*Editor’s note: The Pinedale Roundup is offering this new series, Roundup Rescue, chronicling the adventures of eight foster kittens from Happy Endings Animal Rescue, a nonprofit 501(c)3, as a public service to our community. Through the eyes of a foster, you'll get a glimpse into what the experience is really like—the early mornings, the endless laundry, the antics and the incredible reward of watching vulnerable animals grow into healthy, adoptable pets searching for their forever homes in our community. A new story will be published each week in the Pinedale Roundup for the next six weeks.
There is a rule at The Cat Ranch I discovered the hard way: passing the kitchen on the way to the bathroom means feeding the cats first and getting dressed second. This is not a preference. This is physics. Ignore it and you will find yourself at 6 a.m. in various states of undress, explaining to two Ragdolls, three Rookies, and eight foster kittens why breakfast is forty-five seconds late. They will not accept your explanation. On the morning in question, the chaos was sufficient that my sports bra ended up in a bowl of kitten slurry. Dignity is temporary. The kittens eat first.
But let’s back up. The real story of this week is how we went from four kittens to eight, and what happened when two entirely different worlds collided in a twelve-by-eight-foot nursery.
When the Golden Four arrived on May 7 — Marigold, Dot, Miller, and Aureo, abandoned at a local vet clinic with nowhere to go — they brought a wildness the Enchanted Four simply didn’t have. My original four had been bottle-raised on routine and had started, cautiously, to trust the world. The Golden Four arrived trailing the frantic energy of the abandoned. Blending them was always the plan. But kittens, like people, need a moment before they’re ready.
Hence: jail. I transferred the newcomers into my soft-sided travel carrier — orange, now forever associated with a prison jumpsuit — for twenty-four hours in the nursery. Mesh sides let both groups get acquainted without anyone making decisions they’d regret. Kittens are remarkably forgiving. By the time I opened the door, the Enchanted Four had already started to recalibrate.
The Golden Four brought something the Enchanted Four couldn’t have gotten from me: permission. Miller, Marigold, and Dot wrestled with Velvet with complete physical commitment and zero apology. They gave her permission to stop being the responsible one and just be a kitten. Watching a big, gentle, piebald girl discover she is allowed to be ridiculous is one of the quiet joys of this work.
Back to Spindle. Because Spindle started something. It was Spindle who climbed the gate at the end of week one. She taught Velvet. That knowledge traveled — the way all dangerous knowledge does — sideways and downward through the group until one unremarkable morning I was heading upstairs and found Marigold on the landing, looking at me with the serene confidence of someone who has always lived here and finds my surprise faintly embarrassing. The gate is now merely a suggestion.
And then there is Ash. Not the smallest kitten — that is Locket, unambiguously and by a considerable margin — but Ash has developed a reliable weekly routine: he gets himself downstairs without apparent difficulty, then sits at the bottom of the stairs and yells at me. Not a polite inquiry. A declaration. He is ready to come back upstairs and requires assistance, and he has a great deal to say about the delay. He knows perfectly well I will come every single time. He is not wrong, and we both know he is fully capable of making that return trip himself. But tiny but mighty has always been more about personality than size, and Ash, with his white tail tip and his considerable opinions, has that in abundance.
This is what blending looks like on the ground. A bra in a bowl of slurry. A kitten on a landing that shouldn’t be there yet. A small boy at the bottom of the stairs running a very effective long con. Two litters from two entirely different beginnings, becoming one noisy, climbing, wholly improbable family.
Happy Endings Animal Rescue makes this possible. The network of fosters, vets, volunteers, and donors underpinning every kitten in this nursery is the reason these eight exist at all — learning to climb gates, trust hands, and, in Ash’s case, manipulate the person who feeds them. They’ll move to the shelter in mid-June and be ready to meet the public in early July. For now, they’re busy writing this chapter. Loudly. From the bottom of the stairs.
Next week: The Cat Tax
