Cat Eyes---A Cat Woman's Photos: Two Weeks and 30 Cats Later.....

It was two weeks ago to the day, when I got the call. A woman was on the phone. She wanted me to take in a dozen kittens. I said I could not do that, that I only get cats fixed. She said the kittens were starving and she had no money to buy food.

I went up there the same day and took two 16 lb bags of cat food. I also trapped two kittens, a little gray tux and a Siamese female. And my Lebanon friend and I picked up four tiny kittens, one of whom had made a jump from a crawlspace opening down to concrete, four feet below. The other three, were lined up behind the hinged board that covered the hole, ready also to make the plunge. They'd lived their lives thus far in total darkness. I grabbed all four.

The next evening I came back. I had a few extra FCCO reservations for Friday. I intended to catch four adults. That night, however, another family member was there, who lives in a room in a shop and told me they intended to shoot the kittens, They'd already dug the hole where they'd bury them.

I stayed most of the night and trapped 14 more. 20 in those two days.

The number is up to 30 now, with the last two kittens caught tonight. Through it all, not one of the four adults on property has lifted a finger or even bothered to check a trap. In fact, many times they behave as if my presence there is an imposition on them. I've given them four big bags of cat food now also. I have to swallow quite a lot in such situations. Most of the unwanted cats were offspring or offspring of offspring of their own tame cats. I got three of those fixed, too. There are three unfixed owned tame males still out there. They might "let me" fix two. Like I say, I have to swallow quite a lot.

Now I need homes for these kittens. One was taken to OHS by the woman who very briefly fostered him. Three were taken into foster by an FCCO volunteer. Another two are being fostered in Salem. Safehaven Humane took in four. Heartland Humane took in one. One is in foster in Lebanon. And the rest, well they're here.

I have Freddie, the wildest, a brown tabby male teen, now fixed. I have his brother Snow, freshly caught tonight, soft as silk, white as snow, a little boy. I have Juliet, a young black tux long hair girl with a black button nose. I have a Lynx Point Siamese girl, caught tonight also, not yet named. I have Ava, a gray long hair female and her four young kittens. She's nursing them. They're out in the garage in a cage. And I have Polly, a black and white mottled young female kitten, who wasn't doing well in foster.

It is quite a lot of work, all these kittens. Polly must be fed a fluid/food mix every few hours. Boy is it a lot of work.

So I let Juno out into the population. She at first was ecstatic, sniffing noses with everybody. Then she met my nasty cats and is now hiding behind the frig. She wants to go back into her sanctuary, the bathroom, but the door is closed, because Snow and the Siamese are in there now. Sam is in a frenzy of insecurity, marking up a storm, getting into it with the other cats. He needs some extra attention, reassurance. I need to move out some kittens. Finding rescues and shelters to take them is not easy.

I'm done up there, unless they contact me back about fixing the tame males. But see, I'm just not inclined to go all the way up there again and get them contained when they won't for their own cats. I've saved the kittens. I've fixed the females and most of the males and if they don't make any effort to get their own males to me to be fixed, their males will roam off next spring, looking for females, and they'll never come back.