Today is the Day

My tooth gets yanked out today! Hurray!

My friend Tamara has driven up clear from North Bend with a truck full of cats to be fixed. I will see her briefly this morning at the vets, I think. I am giving her a trap given to me, a Harbor Freight trap. They are collapsible and run when on sale, about $20. However, they are poorly built and there have been reports of cats badly injured in them, because the drop down door leaves a space of a couple inches the cats try to nose under and sometimes get their head through and then choke to death.

For this reason, most trappers avoid those traps as deadly. I alter them to make them safe. So yesterday I altered the trap. I removed the piece of the trap that snaps vertically, when the trap is sprung. It does not reach top to bottom, the way they're built, hence creating the danger zone. I snapped off the wire that held it to the piece that closes at a slant, then reattached the vertical piece higher up on the slant piece, so there would no longer be a gap at the top. I also removed and repositioned the wire that holds the vertical piece to the slant piece, once the trap closes.

I also attached a wire loop to the heavy gauge trigger plate rod that runs from the trigger plate to the lever that holds the door open, when the trap is set. Without the extra length, when set, the trigger plate was left at a steep angle. Now after I retooled this mechanism, the trigger plate, when the trap is set, has less than an inch tilt.

If I had welding ability, I would have created a transfer trap out of it. Instead, I just ziptied that back drop door to the cage. I'd love to remove the wire backs from all my nontransfer traps, weld on sliders and turn them into transfer traps.

Anyhow, I'm giving her this cheap trap that now works as good as any Havahart. The repairs are easy. She has only one trap and is trying to do a lot down there in North Bend.

In other news, my cat yard tree containment is failing. I should have seen it coming. The boards, my brother's contractor guys attached around the tree branches then to the chicken wire, using zip ties, don't give, when the branches sway, independently of each other, in the wind, creating tension on the thin boards, which are cracking. We should have thought of that. Dumb mistake. I have to think of something else, and, get up there to implement. My own laddar is short and won't reach that high. I can't rent a longer laddar either because I can't transport it. My car's too short. I guess I'll have to build a laddar.