Brief update on Operation Kitty Retrieval

I’m afraid I don’t have time to write much now… I have to get to bed because tomorrow is the first day of Blog World Expo.  Well, the first day for us folks in the cheap seats, anyway.  We had about three hours of sleep last night, and tonight isn’t lookin’ a whole lot better.  Whoops!  I’m hoping to do some “networking” at the conference, and perhaps pick up one or two more blogging jobs to round-out my work week.  I’ll be stumbling and slurring from lack of sleep, but at least the problem won’t be caused by booze.

I’d left a message with animal control last night, saying I wanted to adopt both cats if they were still around, and someone called me back first thing this morning!  I was impressed!  The woman said both cats were alive, but one was in the back and not on display because it was badly matted and needed to be shaved.  She could not hold the cats for me (I really think that policy is sort of silly, at least in the sense of “holding” an animal to prevent euthanization), but she put notes on both their cages saying that I would be coming in to pick them up.  She also couldn’t tell me how long the cats would have before being euthanized, because she “doesn’t make those decisions”.  Not surprisingly, I wasn’t permitted to speak to the person who does make the decisions.

That left us in a bind.  We live almost 30 miles away from the Henderson animal control, so we were looking at a long journey through the heart of Las Vegas, ending in rush hour.  We were literally travelling from the most northwest edge of town to the most southeast corner (where Vegas turns into a different city).  We’d hardly had any sleep (maybe 3 to 4 hours), and we knew we’d have to make a similar trip on Thursday and Friday when we attend Blog World Expo.  Flippy came up with a reasonable idea:  call the former owner of the cats, ask her to claim them, and keep them overnight.  We’d pick them up from her on our way home from BWE on Thursday, thus saving us a whole lot of bother.

The cats’ former owner was freakishly uncooperative!  There was no way she could go pick up the cats.  She had no carriers for them.  She didn’t know anyone who could take them overnight.  “If I’d known someone who could have taken them, then I wouldn’t have put the cats in the shelter!” (ah, silly me).  At this point I got a bit cranky nasty and said, “I’m only asking someone to look after the cats for one night, not for years and years.  You’re not listening to what I’m asking.  Don’t you have a daughter or a work friend who would watch the cats for one day until I could come and get them?” Her answer was always “no”.  She was living with her mother-in-law, and the MIL had supposedly said, “I don’t want cats anywhere near this house”.  (Then the MIL cackled and stirred her cauldron).  Even if it meant the cats would die, the MIL wouldn’t let them the cats sit in crates in a garage for 18 hours.  At this point I almost suggested that the cat’s former owner pick up the cats, and take them to a vet’s office and board them, but I knew she’d say no to that as well.  She tossed in a few, “my husband’s dying” anytime I got pissed up at her lack of cooperation.

The thing that was really odd was that the woman seemed to love her cats, but she refused to help save them. She kept talking about how wonderful they were, and begging me to save them, and she was even weeping, yet she couldn’t do the most simple tasks to make our lives a bit easier.  I ended the call by saying, “Tell your MIL law that some stranger is going to spend $200 of her own money to save your cats.  I work two and three jobs to afford to help cats, and I shouldn’t have to do this, but I’ll do it for the cats.” And the final words out of the woman’s mouth?  “If I had any money I’d send you some, but I don’t.”

Maybe I should forgive this woman on the basis of her having a temporarily mental/emotional disorder because of her husband’s illness.  I understand how that could happen.  I don’t understand how a reaction to impending loss of life is to create more loss of life. 

As a result of that frustrating phone conversation, Flippy and I took a 70 mile roundtrip to Henderson (we took a little unintended detour for unexpected sightseeing.  It happens!).  We used up all the gas we had left in our tank, and with gas over $3 per gallon here, we’ll spend $49 to fill it up tomorrow.  At animal control, we had to pay $55 each for the cats.  The cats looked miserable and terrified, not unlike our first experience with Chelsea and Jackson many years ago.  One even peed in fear as he was being carried out.  They were so confused and bewildered, and both of them were badly matted and in need of a bath.  It was starting to look a bit like the former owner may not have wanted to care for the cats any longer, but that’s just a guess.  The cats chatted a bit in the cat but were mostly silent, grossing out Flippy with the pee smell.

Now we’re getting to a bit of a happy ending to this first chapter.  Finally the day had guardian angels.  We drove to our regular vet’s office where we were going to board the cats overnight, and have them bathed and shaved.  I’d hoped to find a foster family there for the cats, but there were no bites.  However, the clinic is going to board the cats for free at least until Monday, and longer if needed (i.e., they’ll board the cats until someone in command notices, heh).  That’s such peace of mind for me, and it gives me the weekend to try to move Greg and Spiderman.  If we can move them, then these two new cats can come stay, but I may have to change their names slightly.  Their current names are Pinto and Shiner, and while I don’t mind Pinto, I think “Shiner” sounds like beer.  He needs a sophicated name, like Odin, or Bilbo Baggins, but I don’t want to confuse him too much.

I’m sorry this wasn’t slow.  My eyes are crossing and I misspelled a lot of worms, uh, words.  Forgive me… my pillow is calling…

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/07 at 11:42 PM

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  1. YAY! Good job.

    I’ve run into owners like that a couple times already too and I just don’t get it. :(

    I hope you find a good foster or forever home for them quickly. Flippy’s description of how full your house is blows my mind. I wouldn’t know what to do with that many animals in one place!

    Posted by jg  on  11/08  at  07:34 AM

  2. I simply cannot understand that former owner’s lack of help. You and Flippy are good people for saving those poor scared cats.

    I agree--new names for a new start. Something’ll come to you. One of my authors runs a horse sanctuary, and they have a policy that whenever a new horse comes to the sanctuary, s/he gets a new name--kind of a way to signify leaving the bad behind and starting over with a new life.

    Posted by Helena  on  11/08  at  08:26 AM

  3. Bravo!!!

    Posted by Ryssee  on  11/08  at  05:36 PM

  4. Shiner sounds to me like a black eye. I’d suggest Spider as sounding similar, but that might confused with Spiderman.  Go with Shiny? Shania? Sean? Shinto?

    Thank you for being angels to these cats.

    Posted by Georg  on  11/08  at  11:40 PM

  5. JG, I was reading old blog comments to try to catch up, and I know you must be referring to the Shiba you tried to foster, but then the owner went ahead and euthanized it, right?  Or supposedly euthanized it?  People are freakin unreasonable and weird. 

    Our house isn’t so bad, by the way.  Yes, it’s full, and yes, there’s pandamonium.  There’s also a lovely time at night where everyone is sleeping, and cats cuddle up with you under the sheets and purr, and it’s all very content and peaceful.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  11/24  at  03:22 AM

  6. Georg, “Shiner” has been really timid with us, but does respond to his name.  So I didn’t want to make a drastic change.  I forgot about your suggestions, and I’ve been calling him “Skyler”.  That seems to work.  I like “Shinto”, though.  He’ll probably respond to anything with an ‘sh’ sound!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  11/24  at  03:25 AM

  7. Yes, Kieko. She was the worst case. We’ve had a couple others too. One recently where a family had to get rid of their dog because the “baby was allergic” and they were trying to sell her on Craigslist. We offered to take her and the husband said no, because he was determined to get money for her. (She was completely untrained and unsocialized, btw.) Then a couple weeks later, the wife calls us frantic. The husband is fed up with the dog and since no one will buy her, he’s having her PTS! We had to haul ass over there and convince the guy to give her to rescue.

    We considered offering to rescue the wife too, but we weren’t sure what to do with her if she said yes. wink

    Posted by jg  on  11/24  at  12:08 PM
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