Sunday, May 28, 2017

Some Tragic Needless Deaths

There are two deaths to report in cat land.  Both were tragic and needless.

Mayday died.  She was the little feral girl whom I trapped to be fixed over 8 years ago.  She had developed a lump on her cheek.  I retrapped her for her owners, took her clear to the Astoria clinic, where 8 teeth were pulled and the vet took a biopsy of mouth tissue.  He felt it looked like cancer.  It was.

Her owners decided to let her live as long as she was eating, and set her up in a second empty bedroom of their house.  She did well, was still eating, when a freak accident ended her life.

Seems the heater in that bedroom didn't work.   The house had other electrical problems, as well, so they called in an electrician.   Either he turned on that heater, then didn't turn it off, after fixing the issues, or it was on, when not working, and after the electrical issues were resolved, it worked.  The heater ended up running on high, inside the bedroom, with the temps nearly 90 degrees outside.  Poor Mayday was trapped in that bedroom, where temperatures soared to unimaginable heights.   Her owner found her, nearly dead, of heat stroke, and had the vet finish the job.

I was horrified to hear what this poor little girl went through, that nobody noticed or checked on her and that she suffered so in that heat.  Nearly did me in.

Blessed little Mayday.

Then there was Buckwheat, a young boy from the street of drugs in Lebanon, taken in, after I got him fixed, by a Brownsville woman.  She called me yesterday morning, that he had sudden onset collapse, with leg paddling.

Well, when I saw him at the clinic, it was apparent he'd suffered at least a month.  He had a terrible upper respiratory with green snot dripping from his nose and foul smell to his breath.  He'd lost so much weight, over a third of what he weighed when I got him fixed, that I was shocked.

 He was horribly dehydrated.  She has a lot of cats and sometimes you miss things.  Buckwheat is now out of his misery and the emergency vet bill was over $400.  She's paying me back, which I appreciate.

  I had hoped to get a rescue discount at the clinic, but was denied.  That's why I go clear to the north coast clinic with cats.  Three cats could have had dentals for the same price.

R.I.P. Buckwheat!  I'm sorry I rescued you.
In a state of sadness over two needless deaths, laying in my bed sobbing, over something that is long beyond remedy, I received a call.   The grange manager said there were kittens under the building out there.

The Grange no longer has a working well or water access.   So no longer can events be held there and grange membership there has dwindled to a handful of people.  I was a member for a short time but I didn't fit in and had become upset over jokes about cats.  I only became acquainted with grange members when asked to help fix cats dumped there years ago.   Since then, I've helped many in the area.

A year and a half ago however nobody would let me trap a black tux female, roaming and on her own, struggling with kittens, on their properties.  I quit the grange then.  I could not understand the apathy.

Well, here she was, that same female, under the grange, struggling again, with kittens, a mile from the nearest water even.

This time she would receive help.  I trapped two of the four week old kittens under one corner of the grange.  Then set the trap again and caught mom.  With the grange manager under the building, making noise, to drive the remaining two kittens into the corner, I laid on the grass, in the 90 degree heat, feeling for them with an arm extended under the building in and around some pipes.  I was able to grab both.

They are very very cute hissy spitty little things, and also very dehydrated.  I'm not sure they'll make it, but I hope they will.

The call and subsequent action helped ease the pain of two unnecessary deaths.  It's supposed to be hot in Oregon's mid valley again today, then cool off with return to rain.

One of the two black kittens, (both have some white on chest and feet), visits mom, before I released her from the trap into the bathroom to be with them.  Yeah, she's feral, but its too hot in my garage to hold a cage for them.  My heat pump is not working to cool either, but its still cooler inside the house than in the garage.  I treated her with Revolution, which kills fleas, earmites and roundworms, before letting her out.

Mom, skinny and skeptical.  She's been on her own so long.  No one fed her and she had kittens a mile from the the nearest water.

The first two I trapped were extremely thirsty.  I was in my car, in the shade, as much as I could find, waiting, with the trap still set.  I stuck a can of cat food in the carrier, with water in it, mixed with wet food.

Three of the four kittens

So that was my yesterday, a mix of tragedy and triumph, in my cat rescue life.  As for my personal life, well, I don't have much going on right now.  Just the usual plain old survival.  For instance yesterday, my car window wouldn't roll up and I needed to go to the store.  Around here, if you have an open car window, anything inside will be stolen.  So I pried out the window switch and worked at cleaning all contacts and finally got it to work again.  I often wish windows just rolled up and down manuelly.

Simple is better.  And much cheaper.

This computer I'm typing on is the same one that is failing  I have backed up all files and know probably today is the day I need to scrap it, as its slow as molasses, freezes up constantly and sometimes only parts of a page display on the monitor.  Right now, for instance, its making terrible noises, and I've had to work on this post three times, between freeze ups.

A Portland rescue woman dusted off an old tower she had stored and I picked it up from her last time I took cats to the FCCO.  In the meantime, for most of my online efforts I switched to the laptop given me by a Nebraska friend.  The best thing about the laptop, it too has Windows 7 and also, as a real bonus, has Picasa on it!!  I love Picasa and will hate to lose it on the desktop when this computer is history.

I haven't switched to the used tower for the desktop because I don't like the work involved or the change.   But now I'm forced to do it.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:19 AM

    There's some very sad stuff in this post and honestly I don't know how you go on at times, but you do and the world is a bit better for your efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Echoing Andrew. Thank you for all that you do.

    ReplyDelete

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