Off We Go.....And Hope Returns to Me

Off we go, into a brand new year. What will the new year hold? I ain't psychic. Glad I'm not.

I know what today holds in part at least. I'll get the final three kittens, now four months old, and over their ringworm, fixed from the BS colony. Today I pick them up. Their mother is the only unfixed adult we know of still out there. She's sly, black and now perhaps sick. The colony caretaker says when she sees her in the garage nights her tongue hangs out slightly. This could mean a variety of things, including nothing. She could have mouth sores, common with chlamydia, some other viral infections like FIV, kidney failure, bartonella, esophogal lymphoma, or, most likely cause, she could have gingivitis or a bad tooth. She's old. I'm going for her. Tonight. She doesn't show every night in the garage, however.

May luck be with me, and with her. She needs fixed.

If I could catch her, barring new arrivals, that colony, of over 90 cats, many of them identical in appearance, would be fixed!

I'd have to go back through my records to come up with the exact number I caught and got fixed through various sources, primarily, however, through use of Poppa Inc. funds and Countryside vet clinic.

Thank you, from this street and from the cats of the BS, Poppa Inc.

If you are looking for a place to donate your unwanted money, hahahaha, Poppa Inc. sure uses the money in exactly the right way.

Hope is being returned to me. She's the cat from downtown Albany whose eye was knocked out by blunt force trauma. She continued to care for her kittens with an eye hanging out, retreating into the empty dilapidated tenant house, where the tenant had lived who abandoned her, allegedly a man named "Ralph".

When I was called by a neighbor late one night, that she had been injured, I posted about it on my blog that night. I was startled the next day, when I went over to try to get her out, to find a Corvallis woman there, with a carrier, who had read my blog, who was trying to help her. I was able to call Hope out of the house. She also brought me her kittens.

Her kittens, Jiggles, Scruffy and Teddy came here with me, and, brought me ringworm, that plagued me all last summer. The torment I endured to rid ten kittens of that fungus, was extreme. But I did endure through it. In the end, they were fixed and all got homes.

In the meantime, the Corvallis woman went off with Hope, declaring she would pay for all her care and find her a home. That didn't happen. She didn't find her a home. In the end, I handed over the money to her raised by the cat blogospherees, to help pay for her care and even loaned the Corvallis woman a laptop. She said she had no working computer. She has a good job.

The Corvallis woman found a fosterer for Hope, but told the fosterer she would have her a home and out of her garage, by the first of September. However, the fosterer never really heard from the Corvallis woman again, and couldn't keep Hope. The first of September came and went, and the fosterer, whom I didn't know of then, didn't hear from the Corvallis woman. Finally, in November, she told a customer at her workplace about her need, and the fact she couldn't keep Hope any longer, and that man tried to take her in.

He had no knowledge of how to successfully introduce another cat, and fights ensued, between Hope and his cat. He had soft claws put on Hope, which only makes things worse for a cat, who then feels they cannot defend themselves and often will become aggressive as a result. Today he called and wants me to retrieve Hope. He loves her and thinks she's an absolutely incredible cat with unbelievable spirit, but his own cat won't accept her and the fights are bloody.

A person should not offer assistance if they don't intend to follow through and do as they say. This Corvallis woman probably intervened with good intent but had no stomach or integrity for follow through. The fosterer ended up with large heat bills, because she had Hope in her garage, which she heated then, with a space heater. She's a starving struggling college student. What happened, wasn't fair to her either.

I was unable to reach the Corvallis woman after she initially took Hope, and thought all along Hope had gotten a home, since I'd heard nothing. I was shocked to find out that sweet Hope was going through such insecurity as a result and am not happy with the Corvallis woman who injected herself into Hope's life and fate, but lacked the character to finish what she started and so, only made things worse for her and for the fosterer and for me.

Had Hope stayed with me originally, she would have been in a secure home long ago. Now, she is traumatized to other cats and new situations and I don't know what she'll be like when she comes here.