Gremlin's Home Page
It all started on April 30th, 2002 at about 8:30 p.m. when we were watching Buffy at Karl's house, like we do (like we used to... *sniff*) every Tuesday. We heard this pitiful little cry and went out to investigate (during a commercial, of course) and found that it was a tiny little kitten. We just saw his face for a second before he darted behind some bushes, but he had such a pointy face and huge ears and he just looked like a little gremlin--thus the name. (Well, that, and the havoc I expect he will wreak on the house.) He cried for most of the episode, and Karl reported that he was crying the next day too.
I just couldn't get him out of my mind--I was really afraid he had been abandoned by his mommy and would die, so John and I left work early that day to go and try to retrieve him. Karl (now Uncle Karl) met us there, and saw our hero hiding bravely under a smashed couch. Why was there a smashed couch in Karl's yard you may ask? Whatever. That's another story. Anyway, we tried to lure him out with some tuna, but he was having none of it. So we created a barrier out of wood and climbing crash pads, and once it was kitty-tight, we started removing pieces of the couch until he was revealed--a shaking little cutie pie. He tried to escape, but John caught him in one of the corners, and we put him in a large box with a towel for coziness.
He was a little older than I had thought, but I was still concerned that he might need some kind of kitty formula instead of kitten food. It was after 6pm, so all of the shelters were closed. I called the pet hospital and they said that if he had teeth, he could eat kitten food. So we bought some on the way to his new home. At this point he was pretty wild. He hissed at us whenever we would come close, and was generally just terrified of the whole process. We made an appointment for the next day to see our vet, Dr. Kmak, the sweetest vet in the world. For that night, we set him up in our cat carrier with a little litter box and some food and water. Here he is in that first tiny home:
The next morning, he was still mighty pissed at his predicament and the loss of his freedom. He wasn't complaining about the steady supply of food though, and was a real little piggy, even though he hissed when I put the food in. We took him to the vet, and she managed to get him out of the cat carrier. I was surprised at how docile he was once he was being held. Dr. Kmak taught us how to hold him by his little scruff to make him think we were his mommy. She weighed him and checked him out. He weighed 1.4 pounds, and she estimated that he was 4-5 weeks old. She said he seemed healthy, probably had worms, but (amazingly) didn't have fleas. We scheduled another appointment for him to get a blood test to check for feline leukemia and fiv. That appointment is in about 2 weeks, and I will just be keeping my fingers crossed until then. Until we know if he has those conditions, we can't expose the other kitties to him, so he is living in the guest room for now.
That evening, Uncle Karl came to visit (and to watch Friends--are you seeing a pattern here?) John was able to get Gremlin out of his cage (hissing and spitting), but once he was out, he calmed down and we all held him a little. We gave him some baby food on a spoon to reward him for being such a friendly kitty. The next night, a few friends came over for dinner. Gremlin got lots of love and petting. I took a bunch of pictures, but sadly, none of them came out because I covered the flash so I wouldn't spook him.
Not so the next batch of pictures... In just 4 days, he has gone from hissy fit kitty to a friendly, if skittish, little lovebug. We kitten-proofed the room (or so we thought) and let him out of the cage. He explored around and pretended he couldn't get under the bed, but once we left the room, he found all the cracks in our scheme and went wherever he damn well pleased. He is currently running the entire house from the guest room, and forcing his humans to use up loads of film documenting his cuteness. I will never again scoff at people who put up 4,000 pictures of their cute child. This is only a cat, and look at me...
Without further ado... Gremlin pictures!
