HewwowKitteh

May 18, 2015

Moxie Arrived

Moxie arrived on a hot afternoon. She swaggered into our colony’s community area with a look about her. She told everyone to back up. She was going to eat and the were going to leave her alone. She had moxie from day one.

I thought she was a boy at first and started calling her Max. She was emaciated but alert. Determined. A painfully skinny tuxedo with big, round, surprised eyes and a black face except for a small, white goatee. (She reminded us both of Phrike, an amazingly sweet colony member that had disappeared a year before.) Her hip bones stood out and her back end was weak. But she was fiercely determined to survive.

She ate and left, came back, left, hid, and flirted with the colony for two days before she stayed when I came to feed the cats. And two days more before she was brave enough to sniff my finger. A first step. It went quickly from there because it turns out that she LOVES to be held. It also turned out she was a girl and Max became Moxie.

Moxie's beginning, 5-17-15 — Moxie’s early days

In the mean time, I became sure she was an escapee from my cat lady hoarder neighbor’s house. Her fur was clean as if she was indoors, yet she was skinny as if her access to food was controlled. She had huge trust issues with other cats, as if she had to compete for food. But she was able to trust and bond with humans. Later on when I brought her in and set her up inside in the crate (large dog crate), she seemed vastly more comfortable indoors in a small space than being outside.

On Saturday night I set out a bunch of humane cat traps (in hopes of trapping cat hoarding neighbor’s cats), and immediately caught Moxie. Only Moxie. I woke up really early and brought her in to the Operation Catnip clinic, and I made sure to tell the intake crew that she was incredibly skinny but I had an emotional investment in her well being. Which was a good thing. Barely an hour after I got home, they called to say the head vet was recommending Moxie be euthanized. She was too emaciated to perform surgery on. If I hadn’t had a history with O.C., it would have been the end for her that day. But I was able to negotiate her freedom.

Since I volunteer for O.C. afternoons, I was able to talk to the head vet about Moxie’s condition and my guess about how she was starved. She agreed it was a huge probability. Poor Moxie was just plain starved.

On arrival home, Moxie was set up in her own apartment–a large crate in the living room, with liter, food, water, cozy box, and a sheet for privacy. She immediately took to her now space. She loved the wet food. Lazed around in the box in every possible position. And she was a complete perfectionist in the litter box right away. She did growl when our dog or other cats came nearby to examine the newcomer.

Despite her dramatic few days in traps and in the vet school, being sedated and having her belly shaved, being sent home and stuffed into a big cage… despite all of that, she remained quite calm. I was able to handle her all the time. She clearly enjoyed being held. She liked chin scritches. She purred a lot. She was a wonderful cat that needed to be returned to health so she could find a good home.

May 14, 2015

The Serious Stuff, Part 2

Part two of the house across the street drama unfolded unexpectedly on Wednesday afternoon. I had wondered if there would be any follow up after the three cats were removed the previous Saturday. I worried that maybe they hadn’t seen or been able to trap any other cats inside the house.

Well, that is no longer a worry.

First three Animal Services van showed up. They started taking pictures and making notes around the outside of the house. Being that kind of person, I waited a few minutes and then went over there to tell them that most of the outside cats were nipped, and that I was looking for a litter of kittens by a new mommy. We talked about the situation for a few minutes, then I walked back to the house, and got intercepted by my other neighbor wanting to know what was going on.

While we stood in the street talking, a code enforcement car showed up, followed by a marked police car which parked on the corner with lights on. Then another police car.

The Animal Services office told me the circus was about to arrive, and she wasn’t lying. They were waiting on legal clearance to enter the house to collect evidence of animal neglect (hence the police). Code enforcement had to be there to support the abandoned building claim. But then the code enforcement office went nanners when she saw the place. (Purely selfish glee on my part since twice code complaints about the house had been brushed under the rug.)

In order for anyone to go inside, they needed to turn the power on again. And in order to do that they needed a fire truck on had in case something went bad once the power was turned on. In the mean time, the people poking around and looking in the windows started to get a sense that this was a bad situation, and they started bringing in people with a higher pay grade to get involved. This was going to be messy. And everyone so far had a really sick look on their faces.

