Thursday, June 28, 2018

Lost Boys of Albany

I'm finishing up as I start my break.

Yesterday I finally returned Serene, the torti, and her kitten, Gelato, to Gervais.   It's a long drive up there and I wanted the drive to serve two purposes.  A Keizer friend had offered to foster the tame cats of those abandoned by tenants over near the Bird Lady.  So I hoped to have one or two of them to take up.  I wasn't sure Big Mac, one of the abandoned cats, who the Bird Lady already had in her bathroom, was tame enough, however.

 I questioned her at length about his tameness since he had been on his own longer, having been cared for a few houses down from the other now empty house, when they moved and left him and another cat.  That house was demolished.  Big Mac found this next place, likely because they tossed food outside, for their own cats, onto the ground, amidst the junk of their dwelling.  Both places looked similar, almost like garbage dumps.
This is Big Mac, when I took him to be fixed last August.

Well Big Mac is tame but the Bird Lady said he would growl at her at times in her bathroom, and she couldn't pick him up and put him on her lap.  He's not yet shelter material in other words.  Mean time, I got up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning, after sleeping most of the evening before, got dressed and drove over to the vacant house, hoping to catch the orange tabby and the tame brown tabby.   They came running to my car, very very hungry, and I picked up the fat boy tabby but he would not fit into the carrier I'd brought, so I had to put him in my largest live trap to drive him home, while the Bird Lady tried to coax the orange girl into her car.  She had no luck.

We named the tabby Chekov, in keeping with the Star Trek themed names.  I got him fixed way back in February of 2015.  He was their favorite cat at that time.
Chekov waits for food near his former home.

Chekov was too big for the carrier I brought to put him in.  I did drive to Gervais with him and the torti and her kitten, to return them, (they were fixed Monday).  I then drove to Keizer with Chekov, who was welcomed into foster with one of the most trustworthy people I know.
I also caught in a trap yesterday morning, the second unfixed tabby boy.  He looks a lot like Scottie, and is likely Scottie's brother.  We named him Sulu and the Bird Lady said her vet would neuter him that day.   I told her the nonprofit, HCC, would pay.  I knew it would likely be expensive, but it needed done and I have no appointments elsewhere for some time, because of my break.  Off went Sulu and indeed he was fixed yesterday, overnighted in my garage and I'm about to return him to his hood.  He's wild like Scottie, but now fixed.

Sulu
So everyone now is taken care of but the orange tabby girl over there.  The Bird Lady is working on getting her.


The orange tabby girl I got fixed later on after getting others fixed for those folks, when I found out they got her and another little girl.  We haven't seen that other little girl.  I hope they took her with them, but I would be surprised if they did.   They were both fixed in July of 2015.  Big Mac was fixed at the other house last year, in August.

The orange tabby girl, back in July of 2015, when I took her and her sister, in photo below, to be fixed.

We have not seen this girl around her owners former dwelling.  We don't know if they took her with them or just what happened to her.
McCoy, one of the first boys I caught over there, last Friday, along with Scottie, is now safe and sound at Heartland Humane in Corvallis, doing well, and waiting for a home.   I'll tell you, he's a huge boy and a big baby.  You'd love him.  Go adopt him!
Of the mostly Lost Boys, who lived in and around that house, and for all its failures, in structure and tenants, called it home, McCoy and Chekov have faired the best, have the best chance right now of getting something better out of life and I hope they do.

The Bird Lady will take care of Big Mac, Scottie, Sulu and the orange tabby girl for now.  She's a poor soul, not much money, but rich in love to spare.

I'm going to say something about ear tips.  This situation, a mix of tame and wild cats, some fixed, some not fixed, left behind, would have been very difficult to sort out had it not been for the right ear tips, all these cats got,  when I got them fixed.

   I could readily tell who was fixed and who wasn't, look up their records, etc.   A Walmart employee had asked me for my card a few weeks ago, claiming she had more cats that aren't fixed, and many litters.  I'd helped her and her mother before, taking out a bunch of cats, getting others fixed.  Well fast forward to two weeks or so ago, when I had one spot open at whs,  the next Monday and was in Walmart and saw the clerk.  I waited and waited as she chatted with another clerk, me standing there, and finally she looked my way, like some master would glance at a slave, and I stated I  had an opening and could get one of hers done for a start, but that it was an ear tip appointment.  She got all huffy and said "I don't want my cat mutilated.  Ear tips are mutilation."

I was worn out.  My usual response would have been, "Mutilation, an ear tip?  You mean, as opposed to slicing open and ripping out a testicle, or an ovary?"   Instead, I just walked away, leaving my cart with the goods I had been going to purchase behind.

Ear tips save lives.  And make it easy when assholes leave their pets behind like trash, to know who is who and who is already fixed and vaccinated and who probably isn't.  People who care about an ear tip, but cause so much destruction and costs by not fixing their cats, are as shallow as they come.   The cat doesn't care if his or her ear is tipped.  Only a vain human would.

6 comments:

  1. Some people are self entitled, thoughtless and rotten to the core. And other people are like you.
    Thank you.
    Enjoy your much deserved break.

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    Replies
    1. thanks EC. And Sulu turned out to be tame, so today he's going to someone I helped with outside cats before. She's wanted another inside cat. She's going to see if he works out there. I'm really happy.

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  2. You deserve your upcoming break. Too bad you don't enjoy a nicer neighborhood with good folks. ~hugs~ I am glad you have *some* humane helpers in your valiant endeavors.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah its pretty bad in this county, for animals. I had high hopes it would change but doesn't look like it will. Kind of a way of life here, lots of folks have been here for generations and these ways of treating animals get handed down. I think about leaving but its bad everywhere in Oregon that way so I don't know where I'd go. I'd go somewhere with more nature available closer, I guess, so I could get away. I have to drive a long way to get out of the concrete and find any recreation. They call this rural, but this is a freeway town and very sprawled and surrounded by grass seed farms that stretch endlessly and cause horrific allergies when it pollinates and after harvest when they plow the fields in massive clouds of dust that feel like sandpaper to the eyes and clog ones nose with debris. To find quiet, or nature, one must drive long distances, and now vie for parking with a zillion others who frequent the same few places.

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  3. I really hope that these cats find some loving genuine homes, thanks for the share. Your awareness and article posts are great ways to share this problem. Thanks for the share, loved checking out this post.
    World of Animals

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I sure do also World of Animals! Chekov, one of the brown tabbies, has already been placed, with a nurse friend of the nurse practitioner who briefly fostered him. McCoy will get a home eventually at Heartland Humane, where he is now residing. The orange tabby girl is now with the Bird Lady along with Big Mac, the black tux. And Sulu is here, awaiting an option, in my bathroom, relaxing and playing. The problem is finding humans with some character these days, to adopt them.

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