Frustrations in Lebanon

I was frustrated tonight with the Lebanon situation. I have barn homes waiting for those outside ferals, but the granddaughter, whose grandmother owns the house and is now in a nursing home, was nowhere to be found. She'd said she would be there. She'd also claimed she would call me today. She didn't. The grandmother's phone now is not connected. Calls to the granddaughter's cell phone went unanswered and unreturned.

I had given her numbers to call, of shelters and people who might possibly take one or two of the tame cats. I don't know if she called them or not. I was prepared to take Joey, the little gray male I got neutered three weeks ago. Someone in Eugene would take him on. But I can't get him if I can't get ahold of the granddaughter. I just hope she's found the inside cats a place already.

So I went over tonight, after picking up the four cats fixed today at Countryside. They were one male and two females, from the Dilapidated Duplex colony in Corvallis. The orange tabby tux female was pregnant. Then a male was fixed from the people who have taken in now ten of the DD colony cats. I took them back the male and the torbi wild girl from DD tonight, along with extra litterboxes, some cat food and cat litter. I brought home the orange tabby tux feral female and a black tux male, both now fixed, from the DD colony. They go to a barn home Sunday along with one or two more from same colony, if I can catch them. The DD colony lady says she's not seen any of the five cats left there today. She doesn't know why but thinks it might be the weather.

Then it was off to Lebanon to the Kind Hearted woman colony. I went even though the phone now, at the residence, does not work--apparently disconnected. Sylvester, a big lovable tame male I got neutered for them a month ago, was outside in the storm, forlorn and crying at the door. The house was dark. No food out for anybody.

I trapped three of the ferals. I had to keep Sylvester in my car while I did so, or he would have been in the traps. There are five more cats to trap there. Would have been much easier had she been there, since they know her and come running.


I was referred to help them by a Lebanon rescuer/trapper who was fed up with being put off, over and over, by the granddaughter, who wanted things just right, with her gone, when the trapping was done, because she didn't want to see the cats in the trap.

She didn't want the traps left unattended but refused to watch them herself. That's a lot of demands to put on a volunteer when she could have done it.

Anyhow, so I got the referral. Same thing, the constraints, couldn't trap when the granddaughter was there or on her way there because she didn't want to see them in traps, but she didn't want it done if the traps weren't watched constantly--really difficult to deal with when the demand maker refuses to help at all.

Finally the grandmother put her foot down and told her granddaughter that she pays the bills here and told me to come trap them and get them fixed and not to deal with her granddaughter, who is almost my age. But about that time, the grandmother's daughter died, rather suddenly, of cancer. So I went off instead and trapped 18 cats in Turner, at the trailer of an old man, a friend of the granddaughter's. The granddaughter said they were in mourning for her aunt and that she and her grandmother wanted to wait a bit before I resumed getting them fixed.

So the next thing I hear is that the grandma is in a nursing home and the granddaughter is being told, by an uncle, to have anything of hers, including the cats, gone by this Friday.

This morning, I went over again, after dropping off the three I trapped there last night, to try to get more, and the granddaughter was home. The the phone has been disconnected there. Comcast was disconnected today. The granddaughter's place in Salem was broken into over the weekend, and many things she had were stolen. This is why she didn't call yesterday. She trains at a new job tonight, has to have all her stuff gone from her grandmother's by tomorrow. She's under great stress.

She does have a place for three of the six indoor cats and will take one more with her, leaving two in need of placement. I trapped Spirit, the black outside unfixed feral male, but there are still two black cats, one fixed, one not, to trap and one gray unfixed male and one gray and white fixed male. Then, the female, who started it all, a tux, still needs caught. Five more to catch and very little time to do it in.