Wild Day

 I had a very busy day yesterday.

First off, I headed out to the Crabtree colony.  Keithas Kitties said they had five appointments for these cats at the clinic they use out in McMinnville.  I already had five cats lined up for my spots at the Salem clinic.  

I meant to be there by 7:30 but when I set that time with the caretakers, I had forgotten about the time change, moving clocks forward an hour, losing an hour.  Consequently, it was closer to 8:30 a.m. when I drove in.  

The rain had pounded heavily all night and the winds were whipping branches and anything not nailed down around.  This will be fun, I thought.  Rain can be helpful trapping cats if they have a dry spot they'll run to, to get out of it and you can set traps in that dry spot.  Bored cats mean good luck trapping.  But wind is another thing and makes cats alert and nervous, with all the sounds and movement.

I saw the calico briefly, on the back deck, who had been so pregnant Thursday evening when I first saw her.  She was no longer pregnant, so had her kittens out somewhere.

The caretaker said its usually in one of the two sheds.

There were only four cats milling around, none of them fixed.  I caught three of them quickly.  Two grays, one of them for sure a male, and another buff and white.   When no one else showed up I left, leaving two traps set.  By 1:00 p.m., the caretaker said there was a cat in each trap.   Later I went to get them.  Another gray and white (two gray and whites are already fixed there) and an orange tabby.

The cats don't need named at the McMinnville clinic.

Marmalade, a boy

Matell, a boy

Peaches, a boy

Roughybutt, a boy

Smoothy, a boy

Roughbutt, one of the two grays, is chronically getting into cat fights and has bite wounds on his flank.

The vet student down in Harrisburg brought up four.  She rolled up, and I went out to meet her, but she hadn't gotten out of her car.  Instead she rolled down the window a couple inches and said "There's a slight problem."   I could see her slight problem.  Her slight problem was a big black cat sitting in the back of her car atop the traps instead of inside one of them.  She doesn't know how he got out.  

I slid my net through her car window and a blankee and told her to net him and then put the blankee over him.  She did, with little trouble, outside of she had quite a lot of other stuff in the back.  I then went in from the side door, shut it behind me and was able to wrangle the cat back into the trap.

He was not aggressive and just scared.

She named him Houdini, and because I get paranoid of escapee cats, he spent the night in his trap that was inside a closed cage.

The other three cats are two big brown tabby tux short hairs and a medium hair orange.

Ash, a big tabby tux, likely a male, looks related to Kyoto and Wonton, the two cats already fixed from there.  All four of the Harrisburg trailer park cats are boys.

Harper, yet another tabby tux boy.

Houdini, the escape artist boy

Beautiful Riley, a boy too

I picked up the fifth cat who was trapped on the outskirts of Albany.   I guess I expected some huge scruffy looking unfixed male.  Instead, it was a petite long hair black with a smoke colored ruff.   Once I got the cat home, I looked closer and saw what looked like an ear tip.   I was torn then, wondering if that was an ear tip or not, or an injury.   It looks recent and seems way too extreme to be an eartip and although the cut seems sharp, like intentional, it is dished (rounded), unlike normal barely noticable eartips.

In addition, I called a colony caretaker I helped a year ago, who is very close to this location and asked her if they'd lost a long hair black.   I was a little shocked when she said yes they had, last August.   And the cat had a gray ruff, but...no ear tip.   He was fixed, however.   I met them back at the house where he was trapped and they couldn't tell if it was their lost boy.  The power was out there, from the windstorm, so it was difficult to see with cell phone flashlights.  Anyhow, the long and short---I'm taking him to the clinic today.  Usually the sight of what looks like an eartip would mean they wouldn't even put him under to check to be sure he's fixed and even if he is, doesn't rule out the lost boy unless they can say that ear cut looks like an accident caused it.

The Lost Cat

The found boy

Well, that's about it, was a long wild day with the cats and the weather.

KKR will pick up the five to be fixed in McMinnville in about an hour.  Then I'll head to Salem with the other five.   We got news Friday evening that the Salem shelter is merging with the big Portland shelter first of July which sent shivers of worry down the likes of us TNR folk because we don't want to lose our precious spay neuter clinic at the Salem shelter, that fixes all these community cats.  The Portland shelters spay neuter clinic doesn't do community cats.  Will they change the Salem clinic so it doesn't either?  I hope not.   Change can sometimes make things better and sometimes it can make things worse.  Time will tell, I guess.