Feral Cat Behavior

It’s 5:21 a.m. and sometime in the night Baker stroked out and went to the Bridge. I don’t know if it was from the pain, a possible overlooked injury or the stress of the vet visits, tests and prodding but he is gone.

As I sat in the living room trying not to cry and getting ready for the day, I noticed Quincy was unable to sit down. She was in the middle of the floor with her butt high in the air?

When she continued to stay in this position, I went over to check on her. I touched her tail, she has a big lump in the middle and touching it makes her come unglued. Her third eyelid is folded over and she wants to be held, but I cannot hold her without her screaming- sigh…….I merge from one cat crisis to another. I am taking Scotty in for a neuter today so I will add one more kitten to the travel plans and do a drop-off of Quincy. I pray it is just a cat bite (though I can’t find one) and not something else that is worse than an upcoming abscess.

Sometimes, life just doesn’t make sense.

I have no clue what is going on with Quincy who is only 7 months old. I have the three Siamese girls who were so beaten upstairs and they are going into the vet on Monday. I guess if I didn’t want the heartache and the stress of handling so many abused kitties, I should have just bought some goldfish!

At any rate, I have a grave to dig if I can find a place on the grounds that isn’t flooded at the moment. We have fish in our pasture right now as the creek has grown into a river and flooded the land.

Please pray for Quince that this is an easy fix and not something dreadful. I grow weary of crisis modes and just wish God would send me some healthy kittens for a change-what a concept!

Please light a candle for Baker- for he’s Jeremy and Don’s kitty now.

Tomorrow afternoon another one of my rescues will be in her new forever home. Gal is interested in an older long-hair cat so Sierra and Fiona are going on a road trip tomorrow. If the home checks out, only one will be returning home with me-

Update: She wanted all three- I took ShyAnne with me as well, but she settled for Sierra! It is a lovely home and she is a very focused and determined young lady. Sierra when she adjusts is going to have a wonderful life with this gal!

McGee just got dropped off at the vet’s office. He has been pulling his hair out on the back of his legs. He’s done this since the neuter. This is either due to pain or stress. I am hoping the vet can help me figure it out but he is getting bloody now and nothing I was putting on it seemed to help.

They were so kind to my kitty. There are back issues but not a protruding disk. There are several options open for treatment:

hydrotherapy
accupuncture
accupressure
massage and heat
conventional meds- steriods, anti-inflammatories and pain meds.
physical therapy

They can’t exactly tell what is wrong without running more expensive tests, but they can tell something is wrong because of how Baker moves and doesn’t move.

If he had a protruding disk, they would treat it first with alternative measures. Surgery is a last resort for cats, dogs are a different story, they perform these on dogs all the time. So basically the options remain the same for the protruding disk which he doesn’t have to the back injury he does have.

The treatment program however it is decided is long and involved and will require several visits every month until it gets started. I did ask since we have an outdoor jacuzzi if I could use that for hydrotherapy, but the vet just smiled and said only if you have steel gloves and kitty has a good life jacket!

In a few hours I leave with Baker and go to the specialist. I am told they are very kind and very thorough so will update when I can. We are having a helluva storm right now and cable is in and out.

The three new cats I was able to spend some time with them early this morning and they break my heart. When you go toward them they flinch, when you reach to pet them, they draw away. This is not a feral tendency this is an indication that have been beaten (and often). I spent a lot of time lying on the floor and rubbing chins and ears to just reassure them that no one will ever hurt them again. I haven’t been able to get near the long-hair and suspect she is a girl because of how she acts. She has scars on her face and I am not sure what they are from. She is very shy and the touchiest of the group. Someone cried all night upstairs but when I am in the room they are strangely quiet. I can’t let them out into the whole upstairs area until after Friday when Scotty gets neutered. Then I can let Scotty, Reese and Promise into general population and let the new group roam the upstairs. It’s just so sad- who would beat on a cat?

and I was born twice! I have three more kitties upstairs right now. Older girls- drop dead gorgeous Siamese mixes left behind by someone and abandoned for over a month! WHO does that? These girls are social, loving but in such bad shape BUT thank God they are eating! I will take them to the vet later on this week, I want to get Baker’s visit out of the way first before I tackle anything else. I had to clip the long-hair’s belly as she was so matted and dirty.

