The Good Year

This year has been a good year thus far.

Many cats have received dental care.

Mops, Buffy, Tugs and Chessie all received dentals at Heartland.   Heartland says once kitten season dies down, if it ever does in the valley, they will help again.  This is great news!!   Those trips to the affordable clinic on the north coast are killer!  Even the times I stayed the night in a campground, with the cats, to make it easier, were a bit much.

Tugs is approaching 10 years of age.

Slinko had two dentals early in the year.  The first came when he began to cry out, when he yawned.  However, he had only one tooth pulled and was still crying out.  So he went to Heartland, who pulled four or five more.  I have not been back to the local clinic who missed so many bad teeth and wonder now about other cats done there, if they had bad teeth overlooked.

So I began again making the long trek to the N. coast and the affordable clinic there.   It's very tough to know what goes on in the back of a vet clinic, if good work is going on or if anything is even done that you pay out your precious dollars to get done.  And the amount you pay out has nothing to do with the honesty of the clinic either.

Found that out the hard way with Gretal, who went to a local clinic.  The vet called me and wanted to euthanize her because she had bad teeth.   I said "No, do your job, you're getting paid to pull her bad teeth."  I didn't say it that way, but the vet was clearly upset he couldn't euthanize her.  So he pulled a few teeth and allegedly cleaned out her ears of mites and applied acurax which has a lifetime warranty for mites.

However, it was under a month before she was drooling pus again.  I took her to a different vet.   The expensive clinic she had gone to previously, with the bill paid by a donor,  had not pulled her teeth, just broken them off.  The roots were still in her gums and since she had the allergy to her own tooth lining, they were causing issues, as well as all her other teeth.  All her teeth were removed. But her ears were boiling in mites, one month after she allegedly had a thorough ear cleaning with the mite meds.   I was not happy.  But after getting good care at the next vet, in two visits, she was doing great, gained weight and lives here still, happy and chirpy, at 9 years of age now---one of my toothless wonders.

Gretal, doing well and very happy

So it's a crap shoot, to find a good vet, in my opinion and what they charge, high or low, doesn't mean a damn thing in figuring it out.

Who else received dental care this year, besides Mops, Buffy, Tugs, Chessie and Slinko?   Blueberry, Raindrop, Haley, Sassy, Tilly, Alexi, Stiletto, Honey, Fantasia, Molly, Echo and Mums.

Slinko and the Sunflowers

17 cats thus far.  That's not an easy feat, financially or logistically speaking.  There are currently no clinics in the mid valley I can afford.  Gotta keep that car running!  Heartland's move to change their mission statement, not only to include population control but also limited vet care help, made me jump for joy!

 Given the number of cats last year, too, who received dental care, the cats needing care here are almost up to date.  Only a handful of the herd still need dental check ups, and with Heartland Humane's help, I hope we can get them all in before the end of the year.  Now that would be something to celebrate!

Stomatitis, or as we refer to it, the allergy to a cats' own tooth lining, is widely recognized as contagious, due to its likely cause being an overgrowth of a certain bacteria in the mouth.  Just ask Hawaii cat people.  Just ask me, who sees it in colony families or in close knit groups of cat friends who groom one another.  Therefore, when one of the Albany business cats had it, I knew it was likely most of them suffered.  But now all 9 have had dental care.  The older cats all suffered from it and most had all or most of their teeth removed.  Only some of the younger cats in that group did not have severe inflammation requiring all their teeth to be pulled.

When one cat has it, I watch to see who they are close with and who grooms who.

The other common feline tooth problem is FORLS, which is highly painful.  their teeth disintegrate from the inside.  A few of the cats here, including Slinko, Starr, Honey, Teddy and Molly suffered from that.  I wonder about that too, since Starr, Teddy and Honey are related and so are Slinko and Molly.  But it is very common and some think there is a relation to excess Vitamin D in the diet, the amount included of which is not regulated in commercial cat food.  The jury is still out on that.

The population here is aging.  The ancients, Vision and Miss Daisy, 21 and 15+ respectively, are still going strong too.

I'm aging too, by the way, although not so much emotionally.  LOL!  That's a joke.

Kitten season in the valley has been horrendous.  As people begin their usual tactics of dumping excess kittens and pregnant house cats, new feral colonies will form from survivors, when people, who feel sorry for the unfortunate cats,  feed them, but don't move to fix the cats they feed.  The problems here  for animals are associated with ignorance, heartlessness, drug use and poverty.

Will things ever change?  I wish they would.  I see all the free kitten ads everywhere and wish I still had Poppa money, like I used to, and I'd call up those ads, like I used to, and try to talk them into letting me pick up all their cats, males, females and any kitten over two pounds, to take to be fixed, so at least those kittens, given away free, usually to the same types of people who let them be born in the first place, don't go on to reproduce in their new home, too.

But I don't have Poppa money to do that anymore.  So I try not to look, or I'll go nuts I swear.

Meesa still needs a dental check up

Comet, an older boy at 10.   But, he has excellent teeth!

Brambles is older too.  His former caretaker, out at the Hate Thy Neighbor colony, old Gordon, died last year.

Bluebell, from the Lebanon Colony of 60.  Many of the cats I have from that horrible situation are becoming tame.  Go figure.

My brother calls this place Disneyland for cats.  What cat would not love it here?  We grow our own catnip, for gosh sakes.  They have it good and so they should.  What they have suffered before coming here I can't take back.  The human species can behave with brutality towards other species.  But I will continue to try my best to make it up and show them the human species isn't all bad.

When I think that 17 cats have received dental care where they also get updated on vaccines, worming, nails trimmed and ears cleaned, so far this year, plus I've stopped reproduction by fixing several colonies AND gotten many kittens and adults into the capable hands of other shelters and rescues, I am HAPPY!  I'd been down lately, over some deaths, and feeling inadequate on several levels (the usual), but when I review accomplishments thus far, and it's never easy for me, because of my circumstance, I'm doing ok here.

Thank you to those who have donated to The Happy Cat Club and made it happen for the cats!!  Wish I could throw a great big party for all of you and for me.  We got reason to celebrate!