Hard Day in a Cold Car. But.....Six More Local Cats Fixed!

Yesterday wasn't easy on my beat up body.  I spent the day crunched up in my cold stinky car waiting for cats to be fixed at the Portland FCCO clinic.

I had 12 reservations.  I had a call from an Albany couple who thought they were feeding ten or twelve cats, mostly males, along with a neighbor around the corner.

I only caught two and then, for whatever reason, everyone else disappeared.  In fact, I never saw any other cats besides these two, caught quickly.  That put me in a bind.  I didn't want to drive all the way to Portland for two cats.  It's not an easy trip for me.  I rarely have anything to do during the day, in colder weather, and often must sit hunched uncomfortably in my car for the day.  Often I sleep or read.  With my foot sore, I could not even go wander around stores and shops.  I did not want to put myself through more suffering for little reason.

Then I was called by a Lebanon woman who had called me before about a stray female and her kittens living on her porch.  She had then told me she thought the female was pregnant again.  I tried to go over at that time, about three weeks ago, but could not find the woman.

 I went over this time after she called again and got the two teens,  but the adult female could not be coaxed out of some bushes.  Later, she called to say she had the adult female inside her place.  A Lebanon friend picked her up and brought her here.  When she picked her up the woman said "Now don't bring her back, find her a home and could that woman bring me some cat food."  My friend explained I could not take on more cats and was very poor so not to expect me to supply her with cat food.  I later told her about the Safehaven food bank.  She has no car, she said, to get there.

However, the cat lucked out and an FCCO volunteer who has a rescue took her on, to adopt out.  Thank you Wilma!  The cat turned out to also be already spayed and is very probably not the mother of the two teens.

The two teens are a boy and a girl.  The Lebanon woman will take care of them.

Lebanon gray and white female fixed Sunday.

Lebanon male teen fixed Sunday,.

The Monmouth woman trying to get all the strays she feeds fixed also called, by chance and wanted to get more fixed.  She had borrowed traps and was trapping.  She caught three, but two turned out to be already fixed.  The only one of the three not already fixed was a big feral brown tabby male.  Now he is fixed.

Monmouth brown tabby male fixed yesterday.

I had been devastated last summer, confounded actually, by antics at an Albany apartment complex.  I was first contacted by a tenant last spring, who asked if I could get the cats she and a neighbor fed, fixed.  I said I would.  But then she claimed that management would likely kill them and if they couldn't go somewhere else, probably best to not bother fixing them.  At the time, I had a vineyard that wanted cats so I told her I did have a place.  But she declined the relocation opportunity then, and also help getting them fixed.  This was crazy.  But it got crazier.

I was contacted by a different tenant there, late in the summer, who was moving out because of the drama of the cats and the tenants who fed refusal to get them fixed.  She was anxious for the cats to be fixed and willing to sign an anesthesia release even though she was moving out that weekend.  I spent most of the night there trapping, with great tenant inteference.  Was like a circus to them, I guess, but it greatly impeded efforts to trap.  I caught six cats, but only two true ferals.  The other four were males, three of them discarded by other tenants who had moved and left them and the fourth actually owned by tenants in the adjacent complex.   They agreed to him being fixed.

Later, I was told, that the feeder woman found homes for the other three tame abandoned males I had taken to be fixed.  I was really happy about that.  But not so happy the rest had not been fixed.  One of the females had a litter late last fall.  Two of those are still there also needing fixed now.

The main feeder woman promised to use her own trap to catch the four other ferals. I rigged it for her to make it easy to selectively trap.  Afterwards, however, she would not return my calls.  I finally went over, a month later, to see what was up, to find her trap on her front porch, with the rigged device attached.  She had not even tried to feed in it and catch the others.  She was hostile to me.  I asked the other woman, who lives next door, and is home all day, to then selectively trap.  She said she would but then never contacted me back.  It was frustrating and futile.

Then I got an e-mail from someone whose daughter lives there.  Management by late October had decreed the cats could no longer be fed.  There was nothing I could do, since the main feeders would not contact me or return calls but I forwarded the e-mail to the city.  I heard nothing more.

Until the mayor contacted me a couple weeks back, to say the feeder tenants had been evicted and the one with a trap wanted to donate her trap to me.  I thought, "oh gosh" and told the mayor because of that woman with the traps' behavior, I didn't want it.