So much for getting my numbers down- eh Kim? LOL

Just returned from NW Salem. I took four kittens with me; Fog, Piper, McGee and Quince. The two women were delightful their home was magnificent ( I wanted to ask them to adopt me!) Fog came right out of the carrier settled on his new owner’s lap and fell asleep! Piper followed suit on the other lap and Quince and McGee hid under the computer. LOL The one gal works with abused kids and she is going to use Fog as a therapy kitty. Piper might go to this same home in a few weeks depending on how their older cat Tigger (14 years old) does with Fog.

It was a purr-fect fit for Fog and he will be so loved there. He gave me a huge goodbye as if he knew it was over for the two of us and his new mission is now with these kind folks. Once he had wrapped his paws around my neck and nuzzled my ear, he crawled up my shoulder and into the arms to his new owner.

My friend Haley went with me and she said she had never seen anything so magical in her life. It was pretty cool and even though I cried when I said goodbye to Fog, I know he came HERE to my home so he could end up THERE where he belongs.

Here he is with his new caretaker:

Been getting calls about the kittens up for adoption. Most folks aren’t what I would deem right for my cats. One friend told me my cats are hard to adopt because they are “weird” They aren’t strange,they are special because of the abuse they suffered. Not everyone can deal with cats who don’t act like “normal” cats. But four kittens have found homes so it is working.

This morning, I get a phone call from a woman wanting to adopt a kitten. She has an older cat and she thinks this cat is lonely so she wanted to get another one. She has been looking other places for awhile trying to find the perfect match. Her vet told her she needed to get a kitten instead of an older cat, but after talking with her at great length, I managed to convince her to return to a shelter she visited recently and adopt a five-year old male who has been living in a cage for four years! He has had to have his tail docked due to abuse so no one wants him.

Do I think this woman would make a great caretaker of one of my cats? Absolutely! But as I told her, my cats have free range of the house and enclosure. They don’t live in stress, they aren’t stacked in cages and some of them even go outside. This fellow that she told me about doesn’t have that option. She told me she was going to go back to the shelter after we hang up the phone and bring this boy home!

Tonight, when I lay in bed petting Pippi and thinking about the day, I can smile knowing that one older cat was rescued from a bleak life in a no-kill shelter and now has a home to call his own. That will make me smile.

Not surprising based on the cats activity level last night before bedtime, but we got hit with a major storm. The rain is still coming down in droves. Our rain gutter got plugged up and you would have laughed if you had seen me. I set up my kitchen stepstool (I am not dumb enough to get on a ladder right now) I was outside underneath where a big tree limb had fallen on the roof. I stepped on the stool the bottom rung, ok, so far, so good. Then I stepped on the top rung, the larger platform and sank down into the mud! To say our ground is saturated is an understatement.

Finally using our boat pole, I was able to pull the limb off the roof. Doesn’t look like it did any damage thankfully.

Walked Yoda back to the creek which is now a small river. He jumped into the middle of the creek and got swept into the current and into the culvert. I ran around the other side to see him emerging up the bank- another Thank God! He looked happy to be on firm land and a bit puzzled as to why Little Creek became so big! But he is fine and if this rain continues, we are probably five hours from the creek overflowing into the pasture.

Received an email from a good friend over at the coast. They are being hit with 100 mph winds and he has been on his generator since losing power 48 hours ago. Lost twin calves he writes in the middle of the storm and the dogs (two strapping German Shepherds) are refusing to go outside in this madness! He and his wife are okay he just wanted to let us know.

Pippi stopped eating last night. I have tried all the tricks and she just won’t eat. She is crying a lot but is still active. I hate this disease FIP! I suspect her time is drawing to a close although she has no fevers- just loss of appetite.

This morning, I couldn’t find Baker. I looked all over the closet and was just about to launch a full-scale search when his head popped up from behind the litter pan! I didn’t think a mouse could fit behind that litter pan! He is very ouchy this morning, back arched more than before and he is limping on his front legs. Although Tuesday is just around the corner, it seems like it is taking forever to get here. I called to see if we could bump up the appointment but was told we couldn’t.

Last night, I cleaned out our downstairs linen closet, removed all the shelving and set it up for long-term residency for Baker. Mike is making a chicken wire door to replace the wooden one. The closet is in the downstairs hallway so Baker will still feel part of the household. There are three low-sided litter pans in there, one cat carrier that I took apart to form two comfy cat beds and the little low-lying ground hammock for him to sleep in. His limping is more pronounced this morning and I can see he just has the “feel-bads.” We don’t go to the specialist until Tuesday so I wanted to make him as comfortable as possible. Now, I have no idea what to do with all the towels, cat blankets, sheets, etc… that I pulled out of the closet but I will find room somewhere.