KITTEN JACEN

I'm sure you have been wondering about our new little kitten, Jacen, so I am going to tell you all about him today.  Also Mom took some pictures of him, but he is a fast little guy, so Mom said to tell you it's hard to get good photos.

Chloe and Charlie like to hang out around Jacen's crate, but they don't do this because they like Jacen.  They do it because they are lusting after Jacen's food, which they believe is better than the food they get.  I don't blame them, because I also think Jacen's food smells very, very yummy, and I could easily eat it all up without even spoiling my appetite for my own dinner.

Anyway, Jacen likes to play inside his crate, and he does all sorts of acrobatic things, like climbing up the sides of the crate.  Also he plays in his litter box, and sometimes he poops in it.  When he uses his litter box, he digs in it really fast, and he flings litter all over the place.  Mom thinks maybe she should find him a deeper, bigger litter box, but there's not much room for one in Jacen's crate.  Of course, Barry and I would love to eat the tasty little kitten turds, but Mom does not allow us to do that.

A couple of times a day, Mom puts Jacen in the back room, where Nicky eats his meals.  It's the room with Dutch doors, and it's where a bunch of plants live all winter.  But right now the plants are mostly all outside.  Anyway, Mom has started calling this room Jacen's playroom, and she puts him in there with a couple of toys, and he gets busy playing right away.

Mom bought Jacen some little toys Saturday when she went to the Bark in the Park thing.  She didn't buy any toys for us dogs.  She only bought toys for Jacen, which seems totally unfair.  Mom said that she thought it was very fair because Jacen doesn't chew up all his toys, like we dogs do.  I guess she has a right to her opinion, but I have to say I don't agree with it.

One time Mom let me go in the playroom with Jacen, and I was happy to do that because I wanted to eat his toy.  But Mom took the toy away from me.  Then Jacen tried to jump on me and play with me, like I was some kind of silly cat or something.  I did not want to play with a crazy kitten, so I had to growl at him just a tiny bit to let him know that I was way too grown-up and sophisticated to be playing.  Mom has also let Barry go in the playroom.  Barry just ignores Jacen and looks for a toy to chew up, but   Mom is very protective of Jacen's toys, for some reason.

Charlie went in the playroom with Jacen one time, because Mom made him go in there, and he hated being there.  All he did was hiss and growl at Jacen, and then he jumped over the Dutch door and ran away from that terrible situation.  The same thing pretty much happened when Mom tried putting Chloe in the playroom.  She just hissed and growled, so Mom picked her up and put her out of the room.

I don't know why the cats are so mean to Jacen.  You would think they would be nice to him just because he's a cat and not a dog, but they aren't nice at all.  Maybe they are guarding their territory or something, but I thought it was mostly dogs who did that.  Anyway, my brothers and I are nicer to Jacen than the cats are, but Mom is afraid to let him run loose in the house because she thinks one of us dogs might see him running around and decide he is prey that should be eaten for lunch.

You can tell that Jacen would like to run around the whole house because sometimes he meows a bunch when he is left alone in his crate or in his playroom.  But Mom is too afraid to let him run around, like I said.

We don't really know where Jacen came from or if he had any littermates or anything about him.  I have asked him what his history is, but he says he doesn't remember.  All he knows is that somehow he ended up at Animal Control, and he was in a cage there, and after that, he was in a cage at the Humane Society.  And then he came here, and he has a bigger cage and also a playroom, so at least he's moving up a little bit in the world.

Oh, and speaking of kittens, maybe I should also tell you that the lab results came back from our poor little Carson, and he did not have rabies.  So Mom does not have to get a lot of shots or worry about foaming at the mouth and dying or anything like that.  Which is a big relief to all of us.  We still don't know what was wrong with Carson, but we think he must have been born with his little kitten brain all screwy or something like that.  It's very sad, so I try not to think about it too much.