Monday, November 14, 2011

Gretal is Going Back to Vet Tomorrow

Gretal back in 2006, not long after her rescue.
Gretal's brother, huddled over her, in the dark and during a freezing windstorm, after they were dumped outside Safehaven.Here he is in my bathroom, after rescue. They two were super skinny.
Handsel and Gretal, at my place in Corvallis, not long after their rescue. They were then six or seven months old.

Gretal is going in tomorrow, to go under anesthesia and have whatever is wrong, probably more bad teeth, removed.

I hope it all comes out ok for her. She's a tough but very sweet kitty.

I met Gretal back in 2006. It was November. I was driving east on highway 34 and spotted along the shoulder, almost dark, two kittens, shoulder to shoulder, walking the edge of highway 34, looking desperate, resigned. I knew it was a brother and sister.

I called Safehaven since the pair were almost opposite Safehaven, and asked if any orange tabby and torti kittens had been turned away. Turns out three kittens were turned away. A woman had three teens, two torti's and an orange tabby and they couldn't take them in. She was very angry they would not take them. An hour later, Safehaven began getting calls about the two along the road opposite them.

I was on my way to the Santiam rest area when I passed the pair, to trap other cats who had been dumped there. I couldn't find the two when I came home. Later, however, I snapped a photo of the orange male about a dozen feet off the highway, hunched in the grass. A feezing wind and rain storm had developed and I am talking FREEZING. I took the photo then started to pull over. The cat ran a few feet and then I could see he was laying atop his sister, to shield her from the freezing storm.

I spent three days along that road, pretty much camped out, trying to catch them. I built warm beds and lined them along the fence every forty feet, because they had disappeared, vanished into the storm and freezing weather. I held out little hope for them to live through it.

I caught the orange male first. Then I caught an unknown tame black female. It is possible the black female was the third cat Safehaven had described, that the woman had wanted to leave with them.

And finally, I caught Gretal. She was tame then. They both went to a fosterer in Salem who said she'd socialize them more, get them over their ills, which included giardia, and adopt them out. They found a home for Handsel, the boy. The black female got to go to Cat Adoption in Sherwood where she was adopted out.

I was in the midst of a move in January 2007. It was a terribly stressful time for me and for my cats. In the midst of that, the woman who had fostered Handsel and Gretal, informed me she and her mother were going on a vacation and she would need to return Gretal. Of all the times in the world she would do this to me, when I was in the midst of being evicted and having to find somewhere to live again, she returned Gretal. I never spoke to her again.

Gretal went feral over the stress of that time. But I love her. Some asshole dumped her like trash in horrendous weather. She was just a little kitten with no say and no ability to fight back.

I stuck it out for her then and I'm still doing that. Tomorrow is just another call of duty.

And love.

Gretal in 2009.Gretal in 2010.Gretal in January, 2011.
I would like to show Gretal that picture, of her, just after rescue, on my lap and see if she'd like to be on my lap again. I sure want to huge her again. Maybe she'll still be under anesthesia when I pick her up tomorrow!!! (fat chance, they use gas)

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