Thursday, April 15, 2021

Got Involved

 I got a call Tuesday evening.

The name seemed familiar but I struggled at first to remember.   I hadn't heard from her in over a year.

It was from one of the two Sweet Home ladies who used to find unfixed cats then meet me with them at Waterloo Park.  I'd get them fixed and return them to them.  They'd return them to whomever they got them from.  They knew a lot of people up there whose cats needed fixed.

She's living somewhere else up there now and had neighbors she said had like 30 unfixed cats who also needed to be gone.  

I posted about it, wasn't going to get involved.  That's just a lot of cats in need of help.

She'd given me a general location.  But she didn't respond yesterday.  So I drove up there and went down one driveway, thinking this must be the place.  There were three or four cottage type residents.  One had people out front.  I said "I'm looking for T, do you know where she lives?  She told me about a bunch of cats near here who need help."

The lady pointed out T's place then said the cats are over there, and pointed through the berry vines, said there's lots of them and a couple of them go after my chickens.

"Is it the next driveway back?" I asked.  She confirmed it was.

I got back out on the highway and turned down the next driveway, ignored the many No Trespassing signs.   I saw a lot of people around the house and in the back, where there were trailers.   

I got out and immediately identified myself as "the cat lady".   One person pushed through the others and started talking.  I knew her, from three other locations I'd trapped cats.   A toddler in only a diaper wandered up dragging a cheeto's bag.  Two or three small dogs were instantly at my feet.  One tried to climb into my car.

I said I'd been told about the cats here by a neighbor and pointed through the berry vines.  Do you need them fixed?   The official renter said "Yes, we sure do".  At first she and the others wanted some gone, then changed their minds and said as long as they are fixed, we'd like them back.  They're all tame, they told me.  Really, I thought, this could be easy.  She said there were about 20.  

I messaged Karen in Portland.  I knew she had FCCO spots today and wasn't sure she had a trapping location.   By this time her trapping location had bailed out, citing illness of caretaker.  She contacted the FCCO, about this new colony, while I filled out the caregiver information form on their website for the woman, who could not get wifi working enough to do it herself.  They had a hotspot.

The FCCO then told Karen they could do up to 20 of the cats today.  Holy cat colony, this wasn't something I could pass up.  

I told the folks and there were more people there than cats, that I would be back.

I drove home then, to load up on traps.  I don't have 20 traps.  And two of mine were out on loan.  I loaded up 15 traps and five carriers, just in case by some miracle I could catch 20.  I got back up to Sweet Home about 4:30 p.m.  I was to meet Karen after she got off work, in Keizer, with the cats I got, and she'd take them to her place, then drive them to the clinic this morning.  She lives only about 15 minutes from the FCCO clinic.

So I couldn't be long catching whom could be caught.  Once there, I handed traps off to half a dozen people, showing them how to lift up the back and advised them to back the cats into the traps.   Things got wild fast.  The atmosphere was party like, with people and little kids and little dogs everywhere and people trying to shove cats into traps.  Some were no good at it and got scratched and dropped the cats who ran off scared.  Some ignored my advice to not bring the cats over to the crowd of noisy people gathered near my car, in their arms, and the cats flailed frightened swinging at anything near, sometimes catching flesh.  

Think about trying to get your own tame cat into a carrier, to go to the vet.  Then imagine, doing that outside, with 20 people or more and kids, talking, yelling, running around.  Imagine getting a cat into a carrier  or trap in a situation like that.  They did great!  "You are warriors," I said, as I got ready to leave.

In the end, I had 13 cats in my car.  Four different people who owned females, refused spay, believing their cats might be pregnant. One cat, a bulging Siamese, was obviously extremely pregnant.  I fed her a couple cans of cat food.  The funny thing was, one of the "owners", of a black short hair female, could not tell their cat from other cats, and at one point shoved her own cat into a  trap, thinking it was someone's male.  I had to tell her that was her cat, having seen her black cat briefly before.   Spay was declined for a torti, the Siamese, a black short hair female and a black long hair female.

 Only one of the cats was relinquished for adoption through the FCCO Kitten Caboose program, a four month old black tux female.  The other three from that litter were in traps in the car too, but they wanted to keep two of those three but couldn't tell them apart to know which was the one they would let go.  

Besides the four females whose spays were refused, two owned males were nowhere to be found after a couple failed attempts by their owners to shove them into traps and a big gray wild male ran off.  I had to get going but 13 cats are getting fixed today up in Portland.  I drove on up to Keizer with them straight from Sweet Home, which takes a little over an hour, after stopping to get a root beer float at the A&W drive in.

I left them two carriers to contain the tame boys today, so they can be fixed tomorrow. I'd already given them two bags of cat food.  Karen has volunteered to drive the 13 back to me this evening.    So....got the call Tuesday evening, 48 hours later 13 of those cats will be fixed.

Not bad.

I have only photo though.  This little girl is really cute and sweet.




10 comments:

  1. Amazing. I do feel sorry for the cats having so many people chasing them. And very happy that you captured (with variable help) as many as you did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, it was wild, which is not an adequate word for what went on, but closest I can come.

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  2. Wow!!!! That's all I've got. :)

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    Replies
    1. It's plenty, Darla. I had to fumble for the words to describe and not be reported.

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  3. Anonymous3:12 PM

    Wow. Thirteen in one hit. I can imagine the chaos. It is a wonder any were caught.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. all three comments tonight, on my post, reflect very well the chaos of yesterday. It was um....hmmmm, words don't come.

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  4. I'm with Darla, Wow! That's some scene you describe.

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  5. For you to do good means dealing with one hell of a lot of profoundly stupid, callous, unreasoning, unreasonable people who have cats coming out their ying-yangs, yet still insist that a few of the females to bear young, perhaps so they can sell them. I suppose the odds of any of these people offering a penny to help with expenses are about nil.

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    Replies
    1. Nil, nada, not going to happen, you're right Snow.

      Delete

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