Fire trucks showed up and got sent back because now they realized they needed guys in hazmat fire suits to enter the building because of the condition of it. The power kicked on unexpectedly before the fire trucks arrived though. And people were unofficially poking their heads inside the house, chomping at the bit to get the nightmare over with.

The Cox cable sales lady happened to show up and we stood in my driveway watching the fire department and police folks struggle with getting into the house. Fortunately I have a cold and can’t smell anything, but the Cox lady cold, and she reeled when they opened the house door and the wind whipped the stench through the neighborhood. I don’t know why, but even though there were flashlights moving about in the house, they had the fire guys bring a battering bar around and break in the front door locks too.

And then the clouds started to build up for rain we’ve been waiting days for. The utility company sent out trucks, and then bigger trucks with huge arms. And more city cars showed up. More cops. More code enforcement. The GRU guys pulled one of the giant trucks up into the side yard and sent a guy way up in the arm to do something to the main power lines right about the time the storm broke and it started to rain. At this point people started to clear out and wrap things up. And then like magic everyone was gone and the thing was done.

All in all there were four different Animal Service vans and trucks, two code enforcement cars, four other generic city cars and trucks, three marked cop cars, two unmarked cop cars, two huge fire trucks, three GRU trucks, and two enormous utility trucks with giant arms.

Although I saw ACAS officers preparing humane cat traps, I did not see any traps being removed with cats in them. From the conversations I had with them, any animals inside at that point were dead. I didn’t ask, but again, everyone in and out of there looked disturbed. Rumor from code enforcement is that the building will likely be condemned. Throughout it all, I don’t think anyone was able to locate or contact the home owner but I suspect they are trying very hard.

This is not how I would have liked to resolve this. I feel like I should have been a better person and pushed harder to end this before it got to this point. I’ve been trapping as many cats as I can for three years and putting them through Operation Catnip (our fabulous TNR program). I have pulled seven litters of kittens out of the neighborhood and put them on better paths. I watch over my cat colony the best I can. And three cats were taken out of that house alive.

And the heartbreaking part beyond the animals is that this isn’t about a malicious person doing terrible things on purpose. This is likely someone unable to cope, getting way over her head, and not having a way to get out. As much as I hate what happened over there, I cannot hate the person, because she is obviously not whole and healthy.

May 13, 2015

Princess Nara

: Pepper / Nara 5-13-15

I LOVE getting updates on our furry friends who found furever homes! This one came in on a day that was kind of difficult, so it was such a great message!

“Wanted to give you guys an update on Nara… She’s growing into such a beautiful cat. Easily one of the smartest I’ve ever known. She’s just the right balance of feisty and lovable. Needless to say, I’m in love. Just wanted to say thank you so much for bringing us together!”

Many thanks to our friend who fostered Pepper / Nara, and to Nara’s new kitteh daddy!

Happy Nara (Pepper)!

May 7, 2015

The Serious Stuff, Part 1

It’s very hard for me to write this because it’s been a long and painful internal battle of mine. And it also is about emotional issues, as well as legal vs. right. But this is the thing that started the wheels spinning in the right direction, and helped to bring resolution to a situation that has been eating away at my conscience.

The root of my neighborhood cat troubles has been a constant stream of young, unfixed cats coming from the general vicinity of a specific neighbor’s house. Over the course of the last three years, I have been able to observe this person’s emotional decline from a slight distance. We are not a neighborhood of tremendous interaction, so I don’t claim to know her situation. Only the things I pieced together from observation and other neighbors.

Initially I got involved with Operation Catnip as a solution to the quickly growing cat population. It was a race to fix them before they had more babies, or irritated my less-compassionate neighbors to the point that they … took care of the cats. Over time, the situation revealed itself to be a lonely woman with possible emotional issues that left her unable to cope with the cats she fed and cared for.

