Monday, June 05, 2006

Comet




Comet is a nice young male cat still here hoping to be adopted. Comet's plight I could not pass by.

I got called by a South African woman, who in her spare time saves the children of Camaroon. She lives in an Albany trailer park that was, last summer, over run with cats. She'd tried calling every other group, but finally heard about me from another tenant who had a friend I'd gotten six or eight cats trapped and fixed.

I went over that very night and trapped seven or eight cats, including some starving kittens. I did not know I was getting into rather a very large project. Also my back was giving out completely. I had a ruptured disc that had been hardening for years, decades maybe, over a nerve root. Off and on, the pain down my right leg was extreme! And soon that same month, my right leg would stop getting nerve stimulated and the pain would increase along my calf and in my ankle to stupendous levels.

So I had urgency burning in my soul to get that trailer park cleaned up of unfixed cats really quick. I didn't think I'd be capable of walking at all in even two weeks. Sometimes I had to recruit little kids to carry traps with feral cats in them from porches to my car because of the pain I was in.

So Comet came from beneath Trailer 52 which was a problem trailer. An old lady lived there. Her adult daughter was a meth addict and had left her own cats there who would get pregnant and have litter after litter. This lady confided in me she'd had free chances to get her females fixed twice before and never did so.

Now there were six to eight adults around that trailer alone, many were females, either pregnant or nursing kittens already. There were three or four already born litters, some with eyes glued shut in upper respiratories inflamed by malnutrition. I took in all the kittens. I couldn't leave them there.

All the adults I got fixed and returned, except for one nice cat, pregnant when I trapped her, the daughter of the daughter of one of Trailer 52's housepets that were never fixed, and still nursing two of her last litter. I found her a home with an old man who was lonely. She's named Molly now.

Comet was one of a litter of three kittens whose eyes were completely glued shut with drainage when I met them. They were just five or so weeks old and couldn't even see. They had zero hope. I snuck up on Comet's brother Jedi and got him by the scruff then netted Comet. Haley, their sister, went into a trap with an adult feral and that's how I caught her.

Comet never got a home. Some students adopted Jedi, but I've worried about his fate, too, because sometimes students aren't the best of pet owners. Those boys said they did not leave Corvallis at end of term anymore, but were here permanently, but I don't necessarily believe them. So I worry, like I do about all the cats I adopt out. Haley went to some people living outside of Monroe. The little boy took a liking to her.

You never know with adoptors. You can be as careful as you can be, request references, call those references, do a driveby of their residence, get the kittens fixed before they go and you still just don't know what the fate of a precious little life you've entrusted to them will be.

So many people treat animals like novelties or cheap toys or lie....you just wish humans would behave honestly and with kindness, but I know how deceitful and self-centered humans tend to be. I know it too well. It's why some former rescuers end up collectors, because they can't adopt out anymore, because they've been burned and hurt over and over by people who mistreat or kill the cat or dog.

So Comet of Heatherdale Trailer Park is still here hoping for a home. I ended up getting about 62 cats in Heatherdale fixed, some owned, some feral, some kittens like Comet, who would be dead had I not intevened in a couple extremely painful weeks last August. I had back surgery August 22nd and that sure helped ease my situation of never ending pain tremendously.

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