Saturday, November 29, 2014

Onward to Infinity. Jade, Mooki, Comet and Teddy's Looming Dentals

If you look to the right and down a bit, you'll my latest Fund the Cats fundraiser on the sidebar.  You can click it to go to the Youcaring.com site and read up on why it is this time I'm trying to raise funds.   But I will tell you right here why.  Or.....even easier....

Go Donate by Clicking Here!

I'm catching the cats up here on dentals--cleaning and any extractions needed.

I have an appointment for Jade, Mooki, Comet and Teddy now, at the most affordable clinic, on the north coast.  It can be a difficult and exhausting day for me but I have it all planned out to take less of a toll on me this trip.

Meet the lucky kitties, who will get the dentals!

Jade is a sweetheart who had kittens in a filthy corner of a Millersburg garage.  I was called about a cat having kittens, so I went out and found the poor young mother in the filth in the corner of the garage, laid out, nursing.   I put her in a rabbit hutch and instructed them on her care, came back to check a couple days later and gave up, in frustration.  No water, no food, and I was very angry.

I took her and the kittens.  They never even called to ask about her.  So Jade raised her kittens in complete comfort and safety here, and I adopted them out, after they were fixed, but Jade remains.  She is a fun cat who loves Sam and Juno and plays wildly.  But she remains shy to people other than me, and her sources of joy are her many friends here.
I don't have a lot of Jade photos.  It's so hard to take a good photo of a black cat.


I did a youtube series of videos on the garage kittens.  That was Jade.  You can locate those videos on my youtube channel.

You can watch Garage Kittens Part Two here!

I'd almost forgotten how poor Jade then played mom to seven larger kittens from Lacomb.  Poor girl!

In Garage Kittens Five, Jade's momhood is stretched to the limit.

Mooki was one of three boy teens I took in from just off Spicer Drive, near 18th street, trapping for an old woman, who also fed their mother but didn't want them.   I got them all fixed.  The boys were awesome.  I called them the Spicer Boys!

 I adopted out Mooki's two brothers, but then Mooki got ringworm from some other kittens I'd brought in, from a huge colony off highway 20 outside Albany.  Two months later, after he was over it,  he was no longer a cute kitten and did not get a home.  He did actually once go to a home, but was quickly returned.  The woman said he howled all night long, lonely I guess, sad and missing his friends.  And she couldn't have that as the neighbors would complain and she'd get evicted.  I'd never heard Mooki utter a sound before, and he hasn't since he came back home.

Mooki is a sweetie who comes in with his best friend Comet, every night, for petting and cuddling on the bed.  My two boys, best friends too.
Mooki with Shady

Mooki with Meesa

Mooki with Honey

Comet was one of about 16 kittens I took from one driveway at Heatherdale trailer park, when my back was failing.  I tried hard to adopt them all out and did adopt all out except Comet before I had to have back surgery.
This is Molly, and she was Comet's mother.  I trapped her too at Heatherdale, and a friend of mine, Dianna, had a neighbor who took her in.  When her neighbor, an elderly man, died, Dianna took Molly in, and she lived with Dianna for several more happy years until her death.

Comet idolizes Miss D but sometimes she ignores him

Comet of Heatherdale

Younger years, when I still lived in Corvallis, Comet plays with a teenager rescued from a Brownsville hoarder.  Her name was Calapooia.  She got a home in Eugene.



Lastly, Teddy is from the Corvallis homeless camp, one of the 52 myself and Poppa's president took from there to be fixed, rehoming most of the cats. I slipped in, while the campers slept (much easier than dealing with the drama of drunk people), to trap numerous kittens, including Starr, Teddy's sister, and Teddy.  Most of the kittens were adopted out, but Honey, Starr and Teddy are still here.  Starr has tooth resorption and had seven pulled earlier this summer and the vet warned it can be genetic, after which I smelled Teddy's breath and determined he needed a dental immediately like his sister.
Aww Teddy

Teddy

Teddy with one of his best friends, Juno

Teddy Grooms his buddy Fantasia 

So those are the four kitties who need to go have their teeth checked out and I need to raise some more money fast to pay for their dentals.   Miss Daisy's vet bill wiped me clean, but I still have hope I can pull this off.

