Monday, March 14, 2011

Soul of My Soul--The Cats Here With Me

In honor of Petfinder.com's Adopt the Internet day tomorrow I am going to post photos of every cat I have here. Most are up for adoption, although I get very few adoption inquiries. Can't hurt to post their photos.

In addition, if something happened to me, the cats here would need instant help in placement. Plus, there's the earthquake factor. If Oregon experienced a terrible earthquake I'm not so sure this house would survive it. It's old. There are big old trees in the back yard that could topple and destroy the house. The containment might be breached by an earthquake and cats get loose.

So, since I have not had the money to get them all micro chipped, their photos will be stored here, for time. For help, finding them homes now or in the event, as we all do one day, I meet my fate. And for help finding them, should disaster strike.

These are the four cats I count as mine: Vision, Miss Daisy, Dex and Electra.
Vision, elderly Corvallis river cat. Long hair black and white female. Loves Panda and Solomon, who are also long hair black and white, which is sort of strange. Do cats segregate by color? Vision is over 16, funny, has had many teeth pulled, likes having her hair clipped in the spring and is a true feral to everyone but me.
Miss Daisy is a seven year old muted calico and completely deaf. She can be extremely loud and HATES having her fast growing nails trimmed. Prone to mouth and tooth issues, has few teeth left. Is delightful, must be indoor only, loves other cats once she gets to know them, prone to outbursts when hairball clogged, loudly races around some nights playing, screams in delight when I come home. Must sleep on your face!!!! Every cat here loves her, and wants to be next to her. She is an eternal optimist. Gets defensive and scared during vet visits (because she's deaf).
Dex, elderly short hair black tux female, (at least 12) benign in nature, easy going, hates being closed in due to her history. Has been abandoned three times. Has chronic herpes which led to alleged near kidney failure, from a cold and dehydration, but bounced back. Likes to sleep next to me, purring loudly. Fantasia loves her. Dex and Electra have always been friends.Electra, my elderly brown tabby female, (12 years old) who was Hopi's best friend, before Hopi died. Electra came to me after I pulled her out of the main electrical wiring at an FCCO clinic in Salem. She bit me through the thumb in the process, so had to be in rabies quarantine. So she came home with me. She is originally from a large colony of lookalikes in Silverton. Electra needs to nurse nightly on my sleeve or all is not right. She still goes on tears, where she cannot contain her energy, racing around wildly. She can be grumpy when hairballs clogged and her nails grow quickly and she hates when her nails catch on things. Electra loves Miss Daisy.

The following are cats who have been here awhile although I cringe to call them permanents:

Panda, Long hair black and white female, originally from Lebanon, now 5 1/2 years old. Solomon is her brother. They love each other. Panda is shy to people, likes to sit next to me but only lets me pet her from her back side when she is faced away from me. She is best friends with Vision, the true feral former Corvallis river cat and with her brother.Solomon, a long hair black tux male, with a speck of black on his nose. Solomon is Panda's sister, very benign and easy going, although pretty much feral and only because of my time limitations on handling them. Panda loves to play, likes being brushed when I corner him to do it, and clipped come spring. His best friends are Comet, Vision and Panda, his sister.

