Welcome Winnie: When we arrived in the Philippines it was hard not to be aware of all the stray cats and dogs in the streets and neighborhoods. Alana and I have a special place in our hearts for animals and love having them around; have you ever met our Colorado girls (Bouree & Dharma)? Then when we started to talk about getting our own place after the three month training we had to promise each other it would not become a stray animal shelter because we have no intention of bringing animals back to the US after our service is over.
About 6 weeks ago two stray street cats each dropped a litter of kittens on the LCP (Little Children of the Philippines) campus. It was a weird thing to experience because the mothers were barely around and didn't seem to be taking care of their litters. I guess it makes sense since the mothers were street cats and barely surviving out of people's trash. The litters were almost two weeks old and slowly dying when the LCP guards started talking about tossing them over the fence because of the strict policy at LCP that there be no pets . . . there is barely enough food for the children.
We talked about it for a few days and one night Alana came home and . . . WELCOME WINNIE!!! We didn't name her for another 48 hours and her name came from one of the boys at LCP who helped Alana find Winnie under the porch the night Alana brought her home.
She was so cute, tiny, and dying. We really didn't know if she would make it through the night because of how weak she was. She could barely stand or move herself around. She ate a little, then the next morning she ate a little more, then a small bit of lunch, and by dinnertime she was walking (not fast mind you) around the apartment. 
By day two she was moving pretty good and started displaying energy and personality. Before we knew it she was climbing up the stairs, even though she would jump a few steps at a time and have to rest for a few seconds before attempting another . . . very cute.We quickly established the bushes outside as the place to use the bathroom by snabbin' her up every time we saw her scratching in the corner. Inside of 24 hours she was gladly holding her schtuff until we got her to the bushes, which was often. Now she loves those bushes . . . yes!!!
We also established a cardboard box in our room as her sleeping apartment and she started climbing in it to go to sleep after the first night. The first few weeks we had her, just like human babies, she seemed to sleep most of the time. She could be playing hard with one of us one minute and out cold the next.
Another Peace Corps Volunteer down the road said she wanted a kitten too and Alana scooped up Winnie's little sister (we called her 'the little one') and brought her home. After a few days of eating she was looking energetic and the two of them of course were the cutest things to watch playing, sleeping, chasing, wrestling, etc.
The volunteer backed out and there we were with two kittens. When I started talking about tossing 'the little one' over the fence Alana started seriously looking for a home for her. 'The little one' ended up going home with Pastor, the spiritual leader from LCP. We continue to get reports on how she is doing and it sounds like she is a perfect fit for Pastor and his family.
We wanted to make sure we exposed Winnie to as much as we could as early as possible so we started taking her places. One day we took her to the beach and she loved that. It only took a 10 minutes bike ride and a 20-minute jeepney ride and she was great on both, both ways. At that time she was only about as big as a naval orange. We returned with a small backpack of beach sand and improved her bathroom spot in the bushes. She's really diggin' it now . . . get it? . . . diggin?Then we started taking her with us every time we visited the LCP children. Winnie is great at riding in a bag when we are on bikes. After our visits with the children she is usually pretty exhausted and sometimes falls asleep. When she is not, she sometimes crawls out of the bag and precariously hangs out on our shoulders because she likes looking around.
Also, when we take the long ride once a week to spend a few hours with the LCP Consuelo boys (14-18 year olds) she rides on the top of my backpack. It is often dark, she is way off the ground, and we are moving at a pretty good pace so I guess that discourages her from jumping off, even though a few times she crawled down the backpack and hung off my pants to get off when we pulled up to the apartment. We'll see how long that lasts. For now, she usually finds a good spot to settle into and is quiet and just looks around. It is pretty cute to observe Alana tells me and we get tons of looks and chuckles from the locals.
We've had her now for about 6 weeks and we love her. She goes outside when we ask her to, she comes when we call her (most of the time), she sticks around our back yard when we leave her out for hours early in the morning or late in the afternoon and loves hanging out on the bicycle seats, she plays and plays and plays (with us and easily on her own), she hangs out at our feet all the time when we are in the kitchen cooking and we've only stepped on her real bad twice, and she is growing. She is also a snuggle bunny.
Most recently she has been hiding and then jumping out to attack us as we come in the room. Also, a few nights she didn't sleep with us and in the morning we found little pooh's in the shower (makes for an easy cleanup). It makes us laugh out loud to watch her run real fast across the room then jump up in the air as if she got hit with a air gun from below. Alana's favorite thing about Winnie is her little pur-box that gets going when we snuggle :-)
Looking forward to next weeks Ant Destroying Training/Seminar and will keep you updated on Winnie's progress. Who said cats can't be trained?
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| Winnie TP Fournet IV |
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