Wednesday, August 29, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Dobby, the house-elf-kitten

Let’s pretend I’ve barely blogged for two weeks because I’ve been on a fabulous cruise through the Caribbean, and I couldn’t drag myself away from the buffets and shore excursions to find an Internet cafe.  That’s a fun excuse, right?  It beats the truth, which I haven’t actually figured out yet.  I think it can only be blamed on, “Time flies”.  Damn Time.  I believe that Time tends to fly fastest towards the end of summer, and when you need to mail packages to arrive in time for Christmas.

I know I quickly mentioned “Dobby” a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t uploaded a picture.  So, here’s a cute photo of our newest foster/rescue (there are a few others in my Flickr account, and on Flippy;s blog:

Dobby_9_weeks (4)

To recap, Dobby was living somewhere on our street, and I’d seen her sitting on our block wall, and running into the yard of the vacant house next door.  She was eating copious amounts of food from our front porch feeder each night, but it wasn’t until she came into our backyard that I got close enough to see how tiny and skinny she was.  I’d assumed she was a young adult, but when she darted past me as she ran through our yard, I realized she was just a kitten, and a very young one.  So, I set the trap and nabbed her very quickly.  She was hissy and frightened and extremely skinny, and her coat was in poor condition.  She acted very “feral”, (although I have limited experience with ferals), because she took to our cats immediately but hid from us whenever possible.  If I picked her up (I had to scruff her to do this), she’d purr, but she’d hide her face in the crook of my arm, and would panic and jump down as soon as she made eye contact.  We took her to a vet for shots and he guessed her to be 7 or 8 weeks old, at most.

We’ve had her for a couple of weeks now, and she’s looking a lot better.  She isn’t skin and bones anymore, and is really solid and stocky.  She still won’t let us touch her voluntarily, but she’ll come right up to me when she wants to eat, she’ll lick food off the end of my finger, and she’ll take kibble pieces from Flippy’s hand.  Since her arrival the cats have “expanded” their territory, and every evening Dobby, Bunny, Carlo, and TJ gather in the living room (a room that only Derek regularly visited), and they romp and have kitten parties.  I put a new litterbox in there and in the mornings I can tell that there’s been plenty of cat party action going on while we sleep.

I’d like to get her to come around a bit more, and to be less skittish, before sending her to a new home.  We’re around all day and she sees us constantly, so I assume that’s the fastest way to acclimate her to people and to encourage her to become more sociable.  I think she definitely needs to go to a home with other cats, because even though she’s young, I think it’s established in her head that she’s a cat, and she wants to be with cats.

We still have Greg and Spiderman as well, so we’re as full as full can be.  I try to let them out of their bedroom to roam the house for at least a couple of hours each day, but they’re boys, and they do upset the gender/hormonal applecart around here, as I suspected they would.  We just have too many male cats.  Surprisingly, it’s not Jackson or Frank who’s being ass-y to Greg and Spiderman, it’s Tie and Scampi.  I thought I’d raised my children to be more civilized than that, but apparently, cats will be cats.  Spiderman is the most innocent thing in the world because he tends to just perch in one spot and observe, yet Tie has been sneaking up on him and smacking him in the face.  How nice… my sweet little cat is beating up on a blind cat.  I can’t wait for Greg and Spidey to find new homes (or to go to Best Friends), because they’re getting bored and need room to roam.  Bunny and Carlo play with them (I think Bunny has a crush on Spidey), but they need a real family and laps to sit on.  I’d bet they miss children, too.


Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/29 at 03:11 AM
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Thursday, August 23, 2007 , late at night

See, I’m not so crazy

A nice website by a family with a “large number” of felines:  Sally’s Cat House (no, not that kind of cat house, the kind with paws).  Lucky cats!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 11:29 PM
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Saturday, August 18, 2007 , evening

National Homeless Animals Day

The International Society for Animal Rights has declared today to be “National Homeless Animals Day”.  If you’d like to find out more about this great organization and the good work they do, please visit their website.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/18 at 08:05 PM
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Friday, August 17, 2007 , the wee hours

Could your sofa be making your cat sick?  And is it making me sick, too?

As pet owners, we’re aware that our older cats are prone to developing hyperthyroidism (as well as other problems such as diabetes, arthritis, etc.).  A recent study is shedding light on why hyperthyroidism might be so common in elderly felines, and the reason isn’t just “normal body wear and tear”.