Comet--Six year old short hair white and black male, raccoon like black mask, five inch crooked black tail. Comet was one of 16 kittens I took out of Heatherdale trailer park when I first started working that situation. He loves other cats, loves me, loves to be petted and cuddled on the bed, but not on my lap. He will resort to bullying other cats if he does not get enough attention, but wants to make friends with them, especially the big males. Comet's best friend was Cattyhop, before she died. He adores Miss Daisy and Dex.Shaulin is a strange but interesting little cat. She is almost two years old, will be two this summer. She is part Bengal and part Abyssinian. She has been tried at two homes, but cries constantly and is overjoyed when she returns. Bengals are that way, attach to one person and are fiercely attached and loyal. Both her brothers were adopted. But she wants me, and follows me even with her eyes, when I'm in the house. She likes attention, playing, being held when I force it, by closing her in the bathroom. Would be easily worked with if someone had the time, to "refocus" on another person. Shaulin sometimes bullies cats here, like Calamity, but only when Buffy or Mops, my persistent bullies, bully her. She also bullies if she doesn't get enough attention from me. Same with Buffy, Mops and Calamity.Poppy, sweet gorgeous torti, abandoned as kitten with her mother, on 34th street, same apartments Valentino came from. Poppy is now four years old. I was going to fix her and return her, but she began loudly howling in the trap. I couldn't take her back to live under that disgusting apartment building. She likes to sit on the back of the couch and chew and bite on my hair. She likes being petted and held, is not as aggressive about requesting attention as my attention whores, so gets left out sometimes, but loves attention once you focus it on her.My beloved in secure Peeman Sam, who likely is a permanent due to his habit of marking anything and everything, should he get a whiff of an unfixed male, roaming outside, or, when I recuperate male cats in my garage. He is athletic and loving, funny, can be loud outside, when the neighbors' free roaming cats are bugging him. He will cry high pitched incessantly in the cat yard, when feeling falsely threatened by the neighbors black tux neutered police cat male, who free roams and is barely noticed by his old man owner, so he has issues. Sam is one of those treasures, despite his annoying habit. He has however alerted me to countless males outside my house, by his pee marking start up, causing me to set traps. I've caught 25 now, most of them big males. They get fixed! I have to fix anything that comes into my yard, with a cat like Sam here. I don't know how old Sam is. I have had Sam four years now I think. He was abandoned in Millersburg along with about 14 other cats and was an adult then.Oci was also abandoned with Sam in Millersburg. The difference is she was kicked out as a kitten, so isn't as tame. I didn't place her as a feral because at the time, she had a severe eye infection and the vet advised long term treatment which I did for her. She was then so utterly outrageously happy to be here I lagged at even putting her up for adoption. She is not tame to other people initially but warms up very very quickly, if someone sits down with a cat toy and starts flipping it around. Oci is now four years old.
Gretal, feral torti, dark, small, abandoned by someone who could not get their teens into Safehaven, then dumped them out on Highway 34. I saw them when driving highway 34. Gretal and Hansel, her brother, were walking shoulder to shoulder, bracing themselves against freezing wind, right along the highway. I came back that night, to see Hansel in the dark in the grass out off the highway. I thought he was alone, but when he moved, Gretal was underneath him. He was shielding his sister from the brutal freezing wind. I spent three nights camped out along the highway in a howling freezing windstorm to find and catch them. Hansel got a home. Gretal remains. That was five and a half years ago. She was four months old at the time. How time flies. She is probably a permanent. She acts feral but isn't once I have her in the bathroom with me. She worships me, is about all I can say and probably is permanent here as she would be scared to death without me, her security blanket.Tweetie came here three years ago, along with 11 other cats from an old woman who fed strays at Columbus Greens trailer park in Albany, then died. Family asked me to take the cats, claimed they'd donate and help me find them homes and did neither. I found homes for ten of them. But not for Tweetie and her sister Button who are beautiful cats and mostly stay out in the cat yard, coming in at night and to play.
Button, Tweeties' sister, from Columbus Greens trailer park, about three years old, very bonded as sisters.
Mums, medium hair muted torti, from the Lebanon Shovel Killer Christian neighbor colony. These were a group of strays from the area fed by an old woman who wrote to the Corvallis paper, telling the story of the strays, how a neighbor offered to kill them all with a shovel. That neighbor is a loud Christian who plays in a Christian church band, hence the colony name. I ended up taking in 12 of those cats. Three remained until Matilda recently got a home. Mums and sister Tugs still remain. They've been here three or four years now and were about 8 months old when I brought them here. They're delightful but now don't get as much attention as they like because of attention whore cats here.
Tugs, sweet short hair young torti, about three years old, daughter of Matilda, who was recently adopted, sister of Mums. Tugs loves attention, shy at first, and is mischievous.Angle, very long hair black and white female, abandoned as a kitten with her mother and sister, up at the cemetery on Scravel Hill. Very horrible, to see them sitting in the parking lot up there, when I was driving by, dazed looking. I spent Halloween night there at the cemetery mainly to protect Ghosty, her sister, who had run when I walked up to them. I did get Ghosty that night finally. I did not think a kitten should be alone in that area in the night, with coyotes everywhere near. I would not leave her to face that night alone. Angel is doing fine, must be clipped springs due to heavy soft undercoat of hair, and actually loves being clipped. She is black and white but has one small faded brown spot on her face.Feather is a short hair sleek large gray tux female I trapped as a kitten at the rest area north of Albany where she had been dumped. I trapped her inadvertently during a week I spent nights there, searching for a lost Siamese. It was Christmas. I saw some strange goings on at that rest area during those long freezing nights. I never expected to trap a starving kitten, that's for sure, but my goodness was she ever desperate! Feather is long and lanky and gorgeous and now over two years old.Mops is a white and black young male with anger issues, like his sister, Buffy, below. They are not friends. Before their amiable brother, Doc, was adopted, they were friends and part of what I called "Sam's Clan". They hung out, all three of the siblings, with Sam and adored him. I found them nearly dead from starvation out in Dead Car Field, a grouping of old decaying cars and vans behind three houses in the BS colony. The BS colony was a group of over 100 cats, living in and around four messed up households on a dead end road not far outside Albany. Nobody did anything about the issue, but everybody blamed each other while they sat on their hands. The Jefferson vet asked me to help and later apologized profusely for doing so. But somebody had to do it. I have nightmares if I think about it much. I have three cats here from the BS colony. Mops, Buffy and Shady. I think I might have gotten $40 total in donations for months of effort, heartbreak and output of money to help that ungrateful bunch of people. Mops still loves Sam, has chronic herpes, but only outbreaks occasionally. All the BS cats have chronic herpes and ringworm. Mops will bully if he does not get enough attention. His sister will also.
Buffy, from Dead Car Field and the BS colony, found as a nearly starved to death kitten, at that god awful place. I can't describe it much because I still don't want to think about it.Shady, in foreground, Buffy in background. Shady is a pale orange and white female from the BS colony, now four years old. She has chronic herpes and could not be adopted out as a result. She is also slightly cross eyed. She is mischievous and starts screaming if she even sees me coming towards her with eye meds, even if I hide them. Slightly a drama queen, very funny, too! Probably like it or not a permanent due to her health issues.Calamity loves attention. She's not quite two years old and a muted torti from Lyons street, born to an abandoned female who is still fed over there (and fixed of course). Her sister got a home, her brother disappeared before I could find him, as a kitten and Calamity is still here. She likes to play wildly and would love a home where she gets personal attention but would be shy at first.
Jade, the young mother tossed out of a car, most likely, on Conser Drive in Millersburg, because both front feet are splayed out and the Neuterscooter vet said likely they had been broken at some point. She had kittens in a dirty garage corner. I'd helped those folks get about 14 cats fixed before. They didn't want her, didn't want to take care of the kittens either. I held out, didn't want to take on more here, finally just went and got them all. Her kittens got homes and Jade did not. Jade is three years old or so, not sure now, all black, very sweet.

