Thursday, April 06, 2017

If I thought I was busy before......19 cats Fixed Yesterday in Portland

Seems like ages since last weekend.

The three big boys I trapped Saturday night and Sunday, Rowdy from the Farm Colony, then Atticus and Fiji from the trailer park in Sweet Home, were all fixed on Monday in Salem.

After dropping them off to be fixed, I drove down to Harrisburg, loaded with empty traps, on a mission.  Seems a 90 year old woman feeds 15 or 16 cats.  I already had reservations for Wednesday at the FCCO.

I began trapping the moment I arrived and in about an hour, had caught 14 cats.



There's nothing like the FCCO clinic, to be able to fix a large number of cats at a moment's notice.  I love them for that.

I had no more empty traps or carriers left, so I told Hazel and her helper Kim I'd be back on Tuesday.   I was back on Tuesday, a bit worse for the wear, after taking Rowdy back to the Farm Colony.  I still had Fiji and Atticus in my garage, however, along now with the 14 Harrisburg cats.  Caring for 17 extra cats besides my own, isn't easy.

The Harrisburg cats were all worm infested.  I mixed wormer in wet food and the dead worms began coming out.  It was gross.

I was also began immediately working to find placements for at least the two tamest young ones, from Harrisburg, one little boy had a big huge hernia.

Tuesday morning, I left a trap set at the Harrisburg colony and drove back home, to pick up Atticus.  Atticus had been fixed Monday.  He'd been lost as a kitten at the trailer park.  His former owner had him just a week, before he got out and turned wild, but she had his photo and wanted me to find him, which I did.  But she couldn't take him back and he's an adult feral boy by now.  So FCAT had agreed to take him.  I drove back home, got Atticus and then drove to meet FCAT in Eugene again, to hand him over.  On the way home, I picked up the cat, now in the trap, at the Harrisburg colony, number 15 from there.  Hazel and Kim decided 15 was all the cats, and declined to keep one trap set, after I loaded up the little black girl, freshly caught there.
Atticus in my car on the way to Eugene

In the afternoon, I took Fiji back to the trailer park, since he was tame and likely owned somewhere.  It's so hard to know.   If he is not owned, I'll find a place for him later on.

 I picked up three more cats needing to be fixed from one trailer.  They had contacted the FCCO and been screened and they needed fixed, especially with the crack down there, on outside allowed cats.  They have to be fixed and with ID, to free roam now.

On the way home with those three, and it was getting late, and I knew I'd have to be up by 5:30 Wednesday morning, and I was exhausted, the Harrisburg woman calls me.  She is seeing another cat.  Inside my tired brain, a little voice was telling me to tell her to forget it, I'm going home.   I don't give up on catching all the cats that easy.  I can over ride that little "give up" voice.

 I had the trap Fiji had been in, in the car.  I knew I could clean it once there at the colony.  So I headed south instead of home, to Harrisburg yet again.
Another orange tabby tux boy, one of three orange tabbies, fixed yesterday from the trailer park in Sweet Home.

Orange tabby tux girl from the trailer park fixed yesterday

Orange tabby tux boy from the trailer park fixed yesterday

I caught the last cat quickly, down in Harrisburg, after Kim pounded with a spoon on the side of a chair and called loudly "Baby girl!  Come on here, Baby Girl."  She calls them all Baby Girl.  It worked!  Around the corner came the hungry male and made a  beeline for the set trap.  Boom!  Number 16 caught.

I finally got to go home!   But I was up early Wednesday, to load 19 cats to leave for the FCCO.  Fitting 19 cats in my car is much easier now.   A Sodaville woman bought me 8 small tomahawk traps last summer.  So now I have 12 small tomahawks.  I can stack them four across and three high in the back, leaving space in front of them for plenty more!  Traffic was easy enough for a change, surprisingly.  All 19 cats, 16 from Harrisburg and 3 from Sweet Home, were fixed.  What a great day!

