ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT TIPI, ORPHANED KITTEN SUCKING ACRYLIC BLANKETS.

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Our cat´s name is Tipi. She is two and a half years old. We first knew about her in September 2012. About a couple of months before we met her Tipi was still part of a feline litter. However, this situation did not last much because Tipi´s mother could not feed all of her kittens, and all kittens except Tipi died shortly before we knew about Tipi. Afterwards, the mother cat died of hunger and sadness to see all her kittens but one die little by little. The kittens died because the mother was unable to meet all of her kittens needs. On the other hand she met some needs of her kittens such as heat and sanitation. The most significant  need she could not meet was nutrition. It was the lack of nutrition which made the mother be poor in health, having inadequate milk supply and not sufficient quality of milk for such a large litter. As the mother was unable to care for all of her kittens only one lucky one survived.

For sure Tipi had a good chance at survival. It was at this time when Tipi became an orphaned kitten. One day Tipi noticed a basket nearby and entered it for shelter. Just some time after this was when my mother and I saw Tipi for the first time. We started to feed Tipi  taking her some food every day so that she would have at least the proper nutrition.  Little by little, day after day she would recognize our voices and presence. After spending some days off in Getxo we went back to Soria, but once there we could not stop thinking about Tipi. This was the reason why we decided to go back to Getxo again as soon as we could, to adopt Tipi and bring her back again with us to Soria. And so we did.

We managed to get Tipi come with us, but I must say that the long trip to Soria for an orphaned Kitten was somewhat memorable, to say the least. I must add that by feeding her every day we won her heart. Yes! That is the best way you can be successful in adopting an orphaned kitten. Any orphaned kitten that gets fed by someone every day, together of course with some love while feeding and being with them every day,  makes the difference.

Tipi, as any kitten, would huddle close together with her mother while she lived, to regulate her body temperature, until she developed control of her own thermoregulation. Once her mother died Tipi was very sensitive to changes in heat and humidity. Therefore, when we adopted Tipi she started sucking any blanket we provided her with. Tipi behaved like that because she missed her mother so much that she recalled the sucking she used to enjoy, huddling close together with her.

Tipi has been sucking acrylic blankets at least once a day until very recently, because she could not forget her mother, and also because of the hunger she suffered for quite a long time.
So we can say that not only mammary glands are suckled, but acrylic blankets are as well!  You can watch four videos of Tipi sucking her acrylic blanket, live, on Youtube.

Something else worth mentioning is that Tipi would be crying, specially at night, for more than six months, and all because of the trauma associated with her mother´s death. I have to admit it was not easy to hear and see her crying every  day.  I felt really bad for her. I let it be because I knew it would take her some time to heal the pain. The therapy we used to help her was the following: love, love and more love, if possible. Apart from this we provided her with the adequate nutrition, environment, mental and emotional support that she needed to overcome that trauma she had.

Manuals on orphaned kittens say that unhealty kittens cry a lot. Well then, according to those manuals, I have to admit Tipi is really healthy right now, because she has not cried ever since that long time now.

Tipi has been living with us for sixteeen months up to now, and I can say she is a completely different cat. She is a newborn cat, lively and full of happiness. As time goes by,  Tipi shows greater loyalty and deeper affection for us, apart from being smarter.

Let me encourage everyone of you to adopt any kitten or cat that needs shelter. Around parks, streets or many other different places you may see one of these lovely creatures. Please, do not have second thoughts; do not think about the  color hair or  eyes  It has got, or the look on the cat´s face either. All those characteristics are not relevant whatsoever. You can work wonders making any orphaned cat happy, and consequently , by turning the cat into a happy creature the cat becomes the most beautiful cat she has ever been before, physically speaking.  I can firmly state what I just said before because Tipi has never looked as beautiful as she does right now. No doubt about it, she is on cloud  nine!

Published by

Julia Martinez

Julia Martínez was born in The Basque Country, Spain in 1965. She went to Las Carmelitas School in Santurtzi, where she completed her elementary and secondary education, except her senior year. She decided to go to the United States as an exchange student for her senior year. She lived with an American family in California for that school year. After coming back from the US she started her undergraduate studies at Deusto University. By this time she had already lived in Santurtzi for seventeen years. It was 1983 when she and her family moved to Getxo. At Deusto University she studied English Linguistics for five years. She was twenty three years old when she got her undergraduate degree. She spent about three months during three different summers in England. During two of those summers she was an exchange student, and another summer she was working as an au pair, living with an English family. She also spent about two months during two different summers in Dublin. She was an exchange student living with an Irish family for a month, and another summer she was living in a student residence. In 1988 she was granted a scholarship to do her graduate studies at Indiana University, in the U.S..She completed a double master on English and Spanish Applied Linguistics in 1990. During that year and a half that she was studying over there she was also working as an Associate Professor giving Spanish classes at Indiana University. After working on the double master, She decided to go back to Spain and work as an English teacher at an English school in Galdakao for a year. At the same time that she was working, she was studying in order to sit a competitive exam. She went to Madrid to take it, and got the job she wanted. She became a civil servant, and she started working as an English teacher at a high school in 1991. By the year 2004 she had already been teaching for thirteen years in four different high schools, giving lessons to secondary students. In 2004 she decided to quit teaching and start painting as a self-made painter. She has got thirty six original oil paintings on canvas, and all of them share bright, lively, warm colors which invite you to smile and chill out. You see them all together and you see a real celebration of life, of what life should be, of happiness and love. Apart from painting, she is very keen on music and photography. About music, it must be said that she was very much into it during some years in the past, specially when she was taking Classical and electric guitar lessons and writing her own songs. She has got four demos with songs sung, both in English and Spanish. She performed as a singer in some places in the year 2000 after recording all her original songs. She is a hard-working person and a very good listener. She is one of those really positive people that finds solutions to almost anything you can think of. She enjoys creative work, either in painting, photography, dancing, singing, writing or cooking. She also enjoys herself with those little things in life like going out for a stroll in the country, listening to all kinds of music, good company, a good book, helping people in need, taking a nap, or just watching a funny movie. She is really interested in the protection of animals rights.

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