Fading kitten syndrome is where a kitten is born and looks healthy and fine, but the kitten starts to decline over the next few weeks. The kitten becomes sick even to the point of death. The best way to prevent that would be to make sure Mom is as healthy as she can be before giving birth to pass that healthy immune system along to her kitten and any antibodies that she might have from appropriate vaccines.

Signs of a healthy kitten would be a kitten that's interactive, playful, eating and drinking well, and having regular bowel movements. You might not notice those things right off. You want to ensure they have energy, and they're interactive, and you don't see any obvious discharge, runny nose, sneezing, or other things like that.

If they're with their mom, again, the mom's going to do most of that, as we talked about with puppy care. Ensure that Mom has a good bed or safe area to be with them secluded, and not having to worry about any other animals coming around and having to be stressed about that. And if the kitten is not with Mom, depending on the time of year, you may want to have them in a little box or give them a blanket or something like that in there where they can be safe and secure.

If it's with its mom and it's a newborn kitten, I would encourage you not to—at least not to do a lot of handling. Because those first hours and days are a time where they bond. The problem would be that mom could decide that the kitten doesn't smell like her, or she doesn't recognize it if your scent or smell is on it, and so she may reject it. That would be one concern. And the other would be just safe handling. They're like babies. Be careful that you're not rough or mishandling them so that they could be injured or hurt.

Yes, that's very important. And you want to try to do that the least confrontational way. One thing we talk about is: is it possible to do that in a neutral setting? But that might not be possible if you have cats or dogs at your home, and your kittens come into your home. But you might want to think about doing it in an area of the house that's not the other pet's favorite chair, or favorite sleeping area, or around their food. Don't do it around those things that they might be a little more territorial of. And then you want to do it safely by making sure that both of them are not at risk of hurting each other.

You might want to do that with a cat, for instance, in a carrier setting. You can leave the kitten in its carrier. You could even put your other cat in another carrier. Let them see the other one without necessarily being able to touch or interact for the first meeting. And then, of course, gradually increase that distance or decrease the distance. So, you increase the face-to-face time. And then let them touch each other, smell each other. I would keep the dog on a leash. And that way you have some control of the situation if they decide they don't like each other at the first meeting.

If you were to find a kitten, depending on the age, you would want to, of course, look around and see. Is it possible the mother cat could have been scared and ran off and is coming back for the kitten? You may want to avoid touching the kitten initially and just observe the area at a distance. Observe the kitten and the area at a distance. If the kitten's in a safe place that it's not going to get hurt, come back and check on it a few hours later. The other thing I would think about is if the kitten is very vocal and acting very hungry. Then maybe it would be abandoned or orphaned versus if the mom had just left it, it might not be looking like that.