I can hardly believe we’ve had the “Kittenses” — Ritz and Dante — for five years! But, here we are, celebrating 5 years of thievery, roly-poliness, love, and cuteness.
Outdoor kittenhood
For those who don’t know, Ritz and Dante are littermates, born to a feral mom Jim named Moon. However, the boys drew the lucky card. By being born in April 2020, they were raised by the neighborhood. They got bottled water, canned and dry food, and treats from the day their mother let them out of the burrow she commandeered.
They had two other siblings in their litter. We brought Angus, an all black cat, to King Street Cats — which was our original plan for the whole litter, more on that later — and he was adopted with another black cat. Boo, a soft gray cat, didn’t make it to adoption age. I don’t want to go into details.
As I mentioned, Ritz and Dante were supposed to go to King Street Cats to find furrever homes, too. However, once we were able to catch them — they weren’t particularly helpful in the endeavor, to put it lightly — we had to keep them overnight before taking them in.
We let them out of the cage we were going to transport them in, and they fell asleep on us! Kittenses used cute, and we failed our saving throws. Welcome to the Crawford clowder, kids!
Growing up
Our pampered little princes have had surprisingly eventful lives for indoor cats. They moved into our house, then had to integrate with Sandy and Bumbledore, then Athena a couple of years later, then deal with losing Sandy and then Bumbledore, and now we’ve introduced Floofenstein.
The boys never did have a great relationship with old man Sandy. He was around 12 when we adopted the boys and didn’t want to be their playmate. They disagreed with his decision. As the boys got older, we think there may have also been some hierarchical issues.
Both boys got along with easygoing Bumbledore. But to Ritz, he was more of a father figure, possibly because they’re both tuxedo cats. We used to joke that Bumbledore was teaching Ritz the way of the tuxedo. Poor Ritz went through a pretty intense mourning period when we had to say goodbye to our sweet B.
Their relationship with Athena has oscillated between contentious and indifferent. When we first introduced Athena, I think the boys would have been perfectly happy to be friends, but the little goddess was not interested. The history they’ve built up over the years has caused varying degrees of problems, with none of them free from blame. Maybe someday they’ll all mellow out and get along. I can hope.
Brotherly love
In the early days, because we had them isolated in the bathroom for a while, then had them in the bathroom at night, the boys bonded with each other. They would sleep together in the same bed, they regularly groomed each other, and had absolutely zero sense of personal space.
However, as they integrated with the older boys, Ritz formed such a strong bond with Bumbledore that I can’t help but think Dante felt left out, possibly even abandoned. Dante tried to form a bond with Bumbledore as well, but was rather demanding about it, which His Meowjesty did not appreciate.
Looking back, this may have been the start of Dante’s neuroticism. I’m not entirely sure how a changed bond with his brother turned him into a true scaredy-cat, but I also don’t know what exactly goes on in kitty brains.
While both Dante and Ritz are nervous around visitors, Ritz will eventually come back out and get attention. Dante will stay hidden for the entirety of the visit and for a long while afterward to be certain the coast is clear.
Dante is even neurotic with me, since I’m the one who has to catch him for vet appointments, to trim his nails, etc. While he doesn’t necessarily mind being held, he dislikes being picked up, and he always assumes I’m going to do so. So, he runs away from me before I can. A few years ago, we tried putting him on “kitty Prozac,” but it turned him into a total jerk — he was bullying everyone, even his brother — so we had to stop.
This year
That pretty much brings us to present day.
Dante
Dante is dad’s cat. Since Jim doesn’t do “mean things” like catching him for nail trims, Dante loves attention from him. He’s especially fond of pets on flat surfaces where he can roll around. Jim can’t go to the basement without paying the Dante’s toll of couch pets.
We currently have Dante on a regimen of low-dose Gabapentin to see if it helps his neuroticism. It’s nowhere near enough to knock him out or make him loopy; we just want it to take the edge off.
Dante had a small health issue in June. He had a pretty gnarly eye infection — since he’s so nervous, it’s harder to recognize small changes like that until it gets bad. Once we cleared that up, poor Dante got so constipated that he had to have an enema at the vet — cat enemas are, apparently, lots of lube to grease up the poo to a point where it virtually slides out — and that traumatized him so much that it took about 2 weeks for him to recover. He’s back to normal, though, finally.
Ritz
Ritz is much closer to unbiased in his relationships with us. He does exhibit a slight preference for Jim, but he is happy to accept attention from me, especially at certain times of the day. Like Dante, he enjoys flat-surface pets, but he prefers them on our bed.
Where Dante used to be the main instigator of problems with Athena, over the past few months, that’s shifted to Ritz. We’ve considered the possibility that Ritz expected to be Alpha after Bumbledore’s passing and is upset that Athena won’t kowtow to him, but it’s impossible to know for sure.
Other than his health scare right after Bumbledore’s passing, Ritz has been a fairly normal, healthy cat. Ritz has an extremely minor congenital heart wall thickening that we’re monitoring, but there’s been no progression since we discovered it over a year ago.
Ritz is still a walking stomach, always eager to steal anything and everything he can. He’s also highly active, which is good for his heart, so we encourage it. I have a feeling he’ll be a ball of energy until his age slows him down. But, as I mentioned in his post-illness update post, he’s matured. I think being too sick to complain if we cuddled him made him realize that cuddles are nice.
Re-bonding
Since Bumbledore’s passing, Ritz and Dante’s brotherly bond has strengthened, since there’s no one coming between them. They play more and spend more time around each other. I’m hoping that they’ll get back to a point where they sleep curled up with each other again. Maybe in winter when it’s colder.
Floofenstein
Both boys are still nervous around Floofenstein. But, as more time goes by since he pounced on each of them, they are willing to allow him to get closer and to get closer to him. It certainly doesn’t help that Floofers is a big boy, and his long fur makes him look even bigger. We’re hoping that now, with Floofenstein out 24/7, the boys will learn that he’s not aggressive and grow to accept him.
Ritz and Dante are the only cat’s I’ve had from kittenhood, and it’s been a delight to watch them grow and mature. Happy 5th gotchaversary to my boys, and here’s to many more!!
Have you had any cats from kittenhood? Have you ever had siblings? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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