Brook's Babbles

While Mr A was taking the Bespoke Tinypants on a routine vet check-up in mid-October, he saw a momcat and her 6-day old kitten also getting a checkup at the vet. These two turned out to be Brook and Pebble! What struck Mr A about this pair was Pebble's unique markings. While her fur was mostly grey, she had black paws, face and ears! It has been speculated that this coloring was most likely a "fever coat". Brook and Pebble were under the care of a different animal shelter at the time, and while it is a little unconventional for Kitten Academy to foster a momcat with a single kitten, Mr A told their caretaker that if the pair needed fostering, the Academy would take them. Later that same day, Mr A got word that they wanted Kitten Academy to foster them!

Brook and Pebble arrived the next day, and settled in the annex. Pebble continued to grow and become a small kitten, along with a few non-kitten "classmates" to keep her company, such as some real pebbles that looked like her, and three "flat mouse" toys named Princeton (named with the Ivy's League kittens), Dartmouse and Brown. Pebble's fur was darkening every day, and was well on her way to learning how to cat, however, she was still lacking a crucial part of the Kitten Academy curriculum: how to interact with cat siblings

This is why later in October, Kitten Academy took in three new kittens, with no momcat. These kittens were all males, and named Moss, Fern, and Thistle. Mr A was hesitant to introduce the two groups together, because the "TinyPlants" as the boys were nicknamed were older and bigger than tiny pebble, and he was concerned they might be too rough interacting with her. So, the new kittens first settled into Kitten Academy in the second annex.

While during Pebble's early development Brook was an attendant mom, she quickly lost interest in mom duties when pebble was only about a month old. At this point Pebble was old enough to eat kitten food herself, and was learning to use the litterbox, so not too much remedial cat classes were needed to keep Pebble up to standards of learning how to cat, and at this point Mr A and DJ decided to introduce her to the others

While Mr A still had reservations about their size difference, The Tinyplants were very respectful of bold little Pebble, and they interacted well together! However, Brook was not very happy about meeting the boys. At first the two groups still stayed in separate rooms and pebble came over for "playdates", however she eventually moved in permanently with the boys and Brook moved into the spare bedroom, with supervised time out with the faculty as well.

It was noticed at the vet that Brook had very high blood sugar, and she was thought to be diabetic. This didn't change too much in her life, however Mr A had to learn how to give her insulin every morning as he had never cared for a diabetic cat before. These morning insulin injections turned out to be great opportunities for Mr A to talk with the people on the Kitten Academy Livestream

In early November, Pebble was approved to be adopted along with Culotte of the Tinyplants class, and all three of the boys (Moss, Fern and Thistle together) also got approved to be adopted super quickly by long time kitten academy fans and members of the discord! However they still had a few months of growing until their actual adoption. During this time the group moved to the main room where they continued to play together, learned to hula with Mr A's help, and continued to learn to cat. The TinyPlants adopter's, who are local to the area, even came by to visit their kittens a few weeks before they adopted them, and during a special visit before Christmas, Santa and Mrs Claus visited too!

The TinyPlants graduated on January 14th 2020, and they were picked up by their adopters on the 18th. By this time Pebble's fever coat was almost gone, and her fur almost completely black, her true fur color. She graduated on the 28th, and she and her adopted sister Culotte were picked up soon after on January 31st.

Meanwhile, Brook still did not have an approved adopter. A few people had applied, and were even approved to adopt her, but all eventually fell through. After much trial and error, Mr A finally was able to consistently read Brook's blood sugar pretty much daily, and found it to be at normal levels even without the insulin injections. Because he knew Brook always got upset during car rides, Mr A preformed a test and confirmed that the stress of the car rides is what was making Brook's blood sugar be super high when checked at the vet, a theory that was dismissed before, and that she wasn't diabetic after all! However, she still needed a home.

Finally, Brook got an approved adopter named Ed! however, Ed was concerned about the long drive with Brook to his home, and told Mr A that should a more local adopter want Brook, they should adopt her instead. Brook's adoption was originally scheduled for late March, however with the COVID-19 pandemic at the time, it was determined that a multi-day car ride would not be possible with much of the country in a stay-at-home order. Therefore Ed re-stated his wish for Brook to go to a local adopter; one was eventually found and Brook went to her forever home on April 30th, but she wasn’t a good fit for them, so she came back on May 7th. Finally, after so long, Brook found her forever home with a KA fan, and went home on May 29th.