Tutu, a.k.a. Dirt Eater, Gets a Home

Tutu, as she is now named, went to a home in Corvallis today. Good luck little starving girl. They loved her.

I do not have appointments this week. If I take in cats, and it looks like I have some to take in, I will go to the kitten fixing clinic with them. My bad. I forgot to make appointments.

Someone called me from Albany. They have an adult male and an adult female, plus four seven week old kittens. They wanted me to take the kittens. I said I couldn't.

But her adults will be fixed on Tuesday, along with another adult female from Albany, maybe two, since I offered to get a gray female dumped at the Chevron on Queen, fixed for the woman who ended up fostering her.

The Albany complex where the four kittens SafeHaven took in, came from, is trapping again, too, and the old woman in Lebanon is going to try for the one cat still not fixed in her colony.

The old woman is happy Dirt EAter got a home. Tutu's new owners said they will feed her the best food money can buy to build her up. She is severely underweight for her age. I was happy to hear that.

Tutu's desperation was readily apparent when I trapped her. When I went out to move a trap, the paper had blown up, from wind, to cover the open front. I was startled when I reached to fix the paper, when a cat bolted out through my arms. I had asked the old woman if she knew there is a very very hungry little black and white cat out there. "Oh, that cat showed up a week ago, but is too scared of the other cats to come out of the bushes." I had moved the trap and fixed the paper so the wind would not ruffle it, and turned to talk to the old woman. I was interupted by the snap of the trap. She was in it again.

She was still trying to eat after all the bait was gone. I had tossed some clumps of dirt onto the paper, to keep it from blowing. Tutu then tried to gulp those dirt clods. Bits of bait had fallen in with the dirt. She then realized she was trapped and nervously tried to make up to her captors, arching her back, mewing softly. Broke my heart.

I took her out of the trap and she clung to me, drooling and purring, wrapping her front legs and paws around my neck, rubbing her cheek against mine. She would not let go. The old woman's face warped in concern. "Oh my, what a starved little girl," she said, reaching up a hand to feel her backbone.

Kittens, like kids, should never be put through such horror.

Tutu is safe now. She'll have someone to cling to and a full bowl of food.