Another small triumph in controlling the overpopulation problem occurred on Oak St. All six cats fed by a woman there are now fixed--four boys and two girls. The Siamese female and one of the males, the younger black and white, were abandoned by a tenant nearby, living in one of the duplexes, when they moved out. The Siamese subsequently had several litters. The first litter of the summer all died, after prolonged birthing, that occurred over an entire day and part of one night. The mother is lucky to have survived it. She was pregnant again at spay. She is going to try to get the Siamese into SafeHaven, as she doesn't want another indoor cat. I imagine some of the other four were offspring of this abandoned Siamese.
When I talk of moving back to Corvallis, people wonder why. I'll tell you why. When you relocate one single cat, alone, to a new territory, without support of family or at least a loving human caregiver, that cat will try its best to get back to its home territory. Why? Because, lacking support, or family, the only thing that cat has, that's familiar, is territory---land, buildings, food sources---while nothing is familiar in the cats new world.
While a cat might do fine, if it has support, human or other familiar cats relocated with them, a single cat alone won't do well.
I am that single solitary cat, relocated, suddenly and traumatically, alone to a new area without support of family or friends--to a new town where nothing is familiar. What was familiar, as a lone person in Corvallis, was territory---land, river, even stores. I lived there all my life.
In other cat news, I was called again by the people moving to Cloverridge, who bought a house with a cat problem that came with it. It was like the husband, who called yesterday, had not consulted with his wife, who called me a few days before that. I asked her to put an ad in the paper, advertising fixed barn cats, and to have her daughter who already lives in Albany, put fliers up at vet clinics and feed stores to the same affect. I had also asked she call her new neighbor, who has a live trap and who has fed strays, for help.
They did none of these things and just want the cats gone. I understand the frantic chaos of moving, however. He defended himself as "an animal lover" because they adopted a dog from SafeHaven, who apparently gave them my number to solve the "cat problem". I guess there are about ten cats there, including five still nursing kittens. They want me to just take them all away, like it's nothing. I told him how expensive it is to take in even rescue kittens---buying shots, getting them tested, treating for parasites and any other health issues they may have, since now nobody is feeding any of them. He'd never thought it might cause a rescue expense. I told him I don't get donations, really, from anyone--not enough to cover all these expenses, including gas to drive cats to and from surgery. Plus I have no place to hold kittens. I asked KAT if they could foster them or find a fosterer and they said they're overwhelmed in kittens, too. SafeHaven had just referred more people to them so they'd taken in 11 more kittens and the two adult mothers from somebody in Lebanon.
I hung up from talking to him cursing to myself. Why can't SafeHaven start getting involved more than just referring people to me or to KAT? They have this sign on their door now, that says "We're all in this together", referring to the overpopulation problem. That's not really true. They're not in it at all.
I have issues with them, because they're adopting out kittens unfixed. Puppies too, then to find another person just last week, who adopted an unfixed puppy from them who went on to father litters of puppies. Makes one wonder why one even bothers. When you add on the fact there are three or four rather well paid staff members at SafeHaven, one really wants to start vomiting.
I'll tell you the problem in that area especially---high rates of leukemia and AIDS, because so many people don't fix their pets. I trapped one colony fed by an old couple and every single cat tested positive for leukemia and some double positive, for both leukemia and FIV. All the cats, except for one, had to be euthanized. This not only made me cry for two weeks, but added extreme expense to the endeavor, since testing is expensive and nobody helped me pay for it.
The old couple were extreme Christians who would lecture me about Christian morals. Yet they didn't donate a dime and had various grandkids and kids in jail for all sorts of things and I finally told them to worry about their own house. They then moved, leaving the one healthy stray they still fed behind. I referred to that dwelling, from then on, and still do, as "The House of Crying Cats".
Someone called me from near Devor Connor, just north of Millersburg, too. They have ten or 15 ferals they feed and at least one unfixed house cat. They got referred to me by Countryside after attempts to contact the local FCCO coordinator went unanswered. I told them I'd get to it when I could. They sound very nice. They've had issues with the coyotes killing some and killing some of their sheep. They said one sheep they found still standing, but with it's throat ripped out, so it couldn't eat. They had to shoot her. One Siamese cat showed up to try to eat also with most of its throat ripped out. She said it was horrendous to see and very very sad. They shot the cat, to put it out of its misery, then hired someone to kill a few coyotes.
I hate coyotes sometimes. I see them in that area, sitting plain as day, beside I5 in broad daylight, like they're watching traffic. The population of coyotes in the valley is exponentially exploding. Very soon, I expect an outbreak of disease to hit that will knock down the population significantly. Population booms of any species usually are followed by disease outbreaks that wipe out most of the population, leaving only the strongest still alive.
I still have the five or six ferals fed by the woman on the side street near the college in south Albany. I gave up on them, after getting her two tame males fixed, because she's in church every single evening, and so getting participation in trapping and fixing these ferals, is exceedingly difficult. I had become disenfranchised with this chain of fixing anyhow, since not one even small donation was given by any of them, all of the same church. One member finally called and said it's a big misunderstanding and that a donation will be forthcoming. I hope so.
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