Tales from the Hood

Well another week has come and gone, I managed to find a home for two of the four kittens that I/we (Kristin) rescued two Friday's ago, this blog site is still not working properly, my hair is still a wreck, and despite my finding homes for at least 100 cats over the past few years, there are so many cats that are still homeless out there. And I mean these are GOOD cats, sweet cats, lap cats. I've been keeping my eye on a feral kitten on Pennsylvania and Fourth. The little itty bitty thing races to a garage of an abandonded boarded up ready for demolishing house and crawls under the slanted boarded up door. Then there are the other kitties that will allow me to get just so close to them, their eyes constantly watching me, wary, waiting for me to leave so that they can eat.

And then there are those that sidle right up to me, allowing me to hold them in my arms for a small moment of time, scratching them just there, and purring loudly as if to say 'thank you for being so kind to me.' The kind black man on Second Street, Paul, who has allowed me to feed behind his house all these years, came out yesterday to say the raccoons were back and now in his attic. I feel terrible about this, and the man never blames me, nor does he tell me i can't feed behind his house (when we both know full well that the food I put down attracts all sorts of critters, including his raccoons). I told him I would put a feeler out there to see if anyone can help him out, see if there is a handyman that would be willing to donate his time and talent to help him out - it would be a sort of donation to me to help him - but unfortunately, I don't know too many handymen that are reading this blog, and I rarely get a response from my 'friends' on Facebook when I need help, so I doubt that once again I can help Paul out. I did leave him a small gift card for Wegmans with a note thanking him. I try to do that for him and two others that allow me to feed cats on their property, twice a year - its the least I can do. If anyone ever gets gift cards for anything and would like to donate to me so that I donate to them as a thank you for their compassionate hearts, I will take them!

A friend sent me the link to this article:

"San Diego bans commercial sale of pets in effort to stop puppy mills"
 In a move aimed at keeping puppy mill animals off the retail market and encouraging more adoption of shelter animals, the San Diego City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban the commercial sale of all dogs, cats and rabbits. The new ordinance, which will go into effect in 30 days, says that pet retailers may only offer adoptions of animals they've obtained from city or county shelters, humane societies and nonprofit rescue groups. Retailers were upset, saying the blanket measure unfairly penalizes "well-run" shops. Animal advocates disagree: "Every time we do a pet store investigation [after a complaint], we find that puppy mills are the suppliers," said a spokesperson for the Humane Society of the United States. San Diego is the 32nd U.S. city to pass such a ban."

This is great news, now we need to spread this law to every city across the country! Have a great weekend!