Mac's Long Journey

 I met Mac outside Rocky's place.  Rocky called him Maggie because he thought he was a girl, for some reason.  I had been directed to Rocky's house by a neighbor.  That neighbor had a black long hair female, she'd taken in as a very pregnant stray.  Four black long hair kittens rough housed in her closet.  I got the female fixed and Heartland took in the four kittens.  When I asked where the impregnator might be, she pointed out Rocky's house.

Rocky is a very kind hearted man who feeds a few strays. His own cats are all fixed.  All four strays were males.  This is often the case.  People who don't fix their male kittens often end up just abandoning them or kicking them out.  I've trapped entire colonies of "discarded" males.

When there are many males together, however, one thinks "FIV".  Males fight and when they fight, they get and spread FIV.

Enter Viv from Brownsville.  She told me about a Safehaven voucher, about to expire at a Lebanon vet clinic and asked if I had any cats I could take up so the voucher would not be wasted.  I took up Mac, then known as Maggie.  However, I'd already informed Rocky that Maggie was a "he".

I didn't have him tested there, just neutered.  Poor Mac has only three legs.  He was hit on Pacific Blvd. by a car, detaching his leg.  Nobody took him to a vet afterwards.  But Mac was able to crawl off the road to Rocky's porch.  He somehow survived the amputation by motor vehicle, then Rocky fed him as a stray.  He had one eye that constantly was inflamed.  The Lebanon clinic, where he was neutered, said he needed surgery to flip the eyelid and lashes off that eye, a condition known as entropian.  I reached out on Facebook for help.  This cat should not be living life as a stray.  I'd also been contacted at the same time by a woman interested in adopting Valentino.  She volunteers for a rescue group in Portland.  They agreed to take Valentino and Mac.  Valentino would be adopted by the fosterer for the rescue and Mac would go to the rescue proper to get his eye surgery.

He got his eye surgery but both boys tested positive for FIV.  Valentino had previously tested negative.  The woman kept him nonetheless and his name now is Ziggy.  Mac was transferred to OHS after his surgery.  I didn't know he was going to be sent there and immediately became worried, due to shelter paranoia (a major cause of feline death is shelter euthanasia).  I got his intake ID number and contacted OR Humane.  I got no response to my e-mail inquiry, sent yesterday, but today, Mac-a-roni appeared on their website--up for adoption.

 View former Albany stray Mac-a-Roni on Oregon Humane's website!

 Mac, former Albany stray, now at Oregon Humane, awaiting a home.  Below, the pregnant stray from same location, now lost in Eugene.

It was also Rocky who found the pregnant stray female, whom a Eugene rescue volunteered to take in, then promptly lost.  That girl is still missing in Eugene.  If you live near Maxwell, Bushnell or Labona Drive in Eugene, please watch for her.  She's had kittens by now.