Dex Update and Sam's Move On Update

Dex is still hanging in there. Perking up even. The vet visit Saturday kind of did her in. I had to wait five hours to pick her up, while the other cat was being fixed. She got so stressed she bit an employee there, and did not get her usual fluids until late in the day.

Today she's had close to 420 already and it shows. She had a bowel movement and is using the litter box. She's in the sick cage, liking the heating pad. We'll see. She has improved greatly over the day, shocking me again. But we'll see.

I postponed the Sam re home until next week, because it will likely be tomorrow I take Dex in. We'll see.

I have no delusions over her condition, but we both need to be sure this is her last stand.

Sam's chosen mate for the journey on to a new home is Smolder, Son of Sage.

My brother loves the name Son of Sage. He says it's a movie in the making. I agree.

He's got a room ready for them, at first. They'll be fine there with him and his working men and cat loving office manager. Maybe they'll be lucky cats and bring them lots of business!

All I know is Sam will be ecstatic over living where he's going to be living. My brother has loved Sam since he first laid eyes on him, and vice verse.

Smolder, Son of Sage, is a good pairing. He's a bit of a Mommy's boy, which means he will bond closely to Sam, for security and Sam likes younger males. I can hear you chortling. Sam has always loved other males. After his neuter, he began mounting them sometimes, in the spring, when the sap is flowing.

You queasy people out there, over sexual "abnormalities" in humans, those of you who believe these differences are a moral choice--boy, you oughta spend some time with massive numbers of animals, if you want to see some abnormal things. You might re-think the moral "choice" argument you've been making about such behaviors in humans. At the very least, you'd get astounded often. I know I do.

Sam likes boy cats. What can I say? Nobody gives a shit one way or the other here.

In other news, I thought it might have been just me, and my bad eyes, thinking one of the three Siamese kittens is really abnormal. Someone stopped by today, however, and I showed her and she also saw the bizarre chest of the smallest Siamese kitten. For being three weeks old now, they are small for their age, but one is smaller, and has a heaving protruding outward chest, that is too flat on bottom end. She heaves wildly after exertion. That's some genetic malformation and I don't think she'll make it. I cannot see how a cat could survive such a a strange malformed chest cavity.

She has a really pink mouth like she has good circulation though.

I think it is better if I find out quickly and end it quickly if it's something she won't "grow out of". Looks like inbreeding stuff to me.

My Beloved Dex

Dex is not coming out of it this time. I have to end it for her. There's no more joy for her, only pain and the struggle of it, the rasping breaths, the shaking from cold, the inability to eat.

She caught a cold again. I got her a convenia injection last Saturday, at the onset, hoping to relieve her of the suffering to come, with her kidney failure. She cannot withstand anything, with her kidney failure, certainly not an infection.

But the infection hit anyway, despite the shot, which had no affect this time, to halt the sinus infection. She cannot fight it with her kidney failure, no matter how much water I pump under her skin. Her kidneys have shrunk. They're hard and small, their ability to do their job--gone.

They now feel like Cattyhop's kidneys' felt, just before she died suddenly of a heart attack. The kidney's and the heart are like gas and a motor. One can't function without the other.

She has failed from last night to this morning.

I think to myself, "Should I give her another day, see if she rebounds." I don't like to play god with life and death. Then I think to myself, "She has had few good days since last January. What would I want, if I were her."

I don't want my death prolonged, stretching out over weeks or months of misery, drugs to control this or that symptom. I don't.

Give me an instant death but not one prolonged and drawn out, like waiting for a bus that doesn't come, in the pouring freezing rain, with nothing but dread for the next needle poke from the sad faced saviors.

Dex barely eats anymore. I have to give her fluids every day. She wobbles when she walks, like a drunk, and is sensitive to sound and light and touch. Now she cries if I pick her up, a hollow and hoarse moan.

I don't know how old Dex is. I believe she is 13. I have had Dex for 7 years, since summer 2004. How time flies. She was an adult when I rescued her. I rescued her from a young couple who took her along with 60 other cats from a woman who had lived in Corvallis with 120 cats, then was forced to move with them, or have them confiscated. She moved to Fall City and into a wolf rescue. That situation fell through and she was evicted and she agreed to give up all those cats to that young couple. However, they were not workers. The guy of the couple was a big time slacker, and although I was not involved in the rescue of those cats, I got involved afterwards, despite going through a major surgery at that time.

