Friday, June 25, 2021

TGIF!

 Time sure does fly by.  I continue to go out every other day and feed the kitties, and then race home to eat and get ready for work.  Never a dull moment.  I go through 5 16-lb bags and 14 large cans of wet cat food for each feeding.  I have three crazy girls that get up early and help me, on separate days, and boy am I grateful.  In the summer days, its light at 5 am. so basically I could do it on my own, its just carrying the heavy gear i.e. water jugs, food, etc.  

I see so many sweet adoptable cats out there, my heart breaks, so on the days I don't feed, I don't want to think about them or cats in general because its too depressing.  We don't have enough people to take in a cat for fostering.  I know of at least 5 'worthy' cats right now out there.  Beautiful cats too.  The one adult cat in foster, Whiskers, the foster is falling in love with and is thinking about adopting, but I don't want to lose this foster because she does so well with the adult cats that come off the street, grooming them for their new home.  So I told her to hold off, maybe the right fit will come along for Whiskers, who is slated for surgery on July 5th, to have his eyelids turned out right.  They are curled in right now making it hard for him, or uncomfortable for him, to open his eyes.

The kittens my former adopter found are just precious.  She too has wanted to keep them.  But I told her, we will find the right adopter, to take them both.  I still need to visit her to determine sexes, and then will post on Petfinder.  Mila and Ruby, for now, but I could swear one of the is a boy.






You can see why she is in love with them!

Have a great day!

"There are no great people in this world, 

only great challenges which ordinary people 

rise to meet."

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Ignorance

 

Yesterday, in going out on my rounds to feed the many cats I feed in the Beechwood area of Rochester, I came upon a sight that I KNEW I was going to see, but hated to see regardless.  Four baby kittens under a bush with two adults standing around.  It was in front of a house where months ago, a woman was putting her garbage out, and there were older kittens outside and I said to her, are those your cats?  She said yes, I asked her if they were spayed or neutered, she said no, they are boys.  I explained why it didn’t matter.  I drove away shaking my head.  Sure enough, now we have more cats on the street.  I got out of my car, went over and placed a plate of food and bowl of water.  The one young adult, don’t know if it was the mother or not, came over hungrily to eat.  And soon, so did two of the four kittens.  I was able to pick up the two separately, but placed them back down as I did not have a plan.  I always need a plan.  I contacted a friend to help me get the adult cats spayed and neutered (TNR), and I would grab the kittens the next morning.  I still didn’t have a plan when I woke this am. about the kittens.  But as usual, knowing there are babies out there, on the busy street of Melville, its all I could think about, so I went out at 5 am. to see if they were there.  They were not.  I will attempt again tomorrow.  I am sick about it.





In the same vein, if you remember the two gorgeous white kittens under my rescue a few months ago, they came from a cat named Fluffy, who belongs to a family in the city.  They were giving the kittens away to an acquaintance and he asked me if I wanted them, which I did, and had them spayed and adopted out. I made contact with the family, and made an appointment for Fluffy to get spayed. First excuse, a member came down with Covid.  Cancel first appointment. Make another for Fluffy.  “I forgot” about the appointment was the next excuse.  New appointment made, and yesterday I get a text from the woman that Fluffy got out by mistake and is now pregnant again.

I am pissed off by such irresponsibility.  More homeless cats and more unwanted kittens on this planet. This woman is pregnant herself, so of course, she is totally against getting this cat spayed and her kittens aborted.  I told her – ITS NOT THE SAME.  I sent her a link as to why it isn’t.

Spaying a pregnant cat terminates the pregnancy, making this a controversial issue. Some people cannot bear the thought of killing fetal kittens. Others raise concern allowing the pregnant cat to have kittens contributes to the pet overpopulation problem.

Spaying a pregnant cat includes abortion, a word that evokes a variety of emotions. Proponents don't like having to take lives of unborn kittens, but their position is based on pragmatic reasoning. Opponents simply do not like the taking of lives under any circumstances, whether born or unborn.

Many animal shelters automatically spay a pregnant cat that comes into the shelter. Some no-kill shelters allow the mother cat to give birth, especially if the pregnancy is late-term. There are some rescue groups that opt to never spay a rescued pregnant cat.

The enormous cat overpopulation problem is partially caused by cat owners' failure to spay or neuter their cats.  Unspayed cats that spend time outside are highly likely to become pregnant. Whether owned, stray, or feral, these cats and their surviving kittens continue to mate, and the offspring from those matings continue to mate. Unspayed females can become pregnant by one or more of their non-neutered male kittens. A pregnant female cat and her descendants can account for the births of several hundred kittens in just a few years.

