Thursday, May 19, 2011

Caught the Business Lactating Mom Cat




I caught the mom cat, seen two weeks ago, with kittens, this morning. I then had to decide what to do. I didn't even know if the kittens are still alive. I did what I had to do: I ran her quickly up to the clinic. I'm already back, four hours later, and she's been spayed. She was not only lactating, but in heat, meaning, the kittens may be older than I think.

So, will search for kittens. Told the management this morning to ask employees to listen for kittens. If I can't find them, she'll be released. She will continue to lactate.

I will tell management to feed her.

I am totally happy about running her up and getting her done today. Why? Because that ends my effort there.

Sure, I wish I had found the kittens. But with all adults there now fixed or gone, except a couple of males, I can say bye bye to this situation, except for placing the nine from there, now here, waiting for somewhere.

I am not a removal service. The city asked me to help and I didn't want to remove them or to get involved. I was upset at first the city would even ask that I trap and remove them.

It's a sense of duty, I suppose, that drove me to answer the call despite the sacrifice I knew it would take. The city asked me. I've never turned down a city request to help solve a problem, starting way back with Camp Boondoggle. I still lived in Corvallis then. When Albany took over the property upon which stood that long standing homeless camp, with it's open sewage and piles of garbage and stench and dozens of unfixed cats, feral and tame. The homeless were kicked out but offered services if they wanted to change, get jobs and into housing. Most turned down the offer.

The council asked little old me, not even an Albany resident, to solve the cat problem there and I did it, too, even though it was terribly hard. Had to crawl over at least two trains to get into the camps and two trains to get back out. Once I almost got hit by a train. I'd crawled over one, slipped through another and wham, there beyond that train a moving train was roaring through. A homeless guy pulled me back, said "You gotta watch out for those." I took three dozen cats and kittens out of homeless camp Boondoggle, before it was through. I answered the call.

I'm still answering the call. Sure, I complain a lot. When a community needs something done, somebody has to do it. I'd make a good soldier, wouldn't I? I'd be the one called on to do what nobody else would do. Cleaning the latrines in 120 degree heat. Going on one way missions into the heart of blackness, too.



The business didn't feed them or want them. I somehow got roped into it anyhow. I felt bad for those cats. Someone needed to think of them and help them. I guess I figured in the end nobody was going to step forward.

At first one worker would check the traps in the morning, at 6:00 a.m., but then he just stopped checking them and became hostile to me, but never said anything about why he would no longer check them. Nobody would. So, I'd have to be over there at 6:00 a.m. to check the traps and at 5:00 p.m. also, before they closed.

That other woman from the other colony asked they make her some feral housing units. They made her six. She never picked them up, so they asked if I wanted them.

Only one would fit in the car at one time. One guy twice, on different days, hauled one out to my car on a fork lift, when I asked, which took three minutes. But after that, although I would ask if they would run one out to my car, and they would say someone would, they wouldn't. I would stand around waiting and waiting and they'd ignore me, but say nothing. They would not say "Oh, we'll do it in five minutes." They wouldn't say anything. This was demeaning and awkward.

I sucked up a lot there, helping them out. I do that a lot, it seems.

I finally came home and screwed some old wagon wheels to a pallet and bungee'd a luggage carrier on wheels I had hanging from my rafters to the front, loaded it in my car, drove over, and hauled one out that way.

After that, I thought to myself "forget it". They are not painted on the inside or bottom, so I have to do that, or the particle board will disintegrate. They're not insulated so I have to do that. Not worth it.

The business has not donated a dime to cover my expenses. I've spent tons of my own money for bait, transport and then for worming, vaccines and flea treatment for these nine here, the nine who cannot return. And for their food and litter. I still have no home option for them.

So am I a happy person that I no longer have to go on that property or deal with this?

I am!!!!!!! Happy happy happy.

And here is Zach in his new home with his new best buddy:

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