Yes, you read that title correctly. Ramón, Myra and Trixie. Please allow me to explain.
All of our little Clovers had their bits snipped last Friday. I picked them up right before the shelter closed that afternoon, brought them home, they had a little snack, a little romp, and an early bedtime.
I was greeted in the morning by a sweet, purring storm. Everyone looked happy and bright.
I reached to Myron to say hello and give him a few pets. When I turned him over to check his incision and see how he was healing, I noticed his belly was shaved a little higher than normal for a neuter surgery. When I looked a little lower, I realized that parts that should have been shaved were still covered in fur. And then I saw the tiny incision from Myron's spay surgery.
"Wait, WHAT?" I said as I put Myron down to reach for Ramona. I turned her over and realized that "she" had been neutered. I checked Trixie next, and everything was normal- she had a spay incision.
But Myron was a Myra and Ramona was a Ramón.
An error had been made down at the shelter when they first came in and either their sexes had been misidentified or just noted incorrectly on their paperwork. I supposed I could have taken a close look to confirm, but it's not something I'm in the practice of doing unless the kittens are hard to identify. Though they're both black, Myron's coat was distinctly different than Ramona's, and we never had a hard time telling them apart.
I rushed to get dressed and headed down to the shelter so they could have their microchips scanned. I wanted to be sure they had the right chip assigned to the right kitten. Once that was squared away, I contacted the adopting families to share the news with them. Fortunately, the sex of their kittens did not matter. They are all in love their babies, so this is not a game-changer for anyone, and that's a huge relief for me. I'm very grateful they were all so understanding when they received this crazy news!
This weekend, we tried hard to address them as "Myra" and "Ramón" and use the appropriate pronouns for each kitten, but it feels a little awkward, and we're constantly correcting ourselves. It's going to take some getting used to!
The shock of this has lessened a bit, and we're laughing about all of it now. I suppose that in the end, it doesn't matter much anyway - once their itty bitty bits are removed, they're hardly boys or girls anymore!
Awww~!
ReplyDeleteWhen we first got our rescue kittens, Thai was easy to name due to his Siamese markings. The lil' tuxedo cat, well, we thought she seemed like an "Ophelia".
Turns out, the kitten hadn't quite sprouted certain bits. So that's how we got Mel instead. :-D
LOL I read the 50Kittens blog and they just had something similar recently, both the "male" kittens they were fostering turned out to be female. Their adoptive parents didn't care and still took them in and are loving their new home.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to get the gender wrong when they're so small. It's why I suggested that they do a check each week just to be sure. (And wear long pants when dealing with a mommy cat.)
Well alrighty then! Why not just change Ramona to Myron and Myron to Ramona? Oh well! Like their adopters, I don't care who has what bits. That doesn't change the fact that all of them are CUTE!
ReplyDeleteThat is so funny! That's one way to make this a very memorable litter!
ReplyDeleteMy dad and stepmom rescued a feral kitten from almost being crushed in a car at a junkyard. They thought it was a boy so they named him Arthur. Turns out, Arthur's a girl! They decided to keep the name Arthur because, according to my dad, "she already knew her name and comes when you call her."
ReplyDeleteAwesome dad story. :-D
DeleteThanks for the morning giggle.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha! Love it!
ReplyDeleteToo funny! Been there, done that. As long as the adopter are happy it's all good
ReplyDeleteHahaha!! Great though how easily adaptable their IBKC names were :)
ReplyDeleteP.S. Sweet family picture!! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd then there was the beautiful, wonderful foster cat I took in for a spay. She was duly spayed, but had previously been neutered. Ingrid had been born with BOTH sets of itty bitty bits.
ReplyDeleteOh My! LOL That certainly livened up the weekend I bet!
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree it doesn't really matter, especially if the adopters don't care, I (personally) disagree that they aren't really boys or girls anymore after the snip.
8 cats and counting, all the girl cats we've had have been similar in certain aspects of their personalities and all the boy cats have been too...it's been very distinct, no matter what age they've been snipped. The girls always seem to stay frisky and active and full of lively personality well into their golden years where the boys all seem to turn into big lovey sucky sweethearts. But they're all wonderful! ;-)
That's how I ended up with my dear, departed girl cat Steve.
ReplyDeleteHee! When my mother was a child, they adopted a cat and named him Tom Mix (for younger folk, he was a mega-film star cowboy). Mom said a few months later, they had to rename the cat to Tomasita after it had kittens on her bed!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, we adopted "Gladys" from the shelter. We renamed her Scribbles, because of all the squiggly stripes she had. She got shaved her for spaying only to discover at the last moment she needed to be neutered instead. Luckily we didn't need to change his name again. :)
ReplyDeleteI've had that happen three times now with baby kittens I fostered, always misidentified boys: Elvis became Elvie and James became Jamie, also Zorro became Zoe. Pretty funny!
ReplyDeletewhat an adorable photo you've captured.
ReplyDeleteI thought my one-eyed cat was a boy,....so "One Eyed Jack" seemed appropriate. Until I brought "him" in to be neutered. Oops! In all of the floof, it was hard to see, but Jack was a Jackie! That's when a re-name was in order. So now Jack is Itty Bitty. Yes, I have a cat with the same name as your blog. I've had her for 9 years, and only been following your blog for 2, so I call it a happy coincidence.