As most of you know, I have a few cats here in my care, who will be in my care until either they die or I die, one or the other.

They're not adoptable types, either old or feral or both.  Most have been with me a long time, leftovers from colonies and situations that were tragic, where I dove in alone to try to fix all the cats and save who I could. Some wouldn't adopt out, or were adopted out but then would bounce back to me.

I don't take in cats anymore, but I will do my darn best to properly care for the ones here.   This county where I live has absolutely no services for cats whatsoever.  And no shelters, except a small no kill, that rarely takes in public cats and if they do, there's a charge.

I'm an affiliate with Odd Cat Out, up in Sherwood.   Poppa Inc., the fantastic spay neuter nonprofit that helped thousands of mid valley cats get fixed, now operates as Odd Cat Out.  Because the cats I have here ended up here as a result of my volunteer cat wrangling with Poppa Inc., I am allowed affiliate status to help me care for them.   That's the story of what became of Poppa Inc., after they closed their spay neuter mission, but now operate as a sanctuary up north, and I, no longer a cat wrangler, care for the cats I ended up with down here.

Well, sometimes I cat wrangle, like trapping that colony last weekend, but those folks were willing to pay for the fixes, which often means a simple call to the FCCO to negotiate price per cat, and they will negotiate and even fix them for nothing if a person can afford nothing.  They also paid for my expenses---gas and bait, and gave me pizza and coffee while trapping!  It was a joy, to trap there, very pleasant kind people.

So if you can squeeze out a donation---for the Jade, Mooki, Comet and Teddy dentals--thank you.  If you can't, no biggee, but if you could share the fundraiser website, that might help out too.

To make it easy, here's the link again!

I got a treat the other day.   Do you recall Sage?  She was the Lebanon torti, smart as a whip, brought here with her four sons, dripping wet, in standing water in carriers, alive in fleas.  The people had kept them in the two carriers for days, then hosed them down, since they'd had to live in their own feces, before bringing them over.  They were strays and not wanted and I said, don't come back for them.  I got them fixed and then tried to find homes for all five.  One of Sage's boys died suddenly from a heart defect, but the rest, except for Smolder, finally got homes.

Smolder and Sage, his mom, went off to a home up in Monmouth.  But three days later, the people claimed they couldn't even find them.   Up I went.  I found them in a hole behind the tub plumbing.  Sage would wander the house but Smolder was scared and hid in the hole, so Sage, his ever protective mom, would join him there.  I pulled them out and brought them back home.

Sage is such a wildly smart and funny girl, I had hoped the perfect adopter would appear for such a wonderful cat.  And she did!  A match made somewhere!  Smart and savvy, kind and caring, just like Sage!   Every now and then, she sends me photos.  And she did again last week.




Smolder, her son, all black and huge, also kind hearted, but not as smart as his mom, is still here and one of the cats I'd like to place in a home.

Smolder, Son of Sage

Eyes of Sage

Speaking of old friends.....Valentino, a recent photo, but of course his name now is Ziggy and he lives a loved life in Portland now.   Oh my gosh, to be sent this photo of him, makes me cry, but in happiness.  Look at him, just look at him.  He was such a wreck when I first met him, such a wonderful train wreck of a cat.  But underneath the huge fleas, the crusty icky skin, oily matted hair and mouth dripping pus----was a beautiful beautiful soul.  Oh my Valentino, you look now on the outside like your heart always looked to me---glowing!

2 comments:

  1. Love them all. And will donate again when I can.
    I hear you on the difficulties of taking photos of black beauties too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Me too, love them so much, and the black cat photo ops are few and difficult. Light must cooperate.

    ReplyDelete

Ten Extras

 I have ten extra cats in my garage. Nine are in traps, just brought over from the Scravel colony.    They are almost all orange tabbies, wi...