The woman with 120 cats had had Dex for awhile herself in Corvallis after rescuing her when she was abandoned in Dallas, she told me. The young couple who took the cats from her were not paying rent to their landlord, who was the brother of the Corvallis Animal control officer, who lived next door to the young couple way up in the woods.

I did not know they were freeloading. They borrowed cages and carriers from me that they then did not return and I finally found, along with others they had borrowed from other people, out dirty, in the grass, behind the house of one of their friends.

I helped them find another place to live in Eugene, but they left behind cats when they moved, including one of their own, who eventually was killed by predators. I searched the woods for that cat. They didn't.

I went up there, sure they had left other cats behind. They left chickens behind also. And tons of trash.

I just happened to arrive when they were there getting more things, including Dex, whom they had left behind, who had been locked inside the house without food or water. They had leash around her neck with a slip knot, she was struggling at the end of that leash. They'd pulled her out from under the hot water heater with it. She was choking. I said nothing, except "She's coming with me." They did not need to be treating her like a vicious wild animal. I put her in a carrier. I stopped by the neighbor's place, the animal control man. I wanted them arrested for animal abuse and abandonment. But all he did was make fun of my car.

Thereafter Dex was terrified of being closed in anywhere.

Still, with Dex's decline and condition, I question myself. The god complex. I don't want to wield it. The power of life or death.

I'll buy her the last needle poke she'll ever have to bear. I'll hold her while it's done. I'll let her go. It's her time.

Be Still My Heart

I ran into Bruce. I was at the co-op, putting up a home wanted flier, about the nine cat family. He came up behind me, said "Do you remember me?" Of course I did.

He was the man of the couple who adopted Stinod, the mostly blind mostly deaf kitty, from the Tattoo Prairie colony.

He wanted to tell me how much they love her, how much she has blossomed, how much he adores her and she adores them. She plays with them, without claws out, bugs him in his office for attention, but recently had surgery for a wound on her back. Apparently a cat broke through their old cat door, attacking her. They're getting her a harness so they can take her outside.

My heart was pounding as he spoke. I could hardly contain my joy.

And why should I?

I told him how much this meant to me, to hear these things.

I cry now to think of it. To think of how she was, with that eye so horrible she couldn't see out there, how she'd been like that for six months, the man said, who fed her, who claimed she was his favorite cat. I had to net her. Then she had that eye removed. She thrived afterwards and loved it here, but she stayed out in the cat yard, to avoid conflicts with some of my "bitch" cats, if she bumped into them accidentally. She'd feel her way around and better not move anything.

She climbed the trees in the yard. She let nothing get in the way of her enjoyment of life.

And now, of all cats, this blind mostly deaf kitty is adored! Can you imagine?

There's always hope.

Redemption is a helping hand away.

I get discouraged. There is great suffering in this world and evil. But there is also great beauty and good.

I have to remember Stinod. I have to believe. I want to believe.

Be still my heart, pounding like it is, with joy.

Sam Leaving?

My brother declined The Nine, the business cat family, but says once again he'll take Sam, plus one of Sam's friends. My brother has always loved Sam. I asked "When?" I'd take them down today, if he said it was ok.

No answer yet.

Sam is not happy here, meows constantly in the cat yard, and would be a great shop cat for my brother, as he will have massive amounts of space and several people to give him the attention he wants. I am trying to think of who to pair him with. I'd pair him with Buffy, since they love each other, but Buffy isn't tame to other people and would not be easy to get inside nights or weekends. Has to be a tame cat. I'd pair him with Sage but they don't like each other. They are two strong willed cats!

I"m thinking about pairing him with Sage's boy Smolder, however. Smolder is cool and has tamed down. He is sleek and beautiful and athletic. Smolder and Nemo lately have paired up as best buddies, but Nemo can find another friend if Smolder leaves.

UPDATE: Sam is leaving Thursday, with a buddy not yet chosen.

Bad Day

I went to meet a woman out in Stayton who had some things to give away, in a storage garage, and wanted me to see what I might use. They've donated some to a teen shelter already. They'll have a garage sale to sell the rest.

But just as I got to the property, my stomach began acting up. It still is. I feel so sick.

I had to drive all the way back to Stayton to find a bathroom. After that, I went back to try to go through some stuff at the property. I had to go then into the woods to use a "bathroom".

But the sad part is, as I was at the driveway entrance, facing the road, down a few hundred feet, I saw a white fluffy cat, with other colors in the middle of the road. I didn't know why she didn't move, because a car was coming. Then I saw why. Two kittens at least were on the edge of the road. She was trying to call them out of the ditch to cross. Finally, thankfully, she gave up, as the car approached, and darted back into the berry vines.