Up until 2004, products called “PBDE"s (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) were commonly used as flame-retardants in all sorts of household items, including carpet padding and furniture foam.  Scientists have discovered that PBDEs naturally “shed” during product usage, and these small particles easily mix with household dust.  The dust can then be inhaled.  A study of a group of cats with hyperthyroidism revealed many of the cats had high levels of PBDEs in their bodies, suggesting that a lifetime of exposure to the flame-retardant particles eventually had taken its toll on the thyroid gland, causing it to go into over-drive.  While this particular study was quite small, previous research on animals concluded that PBDEs can disrupt hormones and damage the nervous system, which is why I assume manufacturers stopped using them two years ago.

It’s certainly food for thought, and a bit unpleasant at that.  If PBDEs do such damage to cats, what sort of damage can they do to children?  What sort of damage have they done to us as adults after a lifetime of exposure?  I developed FMS/CFS and Hashimoto’s Disease (a thyroid disorder) a year after I finished building a new custom home in Albuquerque, and prior to that I’d lived in another brand new home for about four years.  My health improved somewhat while I lived in an older apartment in San Francisco, and I was feeling fairly spry when I lived in a Las Vegas apartment as well.  As soon as Flippy and I moved to our newly constructed home in 2001, and filled it with brand new furniture, my health went downhill and has stayed there.  Now I wonder if so many years of inhaling new carpeting fibers and new paint and new drywall, etc., are what flipped the switch and led to my illness.  If I move to a really old house with old furniture can I cure myself?

I found the original story in the Toronto Star.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/17 at 02:28 AM
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Thursday, August 16, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

What’s up?

I’ve been a lazy blogger lately, but I’ve been rather under the weather for the last couple of weeks, and I was actually sick and in bed for the past 72 hours.  I thought I’d write a quick little catch-up post before I forget what it is I’ve been wanting to write about!

I’ve had to postpone Spiderman’s eye surgery until we can raise more money.  We absolutely cannot just toss $275+ out of pocket like we were once able to, especially when Spiderman shouldn’t even be my cat, so I’m holding the donations in reserve until I can either gain more through fundraising or through working.  The vet assured us that Spiderman was not getting any worse, nor was he in discomfort, so I don’t feel too guilty about putting things off for a month or two.  I’d mostly just like to have the surgery over for the sake of it being over, because I’m concerned that if someone does ever want to adopt him, it might be contingent upon him having the laser procedure.  On a related note, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah has accepted Greg and Spiderman for admission (which is a bit of a miracle, as I think they get requests to take in thousands of cats every month), but they can’t take them until they have room.  That basically means waiting until two cats currently in residence die, which is sad, and I’m not doing to cross my fingers and wish for that to happen.  Best Friends is willing to keep the cats together and only adopt them out as a pair, as well as to provide them a permanent home if necessary, but it could be months until that happens.  I’m still trying to find a home for the cats as we wait, but adopters all seem intimidated by Spiderman.  Both cats are very good-natured and friendly, and Spiderman is just a huge cuddlebug… we bring him into bed with us for naps, and he purrs and flops on his back and turns into a massive teddy bear.  Greg wanders all over the house when given the opportunity, and is not remotely intimidated by any dogs, large or small.  He’ll just casually climb up on a bookcase, or wander into the kitchen, or sprawl across the bathroom counter like he owns the place.  I feel very guilty that they spend about 23 hours per day closed up in their own bedroom, but their presence is upsetting to some of our other cats, and Tie in particular will smack Spiderman at random, which is obviously not a fair fight.  If they end up going to Best Friends they won’t be able to come to bed for naps, but they’ll be well-cared for and promoted and perhaps adopted by some rich person who wants to spoil them.  I think it’s more than I can offer, even though I’d love to keep them here until they can find a new family.  I find Greg a bit pushy, but I really love Spiderman with his big head and his teeny, tiny meow.

Our newest houseguest is “Dobby”, a female calico kitten I found in our yard about a week ago.  She’s as close to feral as I’ve ever dealt with, and loves cats but is terrified of people.  She’ll let us pick her up reluctantly, and might purr a bit, but immediately wants down.  She runs and hides if we walk into a room or move too quickly.  She’s in our “cat bathroom” right now, as it seems best to keep her in a small environment where she can build up familiarity and comfort, but she escaped a few days ago and hid in the living room for about three days.  I’d love to give her run of the house, but I don’t know how she’ll ever become tame if we never see her.  The vet guesses that Dobby is about eight weeks old at most, and she’s still under-weight but in good health.  She’ll do fine in a home with another cat (and with a patient owner).  It wouldn’t surprise me if she has a sibling on the loose, as something is still eating from my feeding station.

