Four sister kittens were found alone in a busy downtown area. They were nearly all headed for separate forever homes. Three of the girls had plans of their own to remain family.
Paris, Marseille, Cherbourg, and Normandy Credit: The Kitten Agent
The four of them began in about the worst place for a newborn. A security guard found them alone in downtown Los Angeles, roughly two weeks old, with no mother anywhere in sight.
She never came back. The kittens were all rescued, and a foster was lined up immediately that could handle the dedicated care needed during a kitten's most vulnerable time. The first day was touch-and-go, but the kittens rallied, latched, and started eating, and from there they had a real chance.
A neonatal foster, The Kitten Agent, took four of the six-kitten litter, while another foster took the remaining two. Jen of The Kitten Agent, also a foster for Bobbie’s Street Cats, runs a naming theme she calls the City Kitty series, and this round went to France.
Paris, Marseille, Cherbourg, and NormandyCredit: The Kitten Agent
So the four girls became Paris, Marseille, Cherbourg, and Normandy, the last one a Siamese, and yes, Jen knows Normandy is a region and not a city.
Normandy was the tiniest of the group, and for a stretch she was also the one who kept everyone up at night.
Normandy, Paris and MarseilleCredit: The Kitten Agent
At three and a half weeks, she suddenly stopped eating. She would not take a bottle or food; she grew dehydrated, and while her sisters kept growing, she held still. "Hard to believe that this pretty girl is the same kitten who tried to die on me at 3.5 weeks old when she stopped eating," Jen shared with LoveMeow.
Jen fought for her with fluids, nutritional paste, and endless coaxing. Tube feeding was off the table because Normandy already had a full mouth of teeth, so it came down to patience.
NormandyCredit: The Kitten Agent
Then one day Normandy decided she was ready, and she latched again. Weaning followed, and she went from a scare to eating everything in sight, catching up to her sisters ounce by ounce.
She stayed the smallest of the litter, but she came through with her spark intact. Normandy turned out to be the reserved one, quieter than her sisters, right up until Jen picked her up. "She loved when I picked her up and held her like a baby and kissed her belly," Jen shared during a conversation with LoveMeow.
Paris and MarseilleCredit: The Kitten Agent
With the hard part behind them, all four blossomed. They ate through Jen's entire food stash, they played together and took turns like little roommates. One of the more heartwarming traits of the kittens was that when one started purring, they all did, loud and sweet.
Paris was the one who never waited for an invitation. "Paris always beat me to the chair," Jen said. "If I came in the room, she would go running over to the chair and jump up waiting for me to sit down."
ParisCredit: The Kitten Agent
Marseille was the clingy one, in the very best way. She loved to sit on Jen's chest and purr, rub her face against her, and roll around in her arms, and of all four sisters, she was the one who picked Jen's partner as her person.
She had the prettiest speckled coat, too, and a tiny orange spot right in the middle of her forehead.
MarseilleCredit: The Kitten Agent
Cherbourg was the acrobat, forever hopping from one level of the cat tree to the next and then springing onto the chair. She had unique coloring and a white tail tip that kept growing, and she handed out purrs and kisses at every chance.
She and Normandy were the two who could not stop purring, whether they were getting pets, getting kissed, or just being looked at from across the room.
CherbourgCredit: The Kitten Agent
Spay day came, and all four sailed through it. Marseille even had a small cyst removed from her forehead along the way, so cleanly that you would never know it was there.
The girls were deeply unimpressed by the no-breakfast rule before surgery, and Jen joked that they spent the morning threatening to call their lawyers over the indignity.
Normandy & CherbourgCredit: The Kitten Agent
Then came the best day of all. All four sisters were adopted, in what Jen calls "one of my favorite adoption stories ever."
It started with Cherbourg, who found her happy ending separately, in a home with a one-year-old cat sister of her own, under a brand-new name, Halu.
Paris & MarseilleCredit: The Kitten Agent
Normandy's adopter was a woman with a cat who needed a buddy. She was moving out on her own soon, and her cat was about to lose his companion at her parents' house.
That left the parents' cat losing his buddy too, so the parents solved it by adopting Paris and Marseille together.
Paris & MarseilleCredit: The Kitten Agent
The result is one big extended family. The three sisters will spend a few months all under one roof, and then will look forward to family gatherings for many years.
There was one more sweet twist. Paris and Marseille were renamed after the adopters' own mothers, Iris and Delli, and Normandy became Petal.
Credit: The Kitten Agent
From four abandoned newborns a security guard found alone on a city street, to four adopted sisters with three of them still together, the French City Kitties did not miss. "They all hit the jackpot," Jen said.
Share this story with your friends. View more on Jen, The Kitten Agent, and her foster kittens on Instagram at @jenfosterskittens. You may also visit Bobbie’s Street Cats for more information.
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