I told the woman about them and she was horrified being an animal lover. It is sickening, that the problem is everywhere it seems. People dump cats out without regard for their lives.

I loaded a few things into my car, some bedding, a litterbox they didn't want or use, a basket I can use for a laundry basket, some paintings for my wall.

I have been trying to get ahold of my younger brother. I think he should take these cats, from the Albany business, as shop cats. I told him so by e-mail and by phone message. But neither were answered. His contractor shop is the perfect place for the entire family, I think.

I got no calls on my four day ad for them. Not one.

I have the business cats in my spare bedroom and the new cat from my yard in my bathroom severely reducing space for me and the other cats. I need to move some cats quickly but seem to be unable to find any of them homes. I just can't find a way to get the word out on them that works.

I have no adoption venue, where they can be seen. I have no money to advertise them. I rely on the once a month four lines, four days, for free ad in the paper, although usually now I get no calls on such an ad. I rely on craigslist, too, but have to wade through bunches of fake, joke, mean and nasty, or just plain ignorant bad and irresponsible potential homes responses, to find one good inquiry. I don't rely on petfinder anymore, because I get no inquiries off petfinder. I can however refer people to my petfinder site if they want to see photos of a certain cat.

The garage was hot today. We've had the first two days of sun, after long long months of nothing but rain. The Siamese kittens are starting to walk and this is bugging their mother no end. I'll give her two more weeks with them, is all, sorry mom, but it's going to be way too hot in that garage for any cat to survive very very soon.

UPDATE: the barn home for two cats fell through. The people who found the barn home were taking two cats from their rescue and offered two spaces to me. But, in the end, they took more from their rescue there, and no space left for cats from here. To say I'm devastated is probably a severe under statement.

Maybe it wasn't to be.

Devastation: Yet Another Cat in My Yard

Number 31 to show up in my yard. She was starving. I am so fricking sick of the way people treat animals in this town.

Update: She is now fixed, at least. She had no microchip and of course, was not spayed. Now she is.

I also took up Dex and got her the convenia injection. If I hadn't, she would slowly have gone downhill, with dehydration from a cold. Then I probably would have wished I had gotten her the injection.

While the cat was being fixed, Dex stayed at the clinic, where it was cool and I headed off to the Tigard Wildlife Refuge and took a nice hike. Summer is the season I don't mind taking cats to the clinic. I plan out things to do up there during the day--hikes, swimming holes, trails, all sorts of things. I can't wait. I don't mind at all transporting cats in the summer, if I can scrounge up the gas money. There are lots of things to do all day up there not available anywhere here.

Keep your fingers crossed, might have a barn for the Business Nine.

Tortis and More!

How many classic colored tortis do I have roaming my house?

Let's count: Tugs, Poppy, Gretal, Sage, Slurpy and Starry. I think that's it, at least.Slurpy, a classic torti with an elfish upturned nose.
Slurpy's profile shows her upturned nose!
Sage is big, not as athletic, medium haired, too smart, as are most tortis, and wildly fun.
Eyes of Sage.
Eye of Starry, the N. Albany swamp torti, who has a straight strong roman nose.Starry likes to hang off things. Below is Starry's new adoption video, featuring a laser pointer Jim and Jane of Corvallis gave me, as a belated birthday present. They love it!
Shaulin, who is not a torti, but rather an abbysinian bengal mix, likes to look out the window. Shaulin is very attached to me.Teddy, from the homeless camp, likes his red chair.And Valentino is very orange.
We cannot forget the kittens, now 20 days old.

Burchem Metal Baloney

I took the metal from the couch I dismantled plus a lamp that didn't work, which was metal and a frig tray to Burchems. When I got there the guy comes up, just says something, not much. I said, I'd wait to see if it was worth anything, depending on weight and price of metal, to see if I'd donate it or get cash. The last time I took something there I got just over a dollar was all, is the reason, and I was in a hurry.

So he's says he'll get a tray that's it, and since he didn't answer me on the price of metal, I figured he would weigh it, tell me what they'd pay then I'd decide.

Then while I have to struggle to get the shit out, he goes and helps some guy pull his stuff out of a trailer. I thought that was weird, that he'd help that guy unload, but let me struggle with the unwieldy items I had.

Then he comes back and just takes my stuff off and dumps it in the big bin, without weighing it or anything and I ask when he comes back what is up with that. He says he thought I was donating it, meaning giving it to their private business. I said again, that was going to be dependent on the price of metal and its weight.