Finally, we still have Bunny and Carlo.  They continue to be incredibly adorable, and Carlo is just starting to have some bowel control.  He’s not perfectly consistent, but I’d say that 50% of the time he’ll use the litterbox if he has to poop.  That’s a huge improvement over his previous rate of 0%.  Both kittens are gentle and lovable… they like to visit with Greg and Spiderman, and they take good care of Dobby, and they don’t seem to have a mean or nasty bone in their bodies.  I guess it might be their age, although our cat TJ is almost a year old and he’s a big ol’ schmoozer and greeter of all household visitors and residents.  Bunny and Carlo need to be neutered very soon, probably within the next four weeks, so I’m glad to have found the new, inexpensive vet clinic.

I don’t know when I’ll have any more bottle-babies again.  I love them, and when I’m caring for them I feel like I’ve found my “calling”, but they take a huge physical and emotional toll on me.  They’re a financial burden as well.  If someone would pay me a fair salary to bottle-feed kittens I’d be delighted, but instead it costs me a fortune and I lose sleep and then I end up sad when I have to say goodbye!  I still need some rest before I take in any more, and I need to clear out some of the cats currently in residence.  It’s getting awfully crowded in here.

The animal sheltering situation in Las Vegas is such a disaster right now.  You may have seen stories in the national news about the closing of a local sanctuary called “F.L.O.C.K.”, because the 400 cats and kittens in residence were supposedly being held in deplorable conditions.  Best Friends stepped in to help clean up the mess at the request of Las Vegas Animal Control, but now they need to place the 400 cats who were living at the facility.  In addition, when authorities went to the home of the woman who used to run FLOCK (and the woman who’s been since charged with animal cruelty in the case), they found another 125 cats which had to be removed.  That’s 525 extra cats on the adoption market here, in addition to the thousand or so always available at the city shelter, and a few hundred at other rescues.  To top it all off, there are anonymous allegations floating around town about the Nevada SPCA, where former volunteers claim that there are about 600 cats being held in horrible conditions, not receiving proper medical treatment, not being fed and cleaned properly, etc.  It’s like no one in the city can care for cats properly, or at least, like no one wants to.  It makes me wish I could open a huge facility where I could house five thousand cats in palatial surroundings, and where I could employ good volunteers at a living wage to clean and feed and groom and just love all the kitties.  Heck, let’s have room for ten thousand cats, and let’s have a permanent staff of ten or fifteen full-time veterinarians. 

A few years ago I barely liked cats, and I was definitely not “a cat person”.  That obviously changed, and I wish everyone could go through such a transformation.  I just wish everyone would care just a little, because it seems that where cats are concerned, there just aren’t a lot of people speaking up on their behalf.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/16 at 04:20 AM
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007 , late at night

Things from Canada I miss: “The Ex”

One of my favourite memories of growing up in Canada is ”The Ex”.  Not as in ex-gf or ex-bf or even ex-husband, but as in The Canadian National Exhibition, aka The CNE, aka The Ex.  It’s like a State Fair, I guess, and it was always the best part of summer vacation.  I’d be tired and sore at the end of a long day of wandering, but my head would be filled with great memories and I’d usually have an armful of souveniers to bring home.  I was never interested in the midway or the games like normal kids, I liked the exhibits, especially the International Building.  They’d have rows and rows of vendors from exotic foreign countries (really exotic, as the Cold War was still on, so it was rare to have contact with Russians and Russian products), and I loved looking at all the unique items, always coveting a set of stacking wooden dolls, or wishing I had enough money to buy a genuine Akubra hat from Australia.

The CNE was started as an agricultural fair, and has stayed true to its roots.  There are always many farm animals on exhibit, and it’s a great place to buy and sample local produce and home-grown foods like different cheeses.  The smell of The Ex is a combination of sour junk food from the midway, and of horses in the live animal exhibit building.  I know it sounds like a gross combination, but it’s kind of soothing to think about.

Maybe the best part of The Ex was the Food Building.  It was row upon row of vendors of food, and while there was a lot of conventional food, there were also things like perogies, pastrami on rye, exotic sausages, and mini-doughnuts.  The perogies were deep-fried and salted with some seasoning and then smothering with buttered sauteed onions and gobs of sour cream… mmm!  There were always a few food items that I absolutely had to eat every year, so the food was as much a part of the tradition as anything else.