Things became alarming about a year ago when I had a brief chance to interact with her, and I got the feeling that all was not well with her and her need for these cats. Then in January it seemed to me that the power in her house wasn’t on and she didn’t actually stay there. Only stopped in to feed the cats. And then her visits became more brief and more irregular.

In the mean time, more cats were showing up in my colony, and a few looked emaciated, with stained paws and serious emotional issues. I started being able to identify the cats that had been trapped in her house by the smell, the behavior, and the condition of their bodies.

Yet I was in a quandary because legally I had no really evidence or course of action. Investigating her empty house would be trespassing. I had nothing except observations to give to Animal Services as a reason to check the welfare of the animals that may or may not be in the house. And this woman and I owned our homes so there would be no escaping any ill will stirred up. I was on the horns of a dilemma between my instincts telling me something was wrong, and lacking proof to bring local agencies into action.

I admit I tried a few things, I reported the house for code violations (which were horrendously dismissed with blatant abandon, but that’s another story). But I couldn’t figure out what exactly I should do.

Then one of our colony cats, Jane, went missing for a week. She showed up again, completely emaciated and so bad looking that I canceled my Saturday plans to take her in to my vet immediately. There was still no actual evidence, but I knew she had been trapped in that house without food and/or water.

For a few weeks, I struggled with nursing her back to health and figuring out how to get Animal Services into that house legally, when the most beautiful miracle happened to take the situation to the next level.

A couple were doing door-to-door cable sales for Cox, and they heard the sounds of animals in distress in the house. As good Samaritans, they cautiously investigated, discovered that the power at the house was not running on a hot day, and that the back door was cracked open enough that cat paws were able to poke through. They called Animal Services immediately.

I happened to see them in the yard, and being ‘that’ kind of neighbor, crossed over there to find out what was going on. They told me, and I followed up a call to Animal Services myself to give them a little more info on the situation and find out if they were actually sending an officer out to investigate.

Sure enough, the next day an ACAS officer came out and walked around the house. I spoke to him and he agreed the situation didn’t look good at all. He posted a ‘Notice of Abandonment’ on the door and left. This gave the homeowner 24 hours to contact Animal Services. If no contact, ACAS could legally enter the building to liberate any trapped animals.

I was not home the next day, so I didn’t know what happened. But a follow-up call on Monday confirmed that they rescued three cats, who had been taken to a vet and then moved to the shelter. That was all of the info they could tell me at the moment.

Little did I know the circus was about o come to town. But that’s another story. The big deal here is that I know I should have trusted my instincts and pushed harder for a way to resolve this situation faster. But a wonderfully compassionate stranger was able to start the ball rolling. And we’ll see how this whole thing plays out.

November 24, 2014

Wilma Looking Inside

I can’t tell you how much it breaks my heart that some cats are inside and loved, and some are outside and unnamed. That’s one of the reasons I start by giving a name to the regulars in the colony. It’s the first part of having a place in the human world. It’s so easy to dismiss a nameless hoard, but not at all easy to turn away from a specific person with a face and a name and a story. We humans are suckers for that.

Wilma has made a small place for herself in our colony, with the help of her goofy and stubborn brother, William. She hated the brief month she stayed in captivity to take care of her babies with their foster mom. She was more than happy to get nipped and be released back to her independence.

But I still catch her on the windowsills looking inside, and I wonder if she ever misses the other life. Does she know it was so close, and she could have been a spoiled indoor cat like her daughters? Would she give up her freedom for another chance at being an indoor cat?

I think every cat deserves the indoors life of a cherished cat. As soon as humans domesticated them, cats became a responsibility. Despite the fact that they can be furry jerks sometimes (can’t we all?), most people will agree that animals deserve respect.

November 23, 2014

Fighter Meets Voldemort

We’ve always said that Fighter and Spider, the two boys from Little Mamma, looked and acted so much like their uncle (?) Voldemort, the alpha male in our colony.

Spider got adopted out before he could really meet Volvo, but with the weather getting cold and Voldemort darting into the house lately, Fighter has gotten to know his older mirror cat. They look alike, but more than that, they are both dominant males with big squishy, cuddly sides.