He said I'd have to wait then, meaning I guess because that is all he said, I'd have to wait until he finished with the other guy and fished mine out of the big bin. For all I know that could have been an hour. I don't know.

I left, then left them a message saying that was a bunch of baloney what happened. Was baloney. They were not busy, so that could not be the excuse. He did finally tell me they were giving 8 cents a pound, which is high. If I had 30 pounds, I'd have pocketed $2.40, which would have been good, paid for over a half gallon of gas.

Last time I go there.

It's not a huge deal, really. I might have lost total $2.50. It's a deal in that I didn't get to make the choice on whether to hand them the money or not, by donating the metal, not bothering with getting the cash. They just took it. Anything over a buck and I would have taken the money, however.

Guess I'm in a mood, getting to feel like nobody is honest. I know that isn't true, but I've got that kind of a feeling today.

So, after seeing a paper article about Community Services budget cuts and the lay off of 40 employees, I texted one of the Mormon sisters and asked if her sister was one who lost her job. She said her sister had indeed lost her job. I asked if they'd be able to keep the house now, with one income and she said it's all now dependent on her and her job, to pay the bills and mortgage and that her sister is slightly freaked out over it, but hopefully once their mother moves in with them, who will help some, it will work out.

Their elderly mom has been living with another sister and her husband. That sister has early onset Alzheimer's which is terribly sad. She and her husband, who is retired, are moving way back east somewhere very soon now. So the mother moving in with the sisters has been long planned.

There's another sister over in Lebanon or Sweet Home. They have two very troubled early adult sons. The sisters would call them lazy out right. They've been in jail, I was told last time I ran into the sisters, one for attacking the other and other for stabbing his brother back. Once out, the one nephew "not as bad as the other" according to the sisters, has been living with the sister who is leaving the area and is supposed to go into Job Corp but they don't think he will, due to his lack of work ethic, but where will he go, once his aunt and uncle leave the area?

The sisters will not take him in, due to his attitude. He won't change they think unless he realizes nobody is going to house and feed him if he doesn't do shit.

Ah, family issues. I don't see the Mormon sisters very often, but their family stories are great and the interactions and all, of just plain old life, which is always kind of a struggle, no matter how you paint it.

In other news, my niece got the army scholarship to medical school. She is relieved. She starts first of August, down in California. The next 8 years of her life will be very busy, in med school and as an intern. Then she'll owe the army four years.

But 12 years down the road, she will be a doctor and a debt free doctor. My brother says he will not be surprised if she decides to become career army.

I think about my brother and worry sometimes. I don't think he's found much work. I wonder if he'll close his company. I wonder what he'd do then. The economy is so bad for most ordinary people.

His daughter finding a way to pay for med school is terrific. His son is still off working for his church for a very small salary ($500) per month plus one meal a day and a cot. Funny, that's about what I get to live on, too, right here in America.

He's done there in three months I think. He had hoped to make contacts that might land him a job. He graduated a year ago, but could not find a job. I heard maybe he might have something coming up, if a government grant comes through for an American company building temporary housing in Haiti. I think "Why temporary housing this long after the earthquake?" But then I have no idea what is going on down there.

It's tough for even college graduates to find work these days. Doctors are needed, so my niece should not have that problem when she gets out, but that's going to be 12 years down the road. 12 years!!! Med school. Internship. Four years in the army. Then she will seek an md job. She will be almost 40 by then. Unless she decides go go career army.

I don't know my three nieces or nephew very well. I have not been around any of them very often. I have three nieces and one nephew. We're not close, our family. I try to keep track though, at least of where everyone is.

My brother is funny. When he was talking about his daughter going into the army, he started talking about some friend whose daughter went into the army. She was in great shape and got into even better shape before boot camp, so she would do well. However, they only rode her harder.

He said his friend said the thing about boot camp is it is not to get recruits in shape, it's to break them down. So the best strategy is just to be in shape, then to slack off some, before going, so you don't stand out. You have to be broken down or you won't be a follower and you have to be a follower to be a soldier.

My brother says that only would work with young kids as recruits. He was joking about if he were in boot camp and some sargent didn't like his attitude and told him to give him 50 pushups in the mud. My brother said he'd probably foolishly respond, "Nope, not doing it. I don't like your attitude either!" He doesn't think they'd shoot an old fart in front of young recruits for mouthing at the drill sargent, just throw him in the brig and out.

I said I would not be a good soldier either. I'd be questioning also, like if in battle and the leaders had a really lousy plan that would cost lives I'd be saying, "Do it this way, or we will."