Zach, Teddy, Starr and Honey, photos below, are all originally from the 52 cats I caught and had fixed, through Poppa Inc. funds, from the Corvallis homeless camps. Myself and Keni, Poppa's president, took out in all over 35 of the cats. Keni took in three, one of whom, Trudy, remains with her. Zach, big fat black friendly attention whore male, a delight most of the time, a pain when he absolutely must have attention NOW, and I'm busy. I don't know how old he is. He's been here now a year and I trapped him for neuter, the year before that and he was an adult then.
Starr, is an unusual looking beautiful brown tabby girl, two years old now almost, who loves other cats, is shy at first of new people, and loves to play.
Teddy is very friendly, but might initially be shy, but that doesn't last long. He loves attention, loves other cats, loves to play, is Starr's brother. He's a neutered brown tabby.
Honey, sleek small athletic gray tux female from the homeless camp who loves almost every other cat and had been adopted out once, only to be returned because she hid and was so lonely for her friends. When she was returned, and let out of the failed adoptors carriers, she literally ran in circles for joy, then went and touched noses with pretty much every cat here. I was unbelievable to see and astonished me to realize how much they miss their friends, when adopted out.

Meesa, Fantasia and Echo are from 4th street in Albany. That couple feeds strays but has never helped in catching them to be fixed. I believe I've gotten about 25 cats fixed in that location alone. Then last summer the old man tells me a neighbor wants to trap and kill the cats left and he gave permission. I could not believe it. I had just netted Meesa, a feral young calico and her four kittens in their utility room. I couldn't take them back. The two boy kittens got a home. Fantasia and Echo haven't yet. Meesa, though originally feral, is taming down.Fantasia, a fantastic and quirky female, now approaching a year old, who loves fat Zach!
Echo, Fantasia's sister, also fantastic.
Meesa, the young mother of Fantasia and Echo and half feral.

Then I have Sage, and two of her original four boy kittens, Dickens and Smolder. All five were abandoned in Lebanon, alive in fleas, and unwanted.

Sage, the beautiful mother, abandoned in Lebanon, alive in fleas when brought to me and soaking wet, as she and her boys had been confined in carriers without litterboxes, so they were hosed down before people brought them to me, to be fixed.
Smolder, whose brother Simba recently died of a combination of a very bad cold, dehydration and a heart murmur.
Dickens, Sage's other boy teen, still here, now approaching a year old. The fourth kitten, Shaggy, was adopted.
Valentino, a long hair orange tabby older sad shape male, from 34th street, found there, same place Poppy comes from, now clipped, neutered, bad teeth pulled, and still recovering from all his ails, content to sleep on my bed, recently strained a paw jumping off the bathroom counter.Slurpy, year old torti, gorgoues, super friendly, had herpes, from Rock HIll Colony where I got 44 cats fixed and took 18 kittens out.Starry, another sleek friendly year old torti, only she is from N. Albany. Peko and Nemo were her brothers, now both adopted out, Nemo just recently. All three kittens were born to a mother cat long fed as a stray up there. Otherwise educated population in that area, but nobody took time to get the strays they fed fixed.Brambles, from the HTN colony (Hate Thy Neighbor) in Albany, lived on a couple of streets where no one fixed their pets, vicious dogs free roam and kill cats, and that was another place I'd rather try to forget. He won't ever go back there. I hope I never drive those two dead end streets again either. The memories of suffering overwhelm me. Brambles has chronic herpes.Zuli, the young Siamese mix female from the Lebanon trailer colony. She is vibrant happy and healthy, loves other cats and people, once she knows you..



I can't find my photos of Hairy, the feral from Corvallis, or Mooki, a sweet gray and white male from Spicer Drive, so I think other than those two, I've posted everybody. I'll get new photos of them.

40 Cats Here. I'm also realizing, when listing them, many are not exactly young.

Of all those cats here now, the only ones I had when I moved to Albany: Dex, Miss Daisy, Vision, Electra and Comet. That is kind of sad, isn't it? Of those, the only cat who came from Corvallis was Vision, my ancient river cat. Comet and Miss Daisy are both originally Albany unwanteds. Dex was originally dumped in Dallas. Electra was unwanted in Silverton.

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