With Volvo in the house (acting like he wants to learn how to be an indoor cat), Fighter has gotten to know him a bit. Which was adorable until tonight when they actually cuddle up on the couch together. I really thought I was going to explode from the cuteness. It sucks that it’s so hard to get attractive pictures of black cats, but I desperately tried. They cuddled up for a good 20 minutes, which knowing Volvo, is a Christmas miracle.

As it is, when I have to evict Volvo from the house for whatever reason, I have to double check to make sure I’m not putting Fighter outside. Fortunately, their major difference is that Fighter has amazingly silky fur, where Volvo has a coarse, short fur like Spider inherited.

November 18, 2014

Sophie’s First day

Sophie’s first two day were just for relaxation and evaluation. She hovers in the kitten room uncertainly, alternating between the windowsill and the hut at the top of the cat tree. Her roommates, Saffron and Ginger regarded her nervously at first but soon let down their guard.

Observationally, I have become more convinced Sophia was kept in poor confinement for some time. I’m no expert though. She seems to lack muscle tone of a cat her age used to running and jumping around. Her white socks seem a worn-in yellow as if she has spent time standing in filth. She is skinny and limp, with a rounded belly that may be worms. I fear it is an early pregnancy because of how she naturally seems to lay down in the nursing position.

But her personality is amazing. She is sweet and docile in a good way. She craves human contact. When she anticipates being stroked, she sits very still and makes biscuits with her tiny paws excitedly. When petted, she likes to lean in to your hand and purr, practically rolling over to intensify the affection. And when you pick her up, she curles into you, purring and making air biscuits.

She seems to eat food timidly. I can’t tell yet if she’s afraid to relax and eat, or if she has trouble eating hard food. But she is definitely a fan of a full, clean water bowl. I haven’t actually seen her use a litter box yet, but after two days now, she hasn’t left any accidents so I can only assume she’s doing the right thing.

And she is incredibly open and friendly to other cats. Without hesitation she has tried to make friends with each of the cats in the house that wanders near her room. She is nervous about the dog but not fearful.

I put up a picture and a Craigslist ad for her on the same night she came to us. On Monday I got a sincere interest text/email from someone who had one mustache cat and was tickled by the prospect of a second one. Fingers crossed that this happens because Sophia needs a hero so bad.

In the mean time, the usual heroes are going to help her. Operation Catnip is sponsoring nip/spay, shots, etc, through No More Homeless Pets (Operation Petsnip). Sophia is on schedule to go in Wednesday morning for the works. She’ll never have to worry about raising kittens on the streets. Or getting stuck in the breeding cycle. And hopefully, with some time under her furry belt, she’ll blossom into the sweet little lady that she seems to be under all of this.

November 16, 2014

Sophia

Temporary Name:

Sophia

Gender: Female
Color: Black & White
Fur: Short
Born: Unknown/aprox 8 months
Mom: Unknown
Family: Unknown

Update: Adopted!

This is breaking news to everyone, including Sophia. I just stepped outside to shoo an opossum away from the colony cats’ food bowls, and an unfamiliar kitty head popped out of one of the kitty huts. I’m used to new cats scurrying away and hovering in the distance until the food bowls are filled up and I’m gone. But this little one joined the herd of regulars swirling around my ankles. I was first surprised by how friendly she was, and then by how small. I’d be surprised if she is six months old. Our current fosters are all around six months, and she’s tiny compared to them.

Since I still have quite a few fosters still needing homes (and my own cats) I was torn about what to do with her. But then I realized she was a girl, and I just couldn’t leave her out there to wander off and start cranking out more kittens (if she made it that far). Much to the dismay of my significant other, and my own cats, I brought this little girl inside. She was very polite and sweet, didn’t mind being held, and hasn’t said a peep about the other cats trying to sniff her all over. She will have to bunk up with Ginger and Saffron for a few days until I can get her in to be seen by a vet and nipped right away.

In the mean time, I need to get her fattened up a little, and cleaner. And hopefully I can find a home for this adorable little mustached girl!

