Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Teen Female Makes Three Dozen

The unfixed gray cream teen female I trapped last night at the homeless camp, pretty much tame, will be fixed by the end of the week. She makes 36 cats trapped and fixed there since last fall. THIRTY SIX!!!!!

The long hair brown tabby female I trapped last night doesn't count in that 36. She counts in the 10 I trapped at the same location in 2007. I returned nine of them, after finding one of the females a home, with an old man in Jefferson. I got to see her a couple months ago, when he was in at the vet clinic with her.

With those ten, the total right there trapped and fixed would be 46. Except, I also trapped four there six months before I trapped the ten. Three pregnant females and a kitten. The female kitten was spayed and went to SafeHaven. One of the adult pregnant females died in surgery. The vet did a necropsy and found she had a congenital heart disorder where at least one heart valve wall was badly thickened. Her heart could not pump blood well.

The other two females went up to Portland, after they were spayed, where one died six months later. The other Ava, is still up there. She had been injured in the camps when a camper threw boiling water in her face, scalding her eyes. Now, she can't see at all, and recently nearly died before her caretaker discovered she was having trouble finding the food dish. But she survived. When the vet examined her again, she said the cat is now completely blind, from her initial injuries suffered alone out there in those camps.

The homeless bring in the cats for companionship and like the cats of course, but when they get drunk, they act in ways they can't even comprehend themselves, later on. The victims of alcohol abuse include even struggling kitties like Ava.

Last summer, when I was trapping in there, the homeless man nicknamed "Speed" who ended up dead this winter, described the previous winter when one of the campers turned his dog on one of the white females I'd gotten fixed, for sport. The dog tore her to pieces. Speed and a woman camper tried to kill another female, who I trapped last summer and got fixed, before that, simply because she was having kittens. They shot her repeatedly with a slingshot, they claim. I doubt they hit her, however.

Tally of cats trapped and fixed so far in that one location including all three periods I've trapped there: 50.

Total number I've rehomed so far: 28

4 comments:

  1. is Ava going to be okay>? does her current caregiver watch out for her in a good way?

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  2. You are a repository of sad stories. :(

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  3. I guess it's more about how much animal abuse goes on out there, out of sight of most people. The sad stories belong to the strays, not me.

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  4. This is why I really really really don't like people.

    You'd think with my life, I'd be tough as nails but instead I find as I get older that I'm finding it harder to deal with all the horror in the world.

    It's just all wrong.

    ReplyDelete

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