Animal rescue groups, humane societies, and TNR (trap-neuter-release) groups are overwhelmed in trying to control cat overpopulation, and "kitten season," which extends for a long part of each year in many geographical areas, is met with dread by these groups. They know this year's kitten crop will be responsible for the deaths of last year's kittens or older cats at shelters. There simply isn't enough space to house them all, and something must give. It's a matter of supply and demand and young kittens are in the highest demand.

Spaying a rescued pregnant cat can help contain the overpopulation problem.  There are simply too few homes for the huge number of homeless cats. Preventing an unplanned litter may also help prevent the deaths of living cats and kittens. Even when a pregnant female cat is adopted by the finder, and there are good homes waiting for her kittens, some people view each of those kittens as being indirectly responsible for the death of a shelter cat or kitten that might have been adopted into one of those homes.

Of course, there is no evidence that the people who plan to adopt the mother and/or kittens would have gone to the shelter instead. Perhaps they weren't even looking for a cat until they heard a friend, neighbor, or co-worker had adoptable kittens. An individual who is willing to keep both the mother cat and the kittens or find good, permanent homes for them, should not be made to feel guilty for allowing the birth. Of course the mother cat and her kittens should be spayed and neutered as soon as possible.

If the pregnant cat is very young, very old, or in poor health, pregnancy can cause even more health problems. The kindest and most compassionate action anyone could take with one of these cats is to spay her and abort her litter.

Lastly, a very rare sighting of a cat I rescued as an older kitten, Butterscotch, who remained feral in my house.  He sneaks up occasionally when I am around.  


Have a great day!

"Ignorance isn't bliss, but sometimes Ignorance makes it possible for us to sleep at night."

Monday, June 7, 2021

The Long and Short of It

 


What happened to last week?  It was a blur.  I spent the entire weekend outside, which is where I prefer, always.  What with the holiday weekend and all, I tried not to think about cats.  Yes, I do try to have a life outside of cats.  I couldn’t do it without fosters though.  I would be overwrought with guilt because someone somewhere is always asking for help with a cat here, kitten there, in need of help.  Take for instance, I got a call from a former adopter (Ernie and Jake’s new mom) of two kittens that is just the sweetest girl, and I am friends of her mom and aunt, so it was hard to ignore.  She said her step sister’s father has a barn and he’s found 5 kittens, in Shortsville.  Long story short, she was able to get two of the kittens, but the other three have gone missing.  I have them kitten traps, but they kept getting the adult cats, that are obviously starving to death.  I have no idea if they are even being fed, there are somethings my heart just can’t take knowing.

Long story short, meet these two cuties.  They went to vet for exam, both fairly well despite one having an eye issue, which is being cleared up as we speak.  That is my foster Christina.  Thank you Christina, for caring.




Then there is SUE!  My sweet Sue took in a momma and three kittens a few weeks ago.  Kittens still being socialized but momma is very sweet, and SLOWLY acclimating to Rose, the dog, and the other kitties that are Sue’s babies (Sue adopted Maize and Toebe from me a few y ears ago as kittens).  Thank you Sue for these wonderful pictures.







And last but not least, KIM!  Thanks Kim for your care and concern and love and foster for our old guy Loren, who is now aptly named Whiskers.  He has the funniest, curliest whiskers.  He is terribly shy, but slowly coming out of his shell.  His ‘sponsor’, a sweet woman named Debbie (who also previously adopted a kitty from me years ago – and whose husband made me those beautiful heavy wooden shelters years ago that were destroyed by the city – namely on Niagara Street), offered to get Whiskers to a vet if I had a foster.  That’s where Kim came in.  Long story short, Whiskers needs surgery – he may – on his eyelids which are turned in and have apparently been bothering him for a long time, could be from birth, which makes him not want to, or able to, open his eyes fully.  So, another vet visit soon, and we will find out about that.  Two angels for one cat.



Lastly, is anyone as neurotic as I am?  I used up some eggs, but there was only one left in the carton, and I felt SORRY for it, being alone.  So my other neurotic friend, Kristin, (who is the only person I know so far that could relate) told me to put a lime in with it.  So I did.  And yes, they are still happily together.




GREAT stories!

Have a great day!

"Today happens only once.  Make it Amazing!"