 I contacted Meow Village and despite lack of funds and overwhelming demand, they were willing to take these cats if they could be caught.  The feeder woman returned my call this time, when I told her about Meow Village being willing to take them and we just had to catch them, so the unfixed ones could be fixed, and then all taken to Meow Village.  That was ten days ago.  She was all gung ho, said she was out of the apartment there, due to her eviction, into a new place but had paid an extra month so she could hopefully find the cats a place.  I thought she meant it. She said she'd do whatever it took to catch them. I told her I had reservations this Sunday for the unfixed ones to be fixed and set it up for Saturday night.

Everything had changed by Saturday night.  I urged her to start setting the trap early.  But she did not answer when I called her.  She was supposed to have been feeding inside her own tied open trap for the past 8 days.  They should be easy to trap if she'd done so.

I finally got ahold of her late and again urged her to set the trap.  She caught one cat.  I went over to pick her up and transfer her to my trap.  The cat was freaked out and I was fairly sure had been left out uncovered in the trap.  But I said nothing and urged her to reset the trap.  Well she tried, but the plastic piece in the trap was over the trigger plate so the trap would not set.  I pointed this out and she got mad and snapped at me.  I then saw that she was using about one tiny flake of tuna as bait, dropped into an empty cat food can and suggested she use a paper plate, so the bait could be seen and much more bait than one tiny piece of tuna.  She again snapped back at me.

I had had a hard day.  This was too much.  To have been so eager, in thinking she was totally into catching them this time, even had said I could be in that apartment to do it, believing her, believing she had fed in a trap for a week, which would make it so easy to catch them, and suddenly to realize none of this had taken place and that it was last summer all over again and that she may be dedicated to making this fail and maximizing my suffering in attempts to help her and these cats out, I wanted to sob.  I said nothing. But I knew it wasn't going to happen.  I left, with the one cat.

I had to be in Portland early with the cats I had.  Nine in all.  She didn't catch any cats all day Sunday. I don't think she even tried.  By Sunday night, she was texting me her excuses,  intent on blaming me and her work schedule.  I was upset. They could be saved. I knew now that was not going to happen and she had saddled me with a single cat, who cannot be relocated alone and what was I going to do now.  This was all so unfair, to me and to the cats.  It still is, although the mayor is going to ask management if I can just be there and trap them.  Haven't heard yet.  It really all totally sucks.

The lone female was fixed yesterday.  Also fixed were the two females I caught at the supposed ten cat colony, where I only saw the two, but at least they are fixed now.

This is her and I don't know what is to become of her if her family members cannot be caught.  You cannot relocate a feral alone, without their family.  Feral relocation rarely works anyhow, but if you do not relocate a family together, the cats are as good as dead.

Tame abandoned Albany female, fixed yesterday.

This is the one surviving offspring of the Siamese mix tame female, abandoned in Albany.  This tabby on white teen girl was fixed yesterday.  Her brother was hit and killed on Salem Road a few days ago.

I feel like I failed the cats in both situations. I am tired today, tired like I've been run down by a bulldozer.  Half of that is the despair over what happened with the apartment cats who could have been saved were it not for their lord and master, the woman who was evicted for feeding them, but would not get them fixed, back last summer and seems to not want them saved even now.  I cannot understand.

While in Portland, uncomfortably shifting around in that car, cold and cramped and sore, I got out and hobbled around a little to take some photos.  The clinic is located in an industrial area of Portland.  People dump trash, as they do here, in locations where they feel they can get away with doing so.  This area is one of those trash dump sites.

Berry vine buried street sign.

Razor wire protected.

I watched 60 Minutes last night and it was depressing.  More complete dishonest nonsense from big business.  This time, it's the three big credit rating agencies that hold Americans by the balls.  This report exposed the massive numbers of mistakes on consumer credit reports held by the three large credit rating companies.  Your credit report gets checked when you apply for any loan and often when you apply for a job.  One out of ten Americans has a credit report error.  And, there is no real method for a consumer to change mistakes.

60 Minutes interviewed whistle blowers whose jobs had been working for the big three credit report companies, to review consumer attempts to right wrongs on their credit report.  It was just shocking.  There is no checking out consumer error complaints or remedying errors.  The three former employees always  judged in favor of the banks who made the error.  They never made calls, or did any investigating of the errors.  It's terrible, horrible, fraudulent and, according to one state attorney general, against the law.

They hold your fate in their hands and they don't care. It's ridiculous and depressing.

You can view the report here.

Oh, and by the way, the credit reports sent to you, when you request them from the big three credit report companies, are not the same reports they send to creditors who request them.  Yeah.  Fraudulent all the way.  You can forget that common suggestion made that you check your credit report once a year.