I haven’t been to the CNE since 1991, and every year around this time I get very nostalgic and just ache for a trip home.  This year’s version of the event opens on August 17th and runs until Labour Day.  I thought to write this entry today after the Toronto Star wrote about the Food Building, and they mentioned Tiny Tom’s doughnuts.  They were the first mini-doughnuts I’ve ever eaten, and they’d be hot out of the frying oil and then shaken in a bag with some sugar and cinnamon.  It was the perfect way to end a day (especially if you bought a few extra bags to eat in the car on the way home). 

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/14 at 11:10 PM
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Saturday, August 11, 2007 , evening

The cloud that won’t go away

It seems I’m not the only person with a little black rain cloud… Piffle has one too, so I’m in good company.  Remember how devastated I was when I accidentally threw out the blade and small cutting plate for my meat grinder?  Well, I bit the financial bullet and bought a refurbished meat grinder from an appliance reseller on eBay.  It only cost me $15 extra to buy an entire grinder vs. buying just the blade and one cutting plate from Waring, so it seemed to make the most sense.  I’d even have a backup motor in case mine ever burned out.  Well, my grinder arrived Thursday, and I anxiously opened it because I needed to make cat food that day or the furry beasts would starve (or act like they were about to drop dead from starvation).  I carefully removed all the packing material and unwrapped everything and… there were no cutting plates, and there was no blade.  The grinder was also missing a sausage-making attachment, which I didn’t care about, but it was obvious that this refurbished grinder was not in original condition.  So, after shelling out $125 for a grinder so I could have a blade and cutting plate, I was left again with no blade and no cutting plate!  How can this possibly happen?

The grinder was packed properly with all the correct packing materials, and it was taped securely, and it had a sticker on it which said something like, “Recertified by Waring”.  I’m sure the seller didn’t know the parts were missing, but as of yet, they haven’t replied to my email query asking what they want me to do.  I paid via PayPal, and they’ll protect me in the event that he seller is uncooperative, but I hope this isn’t a long, drawn-out process.  The original product listing on eBay says that if I return the item, I won’t be reimbursed for shipping, but I can’t imagine the seller anticipated that they’d be sending me a faulty product.  I wish I could have purchased directly from Waring, but eBay was the only place I could find a refurbished grinder.

So, the black cloud seems determined to stick around to bug me.  If I have to return the item and the seller won’t refund my shipping, I’ll be out about $35 or $40, and I’ll still need to buy parts.

One “positive” thing to come out of this incident was that it reinforced how much I prefer raw food to commercial, canned food.  I had to run out and buy a case of Natural Balance on Thursday evening, and by Friday, there was a lot of stinky, stinky poop in the litterboxes.  Back when I fed canned food all the time, I’d often smell a fresh “litterbox deposit” from the other end of the house.  Since I switched to raw, I swear that the cat poop does not stink.  I haven’t deliberately picked it up and sniffed it, of course, but a cat can be pooping in the litterbox while I’m in the same room, and I don’t smell anything.  The poops are also lovely and petite.  The only canned food that gave me this sort of great result was Merrick, and the cost difference between feeding homemade and feeding Merrick is a couple hundred dollars per month.  So, if you gag when you empty your litterbox(es), keep the concept of feeding raw in mind.  It’s been a change which has led to lots of good surprises (the meat grinder incident aside).

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/11 at 09:54 PM
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Happy Birthday, Flippy!

Today is Flippy’s birthday.  I won’t tell you how old she is, but I assure you that she’s still ranting and raving with the same energy and enthusiasm as she was a year ago.  The biggest difference from last year to this year is that we both need more naps, but I’m younger than she is, so I won’t blame that on age.  We’re going to try to get up in six hours or so to go down to the Strip for sushi, but I know we won’t want to go when we wake up, and there’s a 50% chance we’ll just roll over and go back to sleep.  I really couldn’t tell you how to bet your money in this situation.

So, Happy Birthday, Flippy!  We’ll get you some sushi, even if I just slap some tuna on a rice cake for you wink

image

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/07 at 03:22 AM
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Exciting day at the (new) vet’s office

We’ve been going to the same vet since 2001.  In fact, I think we were probably one of our vet’s first clients when she opened up her brand new animal hospital out here in what used to be “the boonies”.  Now it’s just another busy, fully-populated part of Las Vegas, but six years ago there weren’t many folks living out here.  I guess our vet was a visionary in that sense, because she built her office in the perfect location to grab new growth, and I don’t think she’s ever had a shortage of clients.