ReplyDeleteMy sister-in-law took in a kitten and named it Raven. When she took the kitty in to the vet, it was discovered that "she" was a "he." The cat now goes by Ray.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to us recently with an adult cat! The shelter I volunteer for took in two adult cats, a male and a female, and after initial intake they somehow got swapped. The vets who examined them after that just looked for health indications and didn't recheck gender. One of them was adopted and the new owner's vet did recheck gender. Sonny Boy suddenly became Sonny Girl. Fortunately the new owner thought it made for a great story and all was well. -- liz
ReplyDeleteWe had the same thing happen with one of ours - Abby's bits took a little longer to appear, but by then the name had stuck. So, he's still called Abby - I just think of Abbie Hoffman.
ReplyDeleteMy poor boy had to have both, he had a retained testicle so 'spay' to go after the internal one, and neuter to get the one in the right spot! So now he's got that little pooch belly 'spay sway' from it like the girls.
ReplyDeleteLOL oooooops. XD Somehow Fisher comes to mind.....
ReplyDeleteFisher! Thank you, I've been trying to remember which kitten that was all day! That was from Sue's pitter pats, right?
DeleteFound it! http://www.pitterpatsofbabycats.com/2011/12/well-then.html?m=0
DeleteMany years ago I adopted two tuxes from a woman in a nearby town. I was looking for girls, and she said she thought all four kittens were girls. Two were already spoken for, so I took the other two. One was bigger than all the rest, so I figured he was a boy. Thought the other was a girl, though, and named her Tootsie, as we had a tux girl named Tootsie when I was a kid. A few days later, I'm cradling "Tootsie" upside down in my arms like a baby, and say "her" bits! Tootsie became Domino. Though I was told after that I should have kept "Tootsie" and he was a boy who looked like a girl, just like in the movie (which was popular at the time). I didn't think of that! :-)
ReplyDelete--Lisa in MA
I've been reading this blog for a few years and I have to say this is the best post yet. I've only heard of this happening once with a friend, whose kitten Cosmo (we thought it was a HE when we found him, hence the name!) turned out to be a girl, but the name stuck :) Such a funny and cute story!
ReplyDeleteSome of those bits are REALLY bitty or playing hide & seek.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, these kittens are gorgeous, loving and lucky to be members of the Butterbean School of Catiquette
My sister's late kitty Mandy turned out to be a boy, but stayed Mandy for the rest of his life (he got cancer last year) in spite of several alternate options on his papers, such as Mandarin (the fruit).
ReplyDeleteA few posts ago I noticed Myron looked smaller overall, especially in the paws, and less full in the cheeks than Ramona did. I figured she was just a big girl.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good chuckle! When we adopted our 1st Maine Coon, we took a hairdryer to his rear end to make sure he was a boy.
ReplyDeleteThe other adopter did not which is how she ended up with kittens.
Too funny! Growing up, we had a misnamed cat once, although the mistake wasn't ours: our neighbor had a cat whom they named "Pebbles" after the little girl in the Flintstones. Well, "Pebbles" grew to be a big, aggressive, spraying tom-cat b/c they never had him fixed! Eventually they had to give him up, and my family adopted him instead. He went for the fixing surgery, and became a much sweeter house-cat afterwards. :)
ReplyDelete*chuckles muchly* Oops! It can be so hard to tell boys from girls when kittens are small. Friends of mine who foster thought a pair of days-old bottle babies they took in were brother and sister, only to have doubts about the boy a month or two later. I took a look at "his" rear parts and said, "It's a girl!"
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in vet tech school, the animals we used all came from the local shelter. Part of the arrangement was that they'd be spayed/neutered while they were with us if they weren't already. My second year there, one of the cats, a longhair named Shamrock, had been ID'd as a female. When it was Shamrock's turn to be spayed, I was the surgical nurse/anesthetist (under the supervision of licensed vet techs) on the case. Belly was shaved and scrubbed impeccably, drapes placed perfectly, Shamrock had gone under smoothly and vitals looked great. The vet starts the surgery, everything's going smoothly--but he can't find Shamrock's uterus or ovaries. Her bladder is full, so that could be getting in the way. The vet calls over one of the instructor vet techs and asks her to empty the bladder. Urine straight from the bladder is sterile, so it's a non-issue when she pokes Shamrock's bladder with a syringe needle and gently expresses the bladder onto the surgical drape--and Eau de Tomcat instantly fills the air. O_o Someone ducks down to take a look at Shamrock's back end under the drape to confirm the growing suspicion, and, sure enough, we have been trying to spay a boycat. Alrighty, then. That would explain why the vet couldn't find the uterus or ovaries. Soooo, the vet closes up Shamrock, leaving me to suture the skin layer closed while he removes our boycat's "trouble nuggets". I'm feeling embarrassed at having totally missed Shamrock was a boy, but in my defense, Shamrock was a Very Fluffy boy. VERY fluffy, and I wasn't the only one who made that error!
This is a very adorable picture of the three Clovers! They are in such good hands in your care! xo Clover kittens, Wylla and Charlene <3
ReplyDeleteThis is so funny! This seems to happen quite often and so I had back-up names for my beautiful girl kittens (Cleo and Daisy) of Calvin and Dave! Jo x
ReplyDelete