank you. - Yeah, no, thank you. I'm so happy that we could take her
(tiny meow)
What are you doing?
Hiii. She's very active.
Aw, she finally decided to wake up and get an appetite hopefully. Sonya: It's very cozy in there
we're almost home!
we're gonna go surprise Andrew
Andrew: What? Hannah: Can we come in? - Yeah, sure! - Is it ok if Sonya comes in? - Yeah -
we got you a surprise
Did you get me a kitten?
Is it a calico? - Can you guess? - Oh she baby baby
What'd you get me? - We got you a calico.
Really? - Yeah.
Look!
I can't even see
Andrew. - Are you for real right now? - Yeah, for real!
I can't see what's going on. Is that a dog?
That's a calico. - OK, alright, nice. I've been in the dark!
Andrew just got eye surgery for those who don't know
Oh my god, tiny tiny
It's a one day old calico - where? How? - Sonya: we drove up to LA.- Did you really? - Sonya: Yeah you were asleep
Can I?
she's hoping
Andrew: Hi baby. Hannah: she was just screaming in the car
You know her story or anything? Hannah: She's from Chris the cat guy.
Thanks Chris
She's had one CC
Yeah!
But I mean look at the size of her that's like her entire stomach capacity. Good job lil' miss!
so this kitten is
Absolutely filthy
She's like covered in
All I can describe it as it's like dust, she's like dusty. Got her face looking a lot better
Sonya: Yeah. Hannah: Yeah!
You're beautiful!
I think she looks pretty good. All things considered. She's all tucked into her incubator for the night
She's got a cosy spot
And she is going to rest for
Like an hour and a half to two hours, we'll check on her and give her some more food
Sleep well!
Okay, it's a new day, and this little baby has made it through her first night
We've decided to name her Rosalita
because she is from
Pasadena where the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl are so I think Rosalita is a perfect name for her
And she can be Rosa for short!
Rosalita like many kittens her age is not a great eater
She's not totally understanding how to suckle. So overnight
She was not gaining weight. When you're working with very young neonatal kittens
it is critical that you're weighing them very often because they might lose weight or fail to gain weight and that might be
Imperceptible to the human eye. So you want to be able to actually monitor what's going on.
She was 86 grams when I got her, she went down to 82 grams overnight
and that told me that I have to do something additional for her. When kittens are failing to gain weight or are
not understanding how to eat, I will tube feed them. Tube feeding is an advanced skill
It's not something that I recommend learning how to do online
It really is something you should learn hands-on from a veterinarian, a vet tech or somebody who has a lot of experience tube feeding uh, animals
It's something that you can learn how to do but if done improperly it can be deadly
So you want to learn how to do it very carefully
That was a whole big meal!
(Meow) Yeah, you had a big meal
Okay
Check it out
I did some tube feeding with her because she was not gaining any weight and just one tiny meal
She gained 3 grams back. That's what's up girl. I'm so proud of you
Good job, baby
Rosalita has made it through her first 12 hours with me
And now she is on a tube feeding schedule where every two hours
I am tube feeding her and I'm gonna do that just for the next 24 hours
To get her perky, to get her weight up.
Oh nice spin! Are you a ballerina?
And then I'm hoping that once she's stable, she's going to be able to suckle and latch on her own
You can see these tiny neonates are the hardest ones to do, but it's totally worth it
I believe that her life has value and is worth fighting for.
And you've got (meow) such a nice little voice
(tiny meow) yeah! (meow)
Yeah, you do. (meow)
Welcome to the world, Rosalita!
(upbeat music)