*Update 11/21/14 – Sophia is recovering nicely from her surgery. She has a heating pad to keep her warm, and a nice quiet room to recuperate in. After a few days now, she is starting to show interest in all of the other cats in the house (but still nervous around the dog). She is eating well, and is mostly getting the hang of the litter box. She loves loves LOVES being held and pet and cuddled.

Health history:

11/19/14 – Sophia got the full treatment by Operation Catnip. She got spayed (she was in heat), rabies shots, and treated for parasites. She also got a tiny bit of her left ear nipped as part of this free service. The vets didn’t find anything seriously wrong with her. They agreed she needed a good home where she would be fed and allowed to exercise since she is thinner and smaller than cats her age, and she lacks some muscle density.

1/1/15 – Sophia was adopted by a friend who has been sending updates on her improvement. Sophia has blossomed into a sweet and inquisitive kitty, and all it took was one big-hearted person willing to take a chance on a little furry face 🙂

Sophia loves the cat tree!

Sophia is learning about kitty toys

October 10, 2014

Boris is Back

It was two weeks after his nip day that Boris turned up again. He looks so much like Alice, a skinny tabby cat, that it took me a blurry early-morning moment to do the math and realize I had too many cats on my porch.

He’s been hanging out for a few weeks now. The rest of the colony seems to accept him now that he’s not oozing testosterone and male issues. I can pet him sometimes if he’s surrounded by other cats getting pet.

I’m pretty sure he’s a litter mate of Alice as well. She snuzzles him and ducks down into his side fur for comfort. Which is great for her because she obviously desperately wants a family and comforting. And he skulks around, looking to her for how this new family colony works.

He is still slithers around cautiously. He slithers up to Voldemort on his belly, asking for acceptance. And when I get home from work, or peek out the front window, Boris is in one box on the porch and Alice is in another box. It’s a tradition, it seems, that cats working their way into the colony spend a great deal of time on the front porch, in the epicenter of activity, learning how the colony works and earning their place in the family.

Hopefully Boris sticks around. I’ve nipped so many cats that I never see again, it’s nice to see the ones that stick around so I Can be reminded that this makes a difference to them. One day Boris will be a chunky, sassy boy. And I hope he forgets his early days of desperation.

September 14, 2014

Boris’s Nip Day

Boris' nip day, 09-14-14 — Boris’ nip day, 09-14-14

SO EXCITED! Well, mostly tired, but so excited to catch Boris. He’s so skinny. There has to be a turning point for forgotten animals. A place they come to where fortunes change and they have a chance.

I was up late checking traps with no luck, and decided to leave the traps open all night. A risk because my own colony cats were dumb enough to get trapped from time to time, and the thought of old Henri in a trap all night is unbearable. But at almost 1AM I rationalized that waking at 6AM to check on the traps would be only a short time in a trap.

I was totally exhausted at 6AM when I checked the traps. I had to look ten times at the kitty in the crate under the trap cover. There are so many brown/grey tabbies in the neighborhood, it could have been any number of cats. My first concern is always the left ear. No nip on the ear means an automatic trip to the Catnip clinic. And this little guy was completely ear-intact.

I sleep-drunkenly brushed teeth and got dressed, and came out to check again. Still no ear nipping, and this guy was somewhat familiar. I figured I would drive him to the clinic and see what happened. (I live in fear of turning up at an Operation Catnip clinic with a cat that’s clearly already been nipped, because they’ll all think I’m losing my marbles.)

After dropping him off, I stumbled home for another two hours sleep before heading back over to volunteer for the afternoon clinic shift. I checked on him and he was already awake in the discharge queue. He is one of the sad kitties with a sad, long meow. And he meowed a lot. He also spent the afternoon trying to get out of his crate, so he banged up his nose and forehead, and rubbed most of the fur off the front of his face. I kept covering up his crate but that didn’t help him this time.

By the time I released him the next morning, he had a patchy face and a bloody nose. This happens from time to time because they’re doped up and unaware of their surroundings. His long, skinny frame went loping down my front yard and into the early morning mist. One last glance back, sad eyes and shaved balls, and he was gone.