The Nannie

Once upon a time there was a little black and white kitten who had spent the entire three months of her short life at an impound facility in Princeton, MN. Unlike many facilities of this type, kitties are allowed to stay until they need room for more kitties, and it was just about at that point. First in, first out meant she and two adults were scheduled for euthanasia.

Feline Rescue agreed to take the black and white kitten, but unfortunately the transfer crew had very soft hearts and came home with the b/w kitten, named Eloise, the beautiful calico adult female who became Nannie, a handsome gray (blue) tomcat to be known as Princeton, and 4 kittens under 8 weeks old. You'll hear about them all eventually, but this is the story of Nannie and the littlest babies.

Here are the Princeton Trio, three fluffy 6-week-olds:
Blue (dilute torbie) Emily


Orange tabby Rupert and tiny brown tabby Olivia


They turned out to be shy. Very, very shy, and not at all experienced with eating from a dish. Their foster caregiver was making slow progress with domesticating these feral kittens, when somebody had a fantastic idea.

Nannie, who was originally housed with Eloise, turned out to be the friendliest calico girl you could ever meet.


She very fortunately was found to be already spayed, but Denise is of the firm opinion that calicos make the best moms, whatever their other faults may be, and whether they have had previous kittens or not. So, having very little to lose, we decided to see if Nannie and the Trio would take to each other.

Miracle of miracles, those kittens walked right up to Nannie to sniff and ask for baths. And Nannie obliged. It took her another day before she would let little Olivia play with her tail, but Olivia was desperate to do so and Nannie finally gave in. Though she's obviously not nursing, her very presence makes the littles feel more brave, and they are making great progress with socialization and eating.



We learned later that feral kittens are usually quickly euthanized because they don't do well in a noisy impound facility, and it's just kinder that way. Weren't these some lucky kittens, and all because of Eloise?