Stray kitten update Hi everyone! I saw a question on one of my photos in flickr so I thought y'all might want a kitten update. (Long, sorry)→[More:]
Kitten is doing well. Medically she is 100% recovered. She is living in our home, for now in a large dog crate in a room in our house. Yesterday we had some Freedom Time outside of the crate and eventually the door to the crate will be removed permanently. We just want to make sure the room is safe for her before we give her free reign when we aren't home.

Kitten still is scared of people, but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as the vets experienced. Yes, she hisses at us quite readily. And she backs up to the rear corner of the crate whenever we come into the room. But she does settle down and will eat at the front of the crate when we are there, and show a bit of interest in what we are doing. She'll even play with her toys when we're in there. Yesterday when herding her back into the crate after Freedom Time, I touched her and even pet her a bit and she did not freak out at all. We either feed her or give her treats every time we go in the room, hoping that she'll start to associate us with food! She's still so skinny...

Yesterday I caught her purring in her sleep. :)

No rescue groups that we've contacted have even responded. I've tried to stick to ones that work with feral cats, but it may be that those organizations tend to focus on neuter/release programs rather than homing strays. The vet seemed to think it would be unlikely that we'd find a rescue group that would take her - because she's feral, because it's winter and they're full, because more people are dropping off their pets due to the economy. We're still thinking of ourselves as her foster parents because we just can't say if she'll fit into our household long term. But we figure we can keep her and socialize her and maybe in a few months see what options we have. Luckily we had no travel plans for the holidays, although we do have a trip scheduled for mid-January.

Speaking of fitting into our household, the reaction of our 10 yr old cat and 9 yr old greyhound has been weird. I can't tell if they know she's in that room or not! I would have figured that they could smell her, but the cat (a very ornery one) is not freaking out at all. She wants in the room, but that's normal "this door is closed why must be something good open it now" behavior for her. We can't find out if they'd like each other for a long time - the vet tested her for the major communicable feline diseases, and she was negative, but sometimes they don't show up until the kitten is older so we have to wait 2 months and re-test.

Finally, we still haven't figured out her name. Some ideas are: Bernadette (Bernie), Isabel (Izzy), Persephone (Sephie)... but none have really jumped out at us as the obvious one. My 10 yr old cat is named Kitty so clearly I'm not so good at this naming thing. Suggestions accepted!