The Little Pack

For the next week or so I am sharing a favorite memory with each one of the animals. Tonight is Baby Titten’s turn and although “favorite” may not be the best adjective to describe this story, it is certainly one of our most memorable experiences, and one of the most telling of her kittenhood.

In the past, I may have mentioned the terror that was Baby Titten as a kitten. I called her a variety of names, the nice ones (if you get my drift) being Hell on Paws and Ninja Kitty. She was terrible. For example, she loved playing the under the covers game: specifically speaking, a game she made up where she would attack whatever moved under a blanket… Sounds innocent enough until you realize that what was moving was us… in our sleep… AND she had all her claws.

So we’ve demonstrated that she was a handful. She was extremely curious about her environment. And her way to learn was to interact with her environment, however violently that may be. At the time, we lived in a 3-story townhouse where the living area was open to the floors above it. There was a loft above part of the living area, and in the open area, 2 stories of floor-to-ceiling windows. One day she decided to “explore”. She climbed through the railing of the loft onto a beam and before we could stop her, leapt into the windowsill of the 2nd story window. The windowsill was only about an inch or so wide and she was trapped up there. She didn’t have enough room to turn around, and she panicked. Before my husband and I could get to her, she took matters into her own hands and jumped from the window, one story below into the living room. She was still very small and although she did land on all fours, she landed hard. Inevitably, she began limping badly so we took her to the vet. They took X-rays and we were relieved to find out that she hadn’t broken her leg. However, they determined that she had most likely broken all of the toes in her left back foot. She was still small and growing and all we could do is let them heal. Classic Baby Titten.