Our vet has always been very good and fair to us, and I know we get special treatment because we’re long-time customers who’ve brought other customers in.  She was the person who gave me injectable antibiotics for my goldfish so I could treat him myself, and she never discouraged me or turned me away when I asked for advice.  In exchange, we send gifts on holidays, we donate things like microwave ovens and new computer monitors, and we try to let the doctors and staff know how much we appreciate them.  We feel that many of the staff members can be counted as “friends” and not just “associates”.  Unfortunately, over the past two years our regular vet has severely cut back her hours to pursue other interests, and to start a family.  She works just two days per week, and she’s about to have her first baby, and I don’t know how much time she’ll take off for maternity leave.  There are other vets on staff, but the turnover is sort of frequent (people just don’t like living in Las Vegas for more than a few years), so once we adapt to a different vet, that vet invariably leaves.  Having a good one-on-one relationship with specific doctors is important, because they’re the folks who can “forget” to charge for a service, or who can volunteer to do a spay for free, etc.  With so many pets of our own, and with our numerous foster animals, we rely on that sort of special treatment to keep veterinary care affordable.  We now have a special account set up for the nonprofit animals, but it had to be approved by the office manager, and we’re on a fixed 10% discount.  That’s nice, but it doesn’t really save as much as we used to save just by having a good working relationship with the head of the clinic.  And then there’s the elephant in the room: I can’t seem to get a job working at the clinic, no matter what sort of job I apply for.  On a personal level, it doesn’t really bother me, and maybe the clinic has had problems in the past when they try to turn clients into employees.  On the other hand, employees of the clinic get all their veterinary care practically free, so refusing to hire me to even answer phones pretty much tells me that if I want to take advantage of employee discounts, I’m going to need to look elsewhere.

Today, we looked elsewhere for the first time.  I really wanted to get the new stray kitten in for a deworming/vaccinations, because I don’t have room to quarantine her properly.  However, our regular clinic had no available appointments.  Only one vet was working and she was completely booked, and they wouldn’t even let me do a “drop off”, where I just leave the kitten, they tend to her when they’ve got a free moment, and then we pick her up without talking to a doctor.  They used to commonly do that sort of thing for us in an emergency, but they stopped it under the new office manager, and I can honestly say that today was the first time we were flat-out turned away in a situation which I felt was sort of urgent.

Enter the “new” vet clinic down the road from us: they’ve been open for two years, and are just two miles away.  They’re walk-in only, so we walked in this afternoon, and I took a copy of my state nonprofit registration with me.  They immediately agreed to set up an account for Wee Paws, and said we’d get anywhere from a 10% to 20% discount on services.  Other than the fact there was a bit of miscommunication and things were a bit disorganized, our visit went well, the vet was friendly and helpful, and our stray kitten had a wellness exam, a fecal test, a deworming, and her first set of vaccinations.  I was nervous the whole time because we’re still in a money crunch, and I had $119 in credit available at the regular vet.  By going to a different vet, I no longer had that credit and would need to pay cash, so I was concerned we’d be hit with a bill that would hurt to pay.

Insert happy dance here.

The prices at this new vet clinic are so insanely reasonably I don’t understand how they stay in business.  We’ve always known that our regular vet was very expensive, but we attributed that to Las Vegas pricing, and not to the clinic itself.  The only other vet we see on a regular basis is the veterinary ophthalmologist, and he also charges and arm and a leg (but not an eye), so I just assumed that veterinary costs in Las Vegas were very high.  Here are the hard numbers:  when Bunny had her first set of vax at our usual vet clinic, the cost was $41.  If she’d had a fecal test, it would have been an additional $49, and if she’d had Nemex dewormer, it would have cost $9.  That’s a total of $99 (and we weren’t given any sort of discount on the vaccines, despite the fact Bunny came to us as a bottle-baby via that clinic).  At the new animal hospital today, our stray kitten had all of those exact procedures, vax, and medications, and the bill was $35.50.  They then deducted 10%, and we owned them $30.80.  That means I can finish Bunny and Carlo’s vaccinations as well, as do it all for less than $100.  We never get out of a vet clinic for under $100 (we have the same problem when we shop at Target), so our fortuitious visit to the new vet clinic today will save us a lot of money in the future.  Another cost comparison is spay/neuter.  I can get Bunny and Carlo into the local free spay and neuter program, but they’ll have the most basic treatment, no post-op pain meds, etc., and I hate to put them through that if I don’t have to.  On the other hand, I don’t relish the idea of paying $200 for a neuter, and $250 for a spay.  Through the new clinic, I’ll pay at most $100 for the neuter and $120 for the spay, perhaps less depending on how the discount is configured.  I really couldn’t be happier.

