Out After Cats for Tomorrow's FCCO Clinic

I was out after cats this morning, but I didn't get a real early start. So it's been a slow easy day, in a way and that's fine by me.

I have four lined up. Two ferals from Millersburg Country (am still rounding up the cats the goat farmers left behind) and two tame strays, who qualify because they are both dumped off strays.

I'm after more at Heatherdale because I have a barn home willing to take the tabby female fixed last week, and the other three tabbies, if I catch them, and so far I've only retrapped the tabby girl, fixed last week. UPDATE: caught one more of the three tabbies left to get, and, found someone who feeds Silver Smoke, who, if we trap him, will take him in as theirs. This is what he needs. He was very angry, because he was abandoned. They're wonderful people.

So I've got four and if I don't catch a single cat more, that's good enough. I"m not the obsessive cat traper I used to be, I guess. Or maybe I'm just a wee bit worn out and worn thin.

The Millersburg Country people are struggling, too, with the high gas prices and high price of everything. So are their extended family members. But they all get together almost every night for dinner and I think that is just beautiful to see, actually. Family dinners, drawing in family, all family welcome, from all over the Albany/Millersburg area.

I sit and from my car, watch them arrive, one by one, wistfully thinking to myself "that's the way it should be".

They'll make it through any hard times, fighting and squalling sometimes, like big families do, telling tales on each other, rolling eyes, but gathering as one, in a campfire house with arms open wide, for dinner.

And they've called me just now, this instant, to say, they've rounded up six more cats. Uh oh. I'm in trouble now. Over my cat limit for tomorrow's reservations. If I'm over any limit, this is a good limit to be over.

I'm way over limit now. I caught two black and whites at Millersburg Country, both abandoned by the goat farmers next door when they left. Then they rounded up various tame goat farm abandonees also, fed by neighbors, to up my total to seven. Then, I caught the brown tabby at Heatherdale. Eight. Then, back at Millersburg Country, I drop trapped the massive feral long hair black tom. I couldn't resist, even though I had no trap to transfer him into and I knew it was going to be a difficult transfer from the drop trap into a carrier. It was. I had to wrestle him. That is one massive powerful cat and he had been a big trouble maker in the neighborhood. But I got him into a carrier.

Then, the Millersburg proper people, who have been feeding a stray huge orange tom, caught him. I had stopped by and set a trap along a trail he uses when he comes to eat. He's really beat up from too much fighting.

The new development around that area, means people have moved in with unfixed cats, including unfixed males. There had been a man who lived in a now abandoned trailer nearby, who repeatedly married, then divorced, a series of women who would bring with them unfixed cats. They'd abandon them there, upon the inevitable divorce. Many of those cats ended up positive for FIV, infecting the neighborhood. So these people who allow their unfixed males to free roam have no clue what they are exposing their kitty to. We'll see if this orange tom has signs of FIV. If so, at the FCCO clinic, they'll test him and if he's positive, he won't be going back.

The big free roaming males turn up positive for FIV at fairly high rates around here. It's sad. It's so preventable.

So I got ten cats. Fortunately, of the ten, six are known to me to be males. Two are known to me to be females. And two, well I haven't checked yet. Will they get all these done tomorrow? Don't know. I have reservations for 8 cats. But, then again, most of these are males and males go quick.

I was just going to kind of lazy out today, not even really try to catch my quota. I'm glad I did, because I ended up making some excellent catches, of cats who badly need fixed, like those two huge toms. We'll see if they're positive or not. If not, they'll come home, and become better citizens of the cat and human worlds. If they're positive, Rainbow Bridge time for them. The FCCO has a policy that if a cat is tested, and they only test cats with signs of disease and they're good at noticing the signs, if the cat is positive, it is euthanized. This policy is in place to reduce the risk of spreading diseases like FIV and Felk.