Every animal mishap when you have pets— and consider yourself an experienced pet owner— starts with the phrase: “I knew better” or “I should have known better.”

This one is no exception.

Everything I state in this blog entry is based on my 40-somethings years of experience with all sorts of cats and a teen obsession with Cat Fancy magazine circa 1990. Do my knowledge may be wrong, don’t take what I say as gospel. I’m just trying to spare you from making my mistakes.

So, yesterday, the teenager suggested moving two of our foster litter, The Roman Pride, to join Hermes (our final in-house résident from The Greek Pride) now six months old and young, fluffy The Norse Pride.

Now, what we should have done is brought the cat carrier to the mud room, put the kittens in, and transported them to the teenager’s room. What we did instead (and I was dumb to do this) was scoop them up and carry them into the kitchen.

The teenager even warned me that I had a terrible hold of Vesta, the most timid of her litter. Now, my cat friends, do not confuse timid with docile.

As soon as we set foot in the kitchen— Vesta started to wiggle and I lost my hold of her. A timid cat is a scaredy-cat. This poor kitten has been in a house three weeks, and I suddenly try to carry her away from her siblings into a room— a new world— that she has never seen.

Luckily, her cat instinct drove her into the bathroom off the kitchen. Unfortunately she wedged herself between the shower and the wall.

There is a litter box right next to this shower, we gave her a plate of wet food and closed the door. We had to wait her out. She had to regain her sense of safety and trust in her environment. We closed the door.

About four hours later, the teenager tried to disassemble the shower, but it’s so old the fasteners are corroded. So we had to wait.

In the morning, she was screaming. I opened the door and after a few minutes the screaming stopped and she cautiously crawled free.

But then my personal cats scared her. Back she went. I moved my personal cats to another location in the house, have her food, and left the door to the room where her siblings are open. The bathroom door was also open.

After a while, I brought the calmest sibling of her litter into the bathroom and the two of them called to each other and then I put Minerva back with her brother.

All the doors are open.

About ten minutes later, Vesta carefully crept toward her siblings and “home base.” All kittens safe.

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