End of the Line: Peko and Machi Returning

Peko broke out in ringworm. So the woman is bringing both back. Sad thing is, takes about ten days after exposure, so the kitten likely got it there. Trailers are notorious harborers of ringworm, especially in the carpets. They've been there one day shy of two weeks. But, if I wouldn't take them back, she was going to have them euthanized. It's barely showing, I guess, tiny line over one eye.

Now the kittens here will be exposed if it isn't already here somewhere. This is the end of the line for me. No more doing this.

I have been unable to find anything that flouresces green or looks like ringworm on the kittens here. Nonetheless I've been sponging their ears with vinegar, spraying their feet with miconizole. They're not happy about it, but I want to be sure. Tomorrow, the boys will have been gone two weeks. So, in all liklihood, Peko picked up spores there and, due to stress of moving, his immune system was depressed.

But, if she has spores in her trailer, and she was in here two weeks ago and handling all the kittens, that means there could be spores here, so I have to be ultra watchful.

It's just one of those things in this valley and with Oregon---fungi! We even eat and sell Oregon fungi--mushrooms. Fungi like Oregon. They like it alot and they love moist damp environments, like hay bales and straw stubble and even dust after the straw is turned under. Then the spores are kicked into the air during field burning or furrowing, like has been going on for the last few weeks in the valley. Bad time of year for dust and fungi spores floating around. Thank you grass seeders.

I've thought about taking my shoes off before coming in and making anyone entering do the same. Not just fungis travel on shoes, but also viruses. Spores can attach to clothing also and be brought in, blow around, and if they land on fertile soil, like a kittens' foot or ear or head, where there is less hair to protect the skin, well, the next thing you know, you have a ringworm outbreak. Ringworm is often taken into shelters on the clothing, hands or hair of people looking to adopt.

I didn't know the woman who adopted Peko and Machi had kids living with her. Guess her son is getting a divorce and moved in with his kids and his ex is already giving the woman hell for having a kitten with ringworm and her kids there.

I was over at that apartment complex where I trapped four, then took a tame teenager also to be fixed from the Hispanics across the street. Those all went to the Neuterscooter on a credit I had with them from doing work for them. For the seven cats, including Slurpy from Lebanon, to be fixed, I paid out $60 in cash, largely to pay for Slurpy to be tested and get a rabies shot, then eartips for the ferals from the apartment complex and pain meds for the females.

Across the street, the Hispanics, whose cat I got fixed last week, want me to find ways to get their relatives dogs fixed, too, but won't make the effort to keep their cats inside for long enough to catch the one remaining stray male, a big Lynx Point manx Siamese, abandoned also by someone at the complex. I finally put the Hispanics' male cat in my car, fed up with him going into the traps, fed up with the entitlement attitude of the Hispanics who I don't even think are legal citizens.

When they got back home, I asked them again to put their cats inside. I told them their male was in my car. "Oh, he can stay in your car then," the woman said cheerfully.

I replied, "I don't want him in my damn car. Put him in your house." So they took him inside and two minutes later plopped him out on the porch in a carrier, where he immediately began howling and rattling the door, defeating the purpose. I wanted to curse them in Spanish. I said nothing.

I'm beyond caring about anything anymore. I go through the motions of living but I'm pretty much dead too by now.

What people want is perfect kittens for nothing or they kill them. It's sad.

I sent an e-mail to the up and coming N. Albany people who contacted me about the strays their parents had fed for five years up there. I told them the long and short of the costs I had incurred trying to help them out. I asked, if they had not decided to wash their hands of this problem caused by their parents feeding but not fixing strays, because I can't with the three kittens still here, to let me know what they are willing to do. I told them about getting the call that the only one of the three I had found a home for is being returned and why.

People need to know the costs of their actions. They need to hear it bluntly and loudly.

Will I get a reply? I have no idea. My guess is I won't because he never responded again once I told him I trapped three of the four kittens and their mother.

But, if Peko has only one tiny line of ringworm and there is no evidence on the kittens here so far, maybe I contain this outbreak quickly. I mop and clean with vinegar, an acid, which kills fungus. I am also going to try something I thought of, since fungus and vinegar don't mix. I am going to find out, from the vet tomorrow, if cats and kittens can tolerate a little apple cidar vinegar, because, if they can, why not treat ringworm from the inside out with the substance fungus hates--acid!

I have not yet returned Laurel, the Lynx pt. Siamese female. She's tame, I discovered. The old woman who fed her, for three years I find out, through at least nine litters, without getting her fixed, causing massive problems in that area, was supposed to try to help find her a home, but I don't believe she will.

I now remember bringing in those two couches, after getting them at the neighbors garage sale. They're the ones moving out end of the month. Those couches had sat in their garage, for I don't know how long. What if they brought in spores? They could have.

Anyhow, I need to just suck it up and take Laurel back. I hate to, kills me, makes me angry at all these assholes out there, tears me up inside to know how badly she wants a home but to also know, there aren't homes out there even for all the kittens.

And still the assholes fill craigslist with their free unfixed kitten ads.

It will never end because there is a never ending supply of assholes being bred.