Grueling Cat Fixing Marathon. But...19 More Fixed!

Off I went intent as usual to save the feline world, by rounding up cats to be fixed.  Saturday was the round up day.  Sunday the spay appointment day.  Today and for the next couple of days--recuperation for me because I am totally worn out. The days prior were spent in endless phone calls of arranging things.

Round up did not go as easily as planned.  Originally I had made 12 appointments at the S/nipped clinic, clear down in Coos Bay. Then more people called, desparate for help, and more.  I asked to up my reservations to 15, then to 17. I ended up with 19 in my car and with twenty on a wait list.

I had been referred to one house in Lebanon by KATA.  I thought they had three unfixed females.  I believe they had contacted KATA wanting to give them up, but KATA asked if they would keep them if they were fixed and that was an affirmative.  However, when I arrived to pick up the pregnant female, the only one of the three I could get done this trip, due to space limitations, the woman was not home, only her brother, who isn't so good with cats.  And the house had lots of unfixed cats, not merely three.  I had to help them find and contain the pregnant torti, Kiki.  Then I grabbed a male to take too, for good measure, to get a start on this.  I grabbed Scottie, a young long hair buff orange tux.  He scratched me on the way into the carrier, which I only noticed later.  I was late by then, behind on the cat round up.  And the weather was freezing.

I went clear to S/nipped because it is tough to find low cost high volume spay neuter in the area where I live. In fact, it doesn't exist here outside of Heartland Humane's surgery clinic.  I get a few in there, but not very many.   For ferals, the Portland FCCO clinic is easy to use and they are good to me.  But for the tame ones, whose owners don't want the mandatory right ear tip given at the FCCO clinics, a universal sign a cat has been fixed, there are few local options.  But I can't make the S/nipped trip again.  I'm getting old and it is a marathon, grueling, painful, hard on me.  It is also hard on my car, that now has over 216,000 "cat miles" on it, almost all garnered from transporting other people's cats for spay surgery or to homes.   I've kind of done myself in, on the car thing, by helping others so much, putting so many miles on it.  What am I going to do when it dies, I wonder.  How will I even get groceries, cat litter?   Anyhow, the car ran jagged and rough on the way home.  Almost like it did before a coil pack failed once before.  I don't know if I got some bad gas down in Coos Bay or if the cold affected engine performance or just what.  But I started getting worried I might not make it home.  Then what, I thought, with so many cats in the car and the weather freezing and half the road home a cell phone dead zone.  I can't make that kind of trip with its risks again.  It's sad, because there are few options up in the valley for low cost spay neuter.  This should not be at all.

This round up was another extreme reminder of the extreme need for low cost high volume spay neuter and the funds to get the cats fixed regardless of whether or not an owner or caretaker can donate a dime.  Want to control this tragic overpopulation problem?  Then we have to fund spay neuter efforts.  Simple as that.

Kiki, pregnant at spay, the torti, from Lebanon.

Kiki again, recovering from anesthesia.

Scottie, a little male, sleeping off anesthesia.

Next, I headed off to pick up another Lebanon male from a Lebanon apartment complex.  A couple weeks ago, I got seven fixed from one apartment there.  Raptor, a severely polydactyl silver tabby male, was fixed yesterday from a different unit.  He is so polydactyl if you saw him, you'd wonder if cats are not beginning to evolve opposible thumbs and that would be scary for us.

Evolving Lebanon male Raptor!

There I also met up with a Lebanon cat wrangler, Veronica, who had wrangled out two more females, Pride and Monday, who needed fixed.  She had been told they were males.  A woman's son left them so the woman took them in but thought they were boys.  Not!

Pride, I think, might be mixing up their names, but she was fixed yesterday.

And I think this one of the pair is Monday, a black female, fixed yesterday.  She is sleek and gorgoues.

To round out the six fixed from Lebanon yesterday is Fifi, a sweet brown tabby female kitten.  

Now, let's talk about the six Benton County cats who made the trip with me.  One, the big Monmouth stray manx male, Sunny, is still here.  His caretaker is working today and I got back too late last night for her to drive down.  He has a perfectly round hole through one ear, likely caused by a BB or pellet.  He is big and lovable.  She said she's fed him for a long time.  She feeds too many and the males fight and now she is getting them all fixed.

Sunny, the white and black manx stray.

Sunny again, coming out of anesthesia.

I'd also run into a woman some time back at Heartland, picking up cat food for her cats.  I asked her if they were fixed and she said they were not.  I gave her my number.  She called finally, because they're spraying.  She had a neighbor needing help getting his constantly in heat female fixed, too.  So three from that complex in Corvallis made the trip to be fixed yesterday.

Black Corvallis male Houdini, fixed yesterday.

Tabby tux female Morticia, fixed yesterday.

Black male Mr. Bell, fixed yesterday, from Corvallis.

Besides Sunny, from Monmouth, and the three from Corvallis, two Philomath kittens, originally from Albany, Mac and Cheese, were fixed.  The couple said they got them from a filthy Albany apartment on 34th st. and that they had other cats too.

Mac, fixed yesterday, now resides in Philomath.

Cheese, Mac's brother, is lucky to have found such a good home!

That takes us to the final seven I took down with me, yesterday morning, leaving when it was so cold frost coated the road.  Those seven were from two households in Albany.  All are fixed at the one house now, where live four I took to be fixed yesterday.  But at the other, where a man had contacted me, claiming his grandma had two cats needing fixed, two still need fixed.  Because there were not just two unfixed cats there, there were four, plus another at the grandson's house.  I took three.  They were not ready to go when I stopped to pick them up.  And when I was helping her find them, I asked who all those other cats were under her bed.  One she got at Safehaven and the rest aren't fixed, she said, including one she intended to breed.  Wrong word to use in front of me.  I stopped short and told her I don't help people who breed more cats.  "There are too many," I said.  She quickly agreed to getting all four unfixed ones with her done.  But, she got scratched badly getting Garfield into a carrier and wanted to quit, before I could get that female, the one she mentioned wanting to breed. So I want to get her in somewhere quickly.  We don't need more cats in this area.

Three were fixed from that house, instead of the two I thought I was going to pick up.  Two boys, Sugar and Garfield, and Tabby, a little tabby tux teen girl.  The female still needs fixed, plus another male at her grandson's place.

Garfield under anesthesia.

Sugar, a darling little Siamese mix boy, fixed yesterday.

Tabby, a sweet natured  female kitten, fixed yesterday.

Then all four from the other Albany location were fixed, a mother, and her three adult "kittens".  She loaded Galaxy, the mom, into my car in one carrier, and the two adult boys and their sister, in another big carrier.  The two boys, both Siamese, were fighting inside the carrier, with each other, before I even got home with them.  Poor Tori, the girl, was cowered at the front, trying to escape her brothers hormonal issues.

I seperated them once home.  Samson, the chocolate point, was a very vocal sometimes hissy spitty boy, down and back, but then you know how Siamese can be.

Tori, the sister, fixed yesterday.

Samson, the vocal boy, who fights with his own brother (probably over breeding rights to his own mom and sister)!  Glad that's all stopped!

Galaxy, the super petite mom to Samson, Tori and Chubby, now spayed.  She can get on with her life!

Chubby, the other fighting brother.  I told him "Now your real life begins!  You're going to read books and solve world problems."  (probably not, but.....)

So ends another round up.  19 more local cats fixed and I am very very worn out.  I did not get done last night delivering cats back to various owners, from Lebanon to Corvallis, until 11:30 p.m.  Done in I am! Sunny, the Monmouth stray manx, is supposed to be picked up here soon.  Then it's off to bed again for me.