Tiring

I eventually ended up with five cats from along the highway, 3 kittens and two adults.  I got the two adults fixed, for $40 each, at Heartland Humane.  They remained here two nights and then I released them back where I caught them.   They were of good weight, so they were getting enough food somewhere.

The torbi kitten, caught by a worker at one business, is taming fast.   Her siblings, the black male above, and the tabby below, not so much, but I got way too busy and worn out, trapping late, then trying to catch up on chores here.  I have not had much time to work with them.

They  have the biggest eyes!  The tabby above is the last kitten I caught, in that down pour of last Sunday.

In the meantime, I got a text from a Vancouver rescue.  They had given my number to a woman looking for help with three wilder cats in Albany, that her mom had fed.  Her mom, 91, just had a stroke.  She survived but will be moving to assisted living up in Vancouver now and her house in Albany will be sold eventually.  Good luck on that, I thought, since there are a zillion houses for sale in town.

When I connected with the woman, it turns out I know her mom, because I trapped those three cats for her mom back five years ago.  An abandoned tame female had roamed in pregnant and had them under her shed about six years ago.  She took them to her own vet to be fixed once I trapped the three.  They were young adults then.  

I went over briefly yesterday, to set up the drop trap for pre feeding.  But then she decided, since she's stressed out, to ask a neighbor to feed them for a few weeks, while she gets her moms stuff moved out and sorts out what her mom will want at the assisted living place, moves her up there to it, from the Salem hospital where she is now.  It's a great deal of stress and work to suddenly have placed on your shoulders, especially when she lives so far away, in another state.

Thank goodness I thought, for the cats sake.  She doesn't know what to do with them.  They are light colored which is not good for relocation to a rural setting.  Predators spot the light colored cats so easily.  She wants to do right by her mom, who adored those cats, wild or not.

Her mother had other tame house cats, all taken in as strays.  Her mom can only take two of the tame ones to assisted living and the two lucky ones have been chosen.  Her daughter is also trying to place the other tame ones.

I liked her mom very much when I helped her trap those cats.  Despite being in her late 80's then, she insisted on carrying traps and the like.  Behavior you don't find much even among twenty somethings around here.

I also heard that Skye is now at Heartland.  I trapped Skye over in Lebanon, along with another female and a male, back at the end of May.  She was fed in a neighborhood over run with cats.  The woman feeding her wanted her in a shelter and to get a home, but when I took her in to be fixed, turned out she was lactating.   So Heartland micro chipped her back then, and said she was welcome to come back, to be put up for adoption, at any point.  She had to go back, however, because out there somewhere, she had kittens.

Well, the woman feeding lured in Skye's kitten (only one survived) and Elizabeth's two kittens.  I'd also trapped Elizabeth that night, very very late, in a severe thunderstorm.  She too had been lactating.   Yesterday, all three kittens, now teens, and Skye, were relinquished to Heartland.  Skye gets a new chance and no more street roaming for her.  I am relieved, to say the least.

Skye, when I trapped her late May of last spring.  She is tame and sweet and has had a hard life after someone left her.   She's now at Heartland and I hope she gets an awesome home!  If you want to adopt a lovely sweet girl, go ask for Skye at Heartland Humane in Corvallis!

Last night, I hear a knock on my door.   It was a woman from a few blocks away.  She'd seen two kittens, and grabbed one.  He screamed his head off and the other one skedaddled.  She wanted to borrow a trap to catch the other one.  So I loaned her one.

Later, after returning the two wildish adults, I went over to see the kitten she'd caught already.  He's not feral, just scared, and instantly laid against my chest purring loudly, a little black tux boy.  I hope she can catch the other one.  Someone kicked them out nearby her, is my guess.  Or some friend of someone who lives in all those apartments brought them with him or her, and dumped them out while visiting.

The three highway kittens will be fixed soon.  I'm going to Portland to get it done, because I don't have $120 to do it through Heartland.  And that's the cheapest around here.   I have spent $120 already in the last week getting three cats fixed, one from the N. Albany colony and the two from the highway runners.   These three too are from what I am calling the Highway Runners colony, living along highway 34, not far from the freeway.  That's no place for kittens.

I'm very content with the last two weeks work.  I've helped a lot of cats and a lot of people.   Sure, my nonprofit fund is way down again, but that is what it exists for, to make things work for cats and people.   I hope to find creative ways to fund the nonprofit, to continue to keep at it.  These are cats that need help and people who care for them desperate to find the help getting them fixed.   Once its done, everyone can focus elsewhere and feel better, including the cats.

By the way Cotton, the kitten from the farm/wood lot, is doing well up at Sherry's place.  She fosters through KATA (Kitty Angel Team Adoption).   Cotton is awaiting adoption.  Here's a new photo of her sent to me by Sherry.