Awwwwww.....

Is there anything cuter than a kitten???

This little sweet pea was at last month's Intake, the night at Animal Compassion Network when new dogs and cats are brought into the program, vetted, photographed, etc. He wasn't ready for adoption yet, but I did get the chance to chat with his foster mom, who told me she'd been feeding him every few hours, around the clock.

On this particular evening there were several such "neo-natal" foster parents there, including one middle-aged gentleman in a suit who had a carrier containing three orphaned kittens he'd been caring for almost since they were born. He told me that each morning when he leaves for work, he takes them to a local cat clinic, where the staff there take over the daytime feeding regimen. After work, he picks them up, and continues the schedule, feeding them every few hours through the evening and night. Whew. Talk about dedication.

That night there was an abundance of kittens, from the very young to the almost-full-grown. The lobby was full of tired looking Good Samaritans with cat carriers, who had obviously made the trek over to the Humane Alliance at the end of a long work day. Taking the kitten photos is always a fun challenge. They're usually energetic, wiggly, and impossibly curious. Photographing cats and dogs takes a calm spirit and patience. If you get frustrated, they sense it and respond in kind. A good sense of humor helps too . More often than not, I snap the shutter and get this:

But every once and a great while, a kitten will have mercy on me,
and give me this:

 It's all good.