Cat Eyes---A Cat Woman's Photos: Valentino's Struggles

Valentino is having a rough time after surgery yesterday to remove nine more bad teeth, leaving him only four, one on each side of each jaw. He's drooling. His jaw and face quiver if he moves his jaw. He purrs if you just come into the bathroom, however. He is such a grateful kitty, a wonderful sweetheart. He's on pain meds and antibiotics. I am giving him sub cu fluids and syringe feeding him baby food with nutrical. I think he'll be ok.

Valentino is having a tough time of it after surgery yesterday to remove nine more teeth.

Poor old Valentino. And yet he purrs.

He's on a heating pad and getting lots of love right now.

Mums is Tugs the torti's sister and mostly stays out in the garage room and cat yard. Now that it is pouring and the yard a mucky mess, she has come in for the winter. She and Tugs were two of 11 cats I removed from a nasty Lebanon situation a few years back. I adopted out the other 9, including Matilda just a year ago, after she had been here a long time. Tugs and Mums, the sisters, so far, still here. Mums is gorgeous.

My ancient former feral Electra. She was my second cat. My first was Hopi, who died a few years ago, nearly killing my soul.

Electra was brought to an FCCO clinic in Salem by Colonel Vince, then a Salem area three star army colonel trapper. I used to call him Saint Vince. He had two teens in one trap from Silverton and one had to be transferred out. I got volunteered for the task. But she got away from me and darted into an open electric box in the under construction building bathroom. I had to switch off the power at the main breaker, and reach into that tangle of wiring in the dark from a chair. She bit me, clear through my thumb, but I held on.

Afterwards, due to FCCO policy, she had to be quarantined, since she was not vaccinated. I volunteered to take her, as a companion for Hopi. She has been with me ever since, through several moves. She's old but very active and very loving. That's how she got her name, the electro kitty, who nearly fried herself.

She'd be long dead now if she hadn't bitten me. A couple years later, Vince contacted me. Electra's Silverton colony, all fixed, was in trouble. The old woman who cared for them was moving. We trapped and relocated them in record time, about 16 Electra lookalikes, but many of the placements were not good and the survival prospects of relocated split up cats from a colony, is not high.

Deaf Miss Daisy attracts other cats. They all want to be around her. Sometimes she is ok with this, being an optimistic good natured cat. Sometimes she is a reluctant mother figure to be sure. Nonetheless when a cat wants groomed they first try Miss Daisy. Sometimes when she decides enough is enough, she finishes grooming them with a swat that says "Go away! You got all I'm giving." Miss Daisy also likes to be groomed. You give, you get. Here, she exchanges grooming skills with Slurpy. Slurpy and Starry also like to groom one another and other cats. They too are the mother hens around here.