We’ll still go to our usual vet clinic for many things.  If the head vet comes back after maternity leave and is seeing clients, she’s the best doctor to treat Phoenix’s allergies.  The other staff vets just don’t have her in-depth knowledge of Phoenix’s history.  If I have to have a pet put to sleep, I’d be most comfortable with her because we’ve known her for so long.  I also think she’s great when it comes to anything unusual or surgical, and I really enjoy talking to her.  On the other hand, when we need to take Dante in for new ear meds (he’s got chronic ear infections), he can just go to the new clinic.  I don’t need to pay premium prices just to get a new bottle of Mometamax.  When our usual vet clinic was smaller, and the head vet was there all the time, we could just call in things like that and she’d know that Dante was prone to ear infections, and she’d know that we’d bring him in if his infection was unusual or didn’t respond to treatment, so she’d just approve the medication over the phone based on her prior exams and his medical history.  Now, none of the vets will do that for us, so every little recurring problem requires an office visit just to get the same old prescription.  As an office policy it’s understandable, and it keeps all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, but we really benefited when the clinic was about personalized service and common sense treatments.

That was a very long story, but I feel a great sense of relief today.  I’ve got choices, I’ve got options, and suddenly, veterinary care seems affordable.  With what the new clinic charges, even veterinary health insurance makes sense, whereas in the past, it would never come close to paying any of our pet care costs.  I’ll have to see if I can get broad-spectrum pet insurance coverage for our fosters.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/07 at 02:03 AM
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Monday, August 06, 2007 , the wee hours

Endless strays

Back on July 6th, we found a friendly adult calico cat in our backyard.  Our dogs had cornered it under a tree, and I was able to crawl under the tree and scruff the cat without it making any protest.  It let me carry it around, purred, and seemed like someone’s pet, except for the fact it had no collar nor microchip.  I put a collar on the cat and affixed my email address to it before I released it, and I never saw the cat again. 

Jump ahead a couple of weeks, and a cat with a voracious appetite has been eating out of my front porch feeder each night.  I also hear the dogs barking at something very specific, but when I’ve gone to look I never see anything.  The only thing I saw about a week ago was a smallish cat, perhaps a calico kitten, sitting atop my neighbour’s wall.  It ran away when it approached.  Tonight the dogs were barking like crazy and staring towards a certain section of the yard, so I went out in the dark and with a whoosh, a small calico kitten ran past me and jumped up on the wall.  I decided to set a trap to catch the kitten, because it seemed awfully tiny, and I wanted to make sure it was in good health.  I wasn’t sure if it would approach the trap, but not to worry—I’d caught in within 30 minutes.  I had a trap full of a kitty firecracker all right… it was crazed and frightened and hissing and I wondered if it was even feral.  After a few minutes of quiet talking, the cat settled down quite a bit, and I was able to gingerly pick it up.  It’s definitely a calico female, maybe 8 weeks old, and it’s very skinny with dry fur.  The ears were a bit dirty (not with mites, just dirt), but the eyes were clear, and the kitten was pretty clean even though it was scrawny.  I decided to stick it in with Missy Mae (poor Missy Mae… she gets all the questionable cats tossed her direction), and that kitten just lit up when it saw her and started to purr loudly.  It climbed onto her back and started to knead like crazy, and it seemed so happy.  I’m glad Missy Mae is good natured about these things, because she even licked the kitten a few times, so she’s helping to relax it.  Tomorrow I’ll take it to the vet for shots and FIV/FeLV tests.

So, now I’m wondering if there’s any chance that calico cat I found a month ago could have been given birth to this calico kitten?  The adult cat could be someone’s pet, because it was sleek and shiny, but perhaps she wasn’t spayed and was allowed to roam.  She could have easily given birth in any of the open areas around us, or even in a car in our neighbour’s backyard.  I don’t think the kitten belongs to anyone because it’s so underfed and fearful, and I just think it’s an odd coincidence that I’d have a stray adult calico around right before having a stray calico kitten.

Assuming the kitten is healthy, it can go up for adoption tomorrow.  It loves other cats, so it should fit into a new home quite easily.  I will keep an eye out for a “lost cat” report, as I always do, but I sincerely doubt there’ll be one. 

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/06 at 12:43 AM
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Adopt a Big Dog!