Long Day. Five Kittens Fixed.

Yesterday, I was up by 5:30 a.m. and off to Portland by shortly after 6:00 a.m., with five kittens who needed fixed. Before heading out onto the freeway, however, I returned the five older cats fixed the day before to the Gore Colony. I thought they would be up, since the day before, I trapped the cats at 7:00 a.m., when he feeds them. It was 6:30 by this time, but there were not lights on inside the very rural house. So I was quiet as I could in letting the five out of the traps and then leaving.

I had wanted to take the two remaining older unfixed Corvallis colony kittens up to Tigard for fixing yesterday. I stopped by that colony to try to drop trap them. My mood quickly soured.

The cage I had loaned them, so they could hold five of the cats overnight there, prior to fixing, after I caught them, for a neuterscooter clinic, was out in the yard, dirty, with the cover I'd leant them, muddy and wet in dog pee. The litterbox that had been in the cage was not with it and neither was the carrier I had loaned them. I had asked that they have all ready to return to me and cleaned up, too.

This type of behavior never makes me happy. It makes me feel used. Like a whore.

I then set up to drop trap. Five different times, one or another of the family members came up while I was attempting to trap, scaring the kittens off. My mood really soured. They should be out doing this, I thought angrily to myself, instead of impeding the effort. I knew they wouldn't do it, is the thing, because they don't seem to care much, if it gets done or not.

They set out cat food, but on a tray directly in the rain. They've said they would remedy this by creating something that keeps the rain out or putting the food inside the barn, but they haven't. There was no water, either, and one kitten was so thirsty he'd taken to sitting in the dishpan used for a water bowl. I filled it with water from bottles in my car. How hard is it to put some water out, I thought to myself.

There are five tiny kittens, about five weeks old, (mother now fixed) then the two they claim they are going to keep as house pets. There were five they took inside from two litters. Three of those have died.

The two still living, that they claim they keep in, were outside however trying to eat the old yucky cat food in the tray. They're like three weeks old. The bag of cat food they use to put out food on the tray also sits outside on the back porch, which means it gets moisture and air exposed constantly, which drains nutrition and taste. I feel so sorry for these cats there.

So, outside, there are still five young kittens, too little to be fixed, and two older ones not yet fixed. I'd gone to try to drop trap the older two. There is also one adult unfixed male, who only comes in occasionally. I've asked they contain him, when he comes around, since he's tame, but they haven't.

It's a frustrating thing to try to help cats. The fact these folks are extreme Christians doesn't help my perception much of Christian behavior. They're nice people, but it's hard for me to see the basic neglect of animals going on there and I just don't get it.

What causes such behavior, I wonder, and how do they just watch it happen, the kids, too, who are all older teens, some out of school? I guess I don't understand the mentality--the apathy. I don't understand why they don't just clean up the place, take care of the animals, find many homes, and work together to do it. I don't get it, is the thing.

Without luck there, I went to the 34th street location and picked up the other two kittens from the feral mother. The thing with that mother is the couple had her in their house forever, claiming it was their cat from long ago, that someone there had adopted from them, then abandoned. When they moved in there, and "found her" again, they were so happy.

They claimed she was already fixed. I claimed she was too young to be their long lost six year old spayed kitty. They let her out, and she got pregnant.

They wouldn't help trap her, always sleeping in, or too tired or off somewhere. Wouldn't participate. Then she had kittens. Now she's pregnant again. Same thing, they won't go an inch out of their way to help catch her.

So if I want to stop that cat from reproducing, it's going to have to be me over there setting and watching a trap. Me again. I follow those people around. Wherever they move to, there are going to be unfixed pets with them or fed by them. There are lots of people in Albany just like them, too. It's a mentality over here, and not just with these sorts, but even with the well housed and employed types.

I think I'll try to explain the mentality I encounter over here: passive. Maybe that's the best word. Things happen to you, might be another way to describe the attitude. Things happen and there's nothing that can be done to change things. This is not a change the world or even make a neighborhood better mentality.

It's more of a go to work, come home sit on the couch with a case of beer watching TV type of town. And if you don't work, it could be described as a sleep til noon, get up cranky and begin complaining, while still in bathrobe with cig hanging from side of mouth, about how you don't get enough of what you need from everyone else type of town. Yeah, I think that's a good description. Maybe I'm just being a complainer myself this morning. I fell asleep on the couch last night after getting home from Tigard with the kittens.

I wasn't happy when I picked them up at 3:30 p.m. to find I'd been charged for flea treatment for two kittens. I know they do that at that clinic, treat for fleas, mandatory, if they see them. Not their fault. That's why I had applied flea treatment the day before to all five.

But the two from 34th street were so severely infested that the treatment the night before didn't touch the population. Paying $25 more bucks out of my own pocket for those lazy losers' kittens didn't set well with me. Especially since a couple months ago, I gave them tons of donated spray on flea products and bombs, to kill resident fleas inside their place. Likely, those products are sitting unused on a shelf inside that apartment, or, they sold them.

So when I returned the kittens last night, and they had made no effort to catch that pregnant mother, I wanted to vomit all over them. I had to knock many times to rouse the woman.

Anyhow...

The five kittens were four boys and one girl. One tux boy was a kitten from Hate Thy Neighbor, a colony I have grown fond of helping, since the old man is pleasant to talk with. Another little boy, white and orange, and who looks very much like the BSS overflow little female kitten, Aces sister, is still here, and I am returning him today. He's from the Gore colony crowd. Then there were the two 34th street boys.

The one girl was Aces sister from BS overflow, now with BSS Overflow. They're going to keep her. They had said the mother of the four kittens my volunteer paid to have fixed at the Neuterscooter, was black and white, they thought, because they saw a black and white peek out of their boat, where they found the kittens, after they moved the boat from up front to around back by their shop. So I've been busting my ass out there, searching for any black and white cat who is unknown to me.

Well, it turns out, the mother is really the muted calico, one of the first BS Overflow cats I trapped. She was spayed at the Neuterscooter's August clinic. BS Overflow caretaker had not told me she'd just had kittens. Later on, she told me only two seemed to have survived. Well, all six survived. Aces is here, and now the other five are living next door. They're all fixed now! At least.

The mystery black and white female, BSS overflow claimed was the mother because they saw the cat poke its head out of the boat, where they'd found the kittens, is really the owned cat of BS Overflow. I remember now, although they won't, that they told me when I first me them, that they would see the little white kitten in their yard, over by the boat. The white kitten was the one fixed yesterday.

I hope that's the way it is. I've been doing detective work on it, to see who sleeps with who, who hangs with who, to be sure there is not a mystery black and white out there, unfixed, poised to reproduce once again.

Today, a huge angry black and white male, from Hate Thy Neighbor, one BS colony back barn teen and two BS Overflow cats, one a teen orange tabby, are headed up to be fixed.