Remembering the Dead

I've been flea treating my cats again, a routine and unpleasant experience here.

I usually chase them down with a net, after limiting their range.  I close off a bedroom, for instance, and get the ones in there.  This is time consuming and traumatic on them and me, unless I'm super efficient.  They get wormed at the same time.  I keep Profender tubes ready, for the ferals.  I love Profender, for getting tapeworms.  None of trying to get them to swallow nasty tasting prazaquantal, in tablet or powder.

Lately I flea treat differently.  I tied open a trap,  inside, feed in it, and when I'm watching TV., at random times I take off the bungee holding the trap door open and instead, prop it up with a full water bottle.  I tie a string around its neck and run it to my chair.  I simply yank the string to pull out the water bottle when one of the cats who needs flea treatment is in there eating.

Shady eating in the live trap, Sam on the counter

For those wilder ones who hang out mostly in the cat yard, I do the same, only attach a remote control to the trap, to spring it from the kitchen.

It's not hard to flea treat a cat in a trap.  I just wait.  Soon enough, in their outrage, they bump their head on the top of the trap and I'm ready and get the flea treatment and Profender on.

It's usually a two minute time they spend in the trap.

As I was catching some that way last night, Button in particular, who is over 11 years old now, I began to wax nostalgic.  The cats here are so old.  My dear brother sister pair, Panda and Soloman, are 14 now.  They're all so very elderly.  Gave me pangs of sadness, but also made me happy to think of our lives together.

Here are some of the cats whom I loved who have died in the last three years after spending their lives with me, or at least part of their lives.

Jade died a couple years ago.  I'd gotten a whole lot of cats fixed at the house on the corner of two busy roads in Millersburg.  Then they called me again, that a black cat had kittens in the corner of their garage and they didn't want any of them.  I briefly caged them there in their garage, trying to get them to take some responsibility, as they never had done so, but in the end, brought them all here.   Jade's kittens got homes, but Jade, a petite cat with splayed rear legs from some long ago injury, remained with me.  She had many friends, was joyful, playful and loving to her cat friends.  She took on Calamity in the last years, and Calamity was so thrilled to finally have a best friend.  Jade loved everyone.  Jade died of jaw and mouth cancer.

Jade, on the right, remained playful even as she grew old

Chessie died last year too.  I never knew how old Chessie was.   I caught her outside a low income apartment complex.  She'd once been owned but then tossed and left like trash.   I got her fixed, then returned her, but later, when a neighbor threatened cats there with a crossbow, I went and retrieved her.  Chessie was such a clown when younger, but faded rapidly after kidney disease started  in.  She then suffered a stroke.  I have no idea how old Chessie was as she had lived, or rather, existed, outside that apartment complex after being abandoned for some time.

Chessie

Gretal was my little sweetie. I spent three days trying to trap her on highway 34 between the old Safehaven and Columbus street, after seeing her walking the shoulder of the highway with her brother, an orange tabby, Hansel.  The wind was howling in a freezing windstorm.  I basically camped out along the highway.  I caught Hansel first, then a tame black female, who got a home, and finally, after three days, Gretal.  It was only way later, only a few years ago, I learned they probably came from the large colony fed, but not fixed at the farm house across from Columbus.  Hansel and Gretal went to a Salem woman, but she brought Gretal back here, suddenly, when she and her mother wanted to go on vacation.  It was very hard on me, because I'd been evicted and had to move here and was in such turmoil and exhaustion from moving.  Gretal remained with me until her death, from complications arising from IBD.  She was an old lady by then.

Gretal

Amiable Poppy died also.  Poppy suffered most of her life with bouts of herpes colds.  She'd had all her teeth pulled too and pulling one upper had left her with a hole in the bone into a sinus cavity which caused such problems for her with recurring infections.  Poppy died here, after a long life, most of it spent following me around like a puppy.  She loved to be petted, but did not want on my lap.  I trapped Poppy at a nearby apartment complex, where people get cats, don't fix them and leave them on their own.

Poppy

I loved Honey.  She was extremely well loved here by the other cats.  She was from a Corvallis homeless camp.  I'd sneaked into the camp late, on the side I considered more dangerous, when they were all laid out drunk, to snatch kittens.  It was easier and safer that way.  Honey was one of the kittens I netted or hand grabbed in the dark of night there, a little older than is good for ease of taming.  She went to a home once and I was skeptical, because she had no other cats and Honey loved other cats, being born to a large family in the  woods.  Two months later, the young woman returned Honey, citing her loneliness.  Honey became ecstatic to see she was home, so ecstatic she ran in circles, then ran to each of her friends here to greet them and touch noses. I'll never forget that, because it also changed a lot of my perceptions about adoption.  How can we split cats from their best friends and family, particularly wildish cats.  Honey never left again, until she displayed extreme sudden weight loss.  The vet determined she had many many problems from her blood work that likely meant lymphoma.

Honey on the left, with one of her good friends, and she had a zillion of them--Oci.

Meesa was a wild girl from the start.  She lived at a notorious house in Albany, where they fed cats.  I got so many fixed there over the years and took in lots from that house, including Tiny Tim, who flopped up to a trap.  His knee had been mangled by a dog.  Tiny Tim's leg was amputated and I flew him to his new home in Huntington Beach, leading to my three hour vacation, while there.  Kate and Tim now live in Washington and I can't believe that was over 9 years ago.  Anyhow Meesa had kittens in a utility room there.  A neighbor there also wanted to kill the cats, so I brought her and her four kittens here.  The boy kittens got homes but Fantasia and Echo, the Quirky Sisters, were and are strange and remain here also.  Meesa developed a tumor in her belly and died this year too.

Meesa

Lucy was not here long.  When the new owner of a cat crawling Sweet Home trailer park declared war on cats there, I went up (again) hoping to save them all.  Lucy already had an ear tip and survived eating garbage there.  When she ended up in a live trap, skinny, dehydrated and with diarrhea, I asked Courtney, at Heartland, if she should be euthanized.  Courtney said "No, it could just be worms" and it was.  However, she was very very elderly.  Two years later, and much love during that time, (she liked to give hugs and ride on my shoulder) old Lucy could no longer control her bladder or bowels and Heartland, where she was first given treatment, kindly gave her a way out.

Lucy

Calamity came from not far from here.  Her sister and brother, both Siamese mixes, got homes, but not Calamity, who was a muted torti, not a pretty Siamese.  Calamity yearned for acceptance here.  I could pet her, but not hold her or pick her up.  She finally found a best friend in Jade.  When Jade died of cancer, Calamity became extremely depressed.  She hurt her knee badly and I rushed her rto the vet.  She was also badly dehydrated.  The vet could not figure out why.  Kidneys were fine, no high white count and finally determined she had cancer.  With her bad knee, which would have required amputation and cancer, Calamity checked out.  Her ashes are in a small wood box next to Jade's.

Calamity

Tilly was a beloved member of a 9 cat group that came here from the grounds of a local business.   She was quite feral and I'd only see her when she ate or startled away from me or when I caught her for flea treatment or vet care.  However she was well loved by her cat friends here especially her lookalike brother, Rogue.  Tilly suddenly experienced a heart event that led to a saddle thrombosis.

Tilly

Miss Daisy, my beloved.  I still grieve for my beloved best friend Miss Daisy.  I can't write about her without tears flooding and an overwhelming desire to hear her mischievous yowls of delight over just about anything.

Miss D-love you forever!

I will never ever regret helping all these cats and taking them in, providing them vet care and a happy comfortable home.  I call them "The Family".  I love them.