Two Cats Being Fixed Today

Just two. That's because I stupidly was pulled into a situation and let another person dictate the terms of my trapping. It's a Lebanon situation. Nice old woman lives in a house and her granddaughter sometimes helps take care of her and the strays. But, the granddaughter was turned off on trapping the strays for fixing. This happened last time someone else trapped two to be fixed. Apparently she didn't cover the traps she set, then left for an hour in Sweet Home.

But big deal, really. The granddaughter is middle aged, and when two cats were caught, she did cover the traps. She also totally freaked out seeing them struggle inside the traps and claimed this has traumatized her. So now, to have them fixed, she wants me to be there only to trap only when she isn't. This requires extreme negotiations, because she really doesn't know when she'll be there and when she won't. She lives in Salem.

So last night I went up late, because the granddaughter didn't want them to be in traps very long. Again, I should have said she could tough that out, the cats would be fine. I agreed to her terms. But, when I arrived, she had either fed them or not pulled the food, as instructed to do. They were not hungry. Plus, she kept calling her grandmother, saying she was heading down, which made me nervous, because she would say she didn't want me there when she arrived. All because she's too soft hearted to see one of them possibly in a trap.

I was getting fed up and finally confessed my frustration with the grandmother concerning all the stipulations put on a volunteer by a granddaughter, who needs, in my opinion, to buck up and actually trap them herself. The grandmother agreed. And so I left, with just one cat, a four month old male that the 85 year old woman still bottle feeds, which is a sight to behold.

There's some sadness to this story. The old woman's daughter came over with her husband. She's older, sixties I suppose. She got sick a month ago, a sudden burning behind her stomach. Still no resolution to what is going on, except finally she got a cat scan that showed tumors on her liver and adrenal gland. She is jaundiced also. She's led a clean life, no smoking, drinking, nothing like that. She's had a tough time getting medical care, because their doctor retired and the new one they're assigned to isn't going to be here until later or something, like April.

So they are in the meantime seeing someone they say has such a heavy foreign accent they can't really understand him or her. And she might have cancer. She's in such horrible pain without any energy. I wonder if she has metastisized colon cancer or pancreatic cancer or something. It's scarey for her and she's so weak. I felt bad for her. I could feel her fear. And understand it.

So her mother, the grandmother, is quite upset over this also. So it's best to back off the cat fixing for a bit, but I want to get it done, to ease the total stress of the household. She has a gravely ill daughter. She doesn't need to also have kittens being born, because her granddaughter is creating a difficult scene to trap and fix the cats.

Anyhow, the grandmother said it's her house and she's paying for the food for the cats, so she is the one to say what can and can't be done and she said to come trap them anytime I can. That's what I will do.

I was back at Hate Thy Neighbor today. Caught a big long hair gray male, with old white flea collar. He's new to the area. He does not belong to anyone on the street. The caretaker and myself believe he was dumped or abandoned with the young gray and white female long hair, who was so gravely injured she died. They showed up at the same time. I'd like to find who did this to these two cats. I'd like to see them charged with both abandonment and animal neglect and cruetly.

The big long hair gray will be fixed Wednesday. Today, the little bottle boy from Lebanon is being neutered and a long hair brown tabby female, from the downtown restaurant colony.