In the services, everybody has to follow orders without question or everything would break apart into chaos. Some people thrive on doing what they're told. A lot of young lives are lost however when leaders are lousy.

My brother could never do what he was told or be ordered around. Especially if he questioned the sanity of the order.

8 Kittens to Portland

I took 8 kittens up to Portland. Six are from that Albany female fixed Tuesday. Her owner decided to keep two of the kittens, although they wanted me to take the mother and one of their males.

That kind of behavior is exactly why I'm getting out of dodge. Those two they kept will likely never be fixed.

So, instead of taking those 8 up to the lady fostering them for an adoption group, I took the six they'd hand over plus the two black warehouse kittens. I am glad they're with someone who will handle them and possibly they'll get homes. If not, at least they'll be with someone really wonderful until they make weight for spay neuter, then they'll go back to the warehouse.

I posted notice on craigslist that I have quit. That's to try to stop the calls that are coming in nonstop. One came from a woman in a trailer park who is mean to me, abusive over the phone and was so again.

She'd fed a pregnant cat until she had kittens and she wanted a live trap from me, to trap her, then she'd call me. I told this woman who has been so mean to me several times I don't loan out my live traps.

Her friend there, whom I have helped over and over again with cats, is the one who e-mailed awhile back, at the managers' request, wanting to know if I'd accidentally stolen the manager's trap. Which was an outrageous thing to suggest. So by now, this woman claims, who called wanting me to loan her a trap, that I have issues with the manager. I informed her I don't even know their manager.

She demanded I come trap the cat myself, right now. I said I couldn't do that. I was just heading out the door to Portland. She became very very angry and began screaming over the phone she was so angry. I hung up on her. I don't have to take that.

That was only one of three calls today alone.

I am not completely quitting, but for the most part, yes I am. I like trapping so yes, I will trap when I am rested and want to, or for groups, who pay my gas and bait.

The other people will need to get their own cats fixed. Safehaven has the vouchers. People can do it that way, even if, god help me for daring suggest this, they have to sacrifice, like buy one less carton of cigarettes or case of beer one week, to afford the voucher amount.

I got a one line note in response to my quit notice from the mayor. All these years, all those massive numbers of hours, labor, sweat, tears, my own money, that's what its valued--one short line. Seems kind of cold!

Ah well. It is a cold world and a cold-hearted one.

I thought about what I'd say if someone said to me "Well, you failed."

I think I'd say, "Failed at what? Fixing every unfixed cat on the planet? Or did you mean failed at fixing every cat in the United States? Or in Oregon, is that what you mean? Or in Linn County? In Albany?"

I didn't fail. I got thousands upon thousands of cats fixed on an income that most people could only dream of living on. Because they couldn't they live on my teensy allotment. It's just too nothing.

Relieved

I am relieved I quit. It's like a big weight gone. I have an ad running for the nine Albany business cats. I am making fliers also. As soon as the two black kittens from the warehouse weigh two pounds, they'll be fixed and returned. I can hold them and they like it and purr, to give them KMR, but their chances, being black, of getting a home are nil. Once fixed, I'll see if the warehouse and feed store people will try to adopt them out, but other than that, I can't help those two.

I can't wait either until the Siamese's kittens get to be five weeks. At five weeks, unfortunately for them, mom is getting spayed and going home to the warehouse. If I can find a rescue group to take them then, I will, but it would have to be a rescue that fixes kittens before handing them out. So many don't, and if even one kitten handed out goes on to reproduce, in generations down the line, you've negated any good you've done for years.

Vouchers handed out with unfixed kittens get only a 40% fix rate. You may as well be breeding your own cat and handing out her kittens if you are a rescue handing out unfixed kittens.

I was contacted by a Portland woman who says she is going to adopt one of my cats. Made my heart happy to hear that.

Anyhow, I'll probably try to finish that warehouse. I know of at least two adults there still needing fixed. I like the challenge of catching two unfixed cats in a massive area among large numbers of already fixed cats. I like that. Keeps me on my toes. There are the two kittens still, if they survive, who will need caught and fixed, the siblings of the two pipe kittens here. These two will grow faster than those two. Once these make the weight, I hope to swap them out with mom, give her back these two, take her other two. I'll have her head spinning!

One of the warehouse workers told me he has a friend who works at a dairy and estimates there to be 300 cats roaming that dairy, none of whom are fixed. I forwarded this information, although unsubstantiated, to the Corvallis FCCO people. If this is true, that's a young person and an FCCO type challenge.