Senior Mentoring…Youth Warming Program?

My oldest, Peaches at 19, and smallest at 5 pounds, and one of my youngest, Giuseppe at 21 months, and largest at 14 pounds and using Peaches as a pillow, curl together under the warm work light on my desk, otherwise known as a kitty keep-warm light on chilly days. Peaches is older and naturally gravitates toward warmer places, but I often find Giuseppe in the same places, and I also  see him shepherding Peaches into a ball, then curling around her and purring while she nestles into his youthful warmth.

Four boisterous kittens don’t always mix well with older cats, especially somewhat frail and slightly confused seniors such as Peaches. One youngster is a handful, but with each youngster added their destructive potential is increased exponentially.

Now that these kittens are adults they aren’t as active, but each of them is a pretty big cat. Especially Giuseppe, the biggest of the litter. He’s about 14 pounds and could probably stand to lose about one, but I can still see the outlines of his ribs and he has no little pouch hanging below his belly, so a good bit of it is dense muscle.

I was concerned about Peaches when I began to let the kittens roam the house, partly because she is small but also because she is confused and doesn’t always “get” what’s happening around her. But when the kittens tried to get her to play, running around her and getting in her way, bumping up against her, she just ignored them completely as if they weren’t there at all, much like Peaches does with anything that doesn’t interest her. They couldn’t get a rise out of her, so they left her alone.

She’s not entirely oblivious to their presence, though. I’ve awakened to see her curled in a tiny peach and gray ball right in the center of the four of them on my bed in the morning.