Team Effort Sweet Home cats

 The team effort to fix those Sweet Home cats fast, with kitten season roaring in Oregon already, began with the effort to fit them into the clinic yesterday after the residents of the property had hand grabbed most of the 13 caught Wednesday evening.  Thank you FCCO.

Then it was Karen from Portland meeting me in Keizer Wednesday evening to take them the rest of the way to Portland and then taking them to the clinic yesterday morning.  After the clinic she picked them up and drove them all the way to my place, last night, to recuperate here for the night.  This was welcomed by me, because my back had gone south again yesterday evening.  Overdid driving on Wednesday, preceded by two days of labor to make my place spotless and perfect for an inpsection that lasted, when it happened, all of ten minutes or so.

That's life.

My back doesn't like to drive long distance.  It's the odd angle my foot must cock backwards on the gas pedal, to keep speed steady.   I think I might need cruise control and a new car seat too.

Today I took three more cats up to be fixed at the Salem clinic.   I had the 12 from Sweet Home in my garage recuperating.  Only 12 because they relinquished one kitten to FCCO's Kitten Caboose program, so she was fixed at the clinic yesterday, but then went to OHS for adoption.  This is her, when at Karen's for the night on Wednesday.

Yesterday I tried hard to get five cats for today's Salem reservations.  The 13 Sweet Home cats were up in Portland getting fixed there.   I thought I had five to take, with two males coming from a trailer park in town and another big male from another Albany location and a female coming from Sodaville.  

The rural Albany lady with the big male needing fixed had my trap awhile and was supposed to feed wet food in it set not to spring then use a water bottle with line to catch him.  That method makes it easy to catch the cat she wanted to catch and not the two fixed ones.  Apparently that didn't happen and she said in a text two nights ago she was going to leave the trap set all night.  I asked how in the world that would work, that she'd just catch the other two already fixed cats, or a skunk.  I told her if she caught a skunk she'd be buying me a new trap.   So she took the trap inside, she said.  I'm supposed to pick it up today.  If its skunked, I won't be a happy person.

I don't know why people don't just follow the advice of someone who has done this forever and a day.  They'd catch their cat really easily.

Anyhow, the trailer park lady with the two males got sick, so couldn't go after them. So the only cat I had lined up by Thursday, for my Friday five reservations, was the Sodaville girl.

So I went up to Sweet Home, to try for the two still unfixed at the Wheelchair Man's colony.  15 there are now fixed. There was no food or water out when I arrived.  There were duck eggs in one of the cat beds too, but no sign of the ducks, who waddle up from a neighbors pond to gobble cat food, and the eggs were broken up.

I saw the male I was after and caught him.

Choppers is being fixed today

I saw the other unfixed cat but about that time Wheelchair man came outside.  This time he was on another rant about 'I'll run out of cats if you fix them all', which is ridiculous.  Again I said "not if you take care of them".   I had told him the first time I arrived I get them all fixed or none fixed.  And he'd agreed to that.  I reminded him again, and he went off talking about something else then, but I left anyhow after that, since it would be useless to try for the other cat.

I filled the water dish and put out a lot of food before leaving.

This is a photo of the cat still not fixed at that colony, the only one.  Choppers, the male I did catch, is cat number 16 fixed from there, not counting two kittens removed.

I ate lunch in the parking lot overlooking Foster Reservoir in Sweet Home.  Then I stopped by the Ma's colony, same place the 13 being fixed Thursday came from, to see if they'd caught either of the two tame boys they hadn't gotten Wednesday.  They had one of them, Smokey, a gray boy, so I loaded him up and came home.  

Smokey from the Ma's Colony, getting neutered today.  That's 14 cats fixed from there in last two days.

At 5:00, I headed back to Lebanon to pick up a female from Sodaville and it was then I realized my back was giving out.  I didn't know if I'd make it to Lebanon but I did ok after stretching out some.  But I was in no shape to go out trapping for more.  Karen had arrived by then, from Portland, with the 12 Sweet Home cats, and they would recuperate the night in my garage before going home.

Caia from Sodaville is being spayed today

When I was at the clinic this morning, delivering the three cats I did have, to be fixed, Lisa from Sweet Home, a KATA volunteer, offered to swing by my place on the way home and pick up the 12 Sweet Home cats and return them.  This offer came as a huge relief to me.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to accomplish it myself.   

Savannah, her daughter, had run over to my car there with a carrier to show me five week old kittens, they'd just taken in to foster, from a young woman who'd already given away three other kittens from the same litter.  Lisa was frustrated with that, as the kittens are too young to be given away and also ill with URI's.    There's a lot of frustration involved in rescue of any kind.  People's behavior causes all these problems for cats.

The team effort, in getting those 13 Sweet Home cats appointments to be fixed, caught, then up to Portland and back from Portland, recuperated for a night after surgery, then back home, involved lots of people including myself but the job isn't done there, since they refused spay for four pregnant females, which means an equal or greater number of cats than were just helped will soon be born there.

Here are photos of the 12 cats from Ma's Colony who are now fixed and returning home as I write this.

The boys first:

Now for the 7 girls.

Just another day in the life.......lol.  Have a great weekend!