My friend Christi arranged for the two young ones, who were tame, including that young boy with the hernia, to go to 2nd Chance Companions.   First, they would be fixed at the FCCO and the little boys' hernia repaired.  Kim had written a note on the anesthesia release she signed, asking for help finding some of them homes.   A long time volunteer trapper was there, bringing a dozen or more cats she'd trapped, and she offered to take four.  She places them as barn cats.   That evening, I would go home without 6 of the 16 Harrisburg colony cats.  I was so pleased.  The FCCO also donated a bag of cat food to give Hazel and my trapper friend who took four of the cats, brought more bags to give her, that afternoon.

These four Harrisburg wild ones went with the barn cat lady, who also donated cat food to give 90 year old Hazel:




And the above girl, and the boy below, got to go to 2nd Chance Companions!  Yes, she needs a bath!


And these ten, (in the photos below) I returned to Harrisburg this morning after taking three more cats to be fixed at Heartland and feeling more like a zombie than a human from exhaustion.  I gave Hazel all the donated cat food, also.  I wish I'd gotten a photo of her waving goodbye, when I left, from the porch.











I had also arranged to get some cats fixed over at Heartland on Thursday, the week before, even before I'd gotten the reservations at the FCCO for Wednesday for the Harrisburg cats.   These are the three girls fixed today at Heartland:

Prim from Albany was fixed today

Cupcake, above, and Tinkerbell, below, from Brownsville, were spayed today too.


Everyone is home now, all the Harrisburg cats, the 3 gorgeous orange kids from Sweet Home are back home.  The three girls fixed today are home.   But I do have extras here.  My cats are so forgiving, of the in and outs.  

A Lacomb property manager brought me cats left behind by an evicted tenant.   He had been unable to find anywhere to take them.   He brought 3 adults and two teens, and four very young kittens of the adult gray female.

I looked at the black female, however, and thought, oh my, she's pregnant.  He and I hefted the trap atop the huge carrier he'd brought the mom and kittens in.  With a mirror and flashlight, I checked for lactation.  Oh no.  I saw milk bags.  I told him of my fears, that she'd already had kittens, or, on the other hand, may be about to have kittens.   He decided to go back to the duplex and under it and search, while I took her over to Heartland.  I knew they could tell if she was still pregnant or had already had the kittens.   Courtney felt her and said "Well, she's about to give birth, is producing milk, so it will be soon."   I looked at her, in awe of her knowledge and skills.   So she added, with a wink, "And she'll have four kittens, two will be girls, two will be boys, 1 one will be black, 1 orange...." then burst into laughter.

I called the kind property management man to tell him, and he said "So I can discontinue the search?"  I said "yes".

  After I got back from Sweet Home and returning the three young orange tabby tuxes, fixed Wednesday, I checked in on the black mom.  I heard a tiny mew, and sure enough, she was having kittens.   As I watched, she had a second.  But two was all there would be.

Both moms with their kittens are going to Animal Rescue and Care Fund in Portland today, if the windstorm going on doesn't stop the trip.  The massive adult male and two black teens, likely from the black mom's last litter, will be fixed Monday and I'll find them somewhere to go too.


Thank you to all who help all these wonderful souls!

5 comments:

  1. I am not surprised you are exhausted. Well done. And please, get some rest. Soon. And thank you so much.

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  2. Anonymous1:57 AM

    I can't believe you have never named a cat Atticus before. Was he a person in Catcher in the Rye, or some other respected American book? The name does suit him. Comment required by you on my Wednesday Wonders post. While checking where you are in relation to the photo in Wednesday Wonders, I saw that Sweet Home is not a trailer park, but a town or city.

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  3. Wow! I'm exhausted just reading about your week. You must have been running on adrenaline. Once again, know that your are making a real difference in the world.

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  4. Thank you! You are amazing. And you took time to post all these wonderful pictures after that. This is what I call exercise, my dear, even if a lot of time is spent behind the wheel. ~hugs~ Well done.

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  5. Anonymous11:56 AM

    It breaks my heart that human beings allow this to even happen. It is easy to prevent this, but easy to "fix" it. Thank you. I mean that. Hugs.

    ReplyDelete

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