Thank you, Kat, Tad, Chris and Hideyo for helping to calm me down. Reading of Patti's car accident also helped me put my little drama into perspective. Prayers to her and her fur babies. You just never know...
Temping everyone yesterday was quite the experience! My husband is dog/house sitting for his brother and wasn't home to help temp, so I tried to manage the four little wrigglers on my own. I had to do Dash and Will Feral twice because they wiggled right off the thermometer before it beeped. Moxie was not too bad, she doesn't care for too much contact, tolerates petting but doesn't enjoy it. She struggled a little, then resigned herself to it while giving me her cross little stare, just waiting for me to quit touching her. And then there was Scooter. He was laying on his side on top of his carpeted hidey-hole thing. He is the most jealous baby, cries when he sees the others being petted. I just petted him and talked baby-talk to him and he was so happy he didn't even seem to notice the thermometer. No struggling at all. He got big brownie points towards "new favorite" with me. Anyway, they were all 101 or slightly less, so I feel much better. I've also read up more online. I am just going to take it a little slower on their vaccines and spay/neuters, to avoid too much stress at once. Their next appointment in August was for 2nd FeLV Elisa's, 1st FeLV vaccine, Rabies, and surgery. I think now I will give them at least a couple of weeks to recover from the vaccines before starting surgeries. And a couple of weeks to recover from the surgery before slowly introducing them to Blue and the rest of the house. The extra confinement time is a bummer for us, but they have never known any different, so I don't think it will add too much to their stress. We play with them in the evening, and they sleep sprawled all over us, wake me up at 5:45 every morning with a nip on my arm to get their breakfast :o) If they start showing more interest in getting out I might be able to block things off so that I can expand their area by one more room. Hideyo, thank you for the tip on the wheat litter, that is what I've been using so it is a comfort to know it is helping. Thank you all again so much,
Beth