I look at Reese’s face when she is nursing and it looks like she is saying “How did I get in this situation anyway?” If this sweet Tortie is over 7 monhts old, I would be very surprised. She didn’t ask for these kittens and thankfully, she accepts any help I can give to her without trying to rip my arm off. I am cautious though because new mothers, especially ones so young can get suddenly and aggressively protective.

The bigger kittens are now showing clear eyes, her younger ones are still displaying yucky swollen eyes. Last night pus just poured out of Wilson’s eyes after a warm compress was gently pressed to his eye. There is still no visible eye present- but we are slowly working on it.

Rosco is running around with his pals as if nothing happens although I have noticed when they go scampering down the tunnels, he just stops at the entrance and turns away.

This morning, I turned down yet another litter of kittens- five in this litter with a calico mom. They are living in the woods off Marksridge at the top of the bluff and being befriended by an elderly woman who saw them being dumped there. She says she can continue to feed the mom until Winter but once the weather turns nasty, she will have to stay indoors. Hopefully, by wintertime, I can free up some space and make room for the family- but right now- well, we are just full to the max.

Reese

Roscoe is in a holding pattern at the moment here at the house. There is major soft tissue damage to his throat and gums and his salivary glands are inflamed from all the trauma. They gave him a steriod shot to calm things down- put him on antibiotics and I am syringe feeding him. He is in a large cage and sleeping right now- If he isn’t better by Monday, I will take him back and they will probably have to do surgery at that point, but right now, to much damage to assess what needs to be done.

I got home from the vet to find this waiting for me on the front porch- and it isn’t even my birthday! She is a young tortie mom- and I do mean young- with 5 kittens all with eye issues. I have calls out to all my rescuer friends to see if they can take her and her babies off my hands, but for right now the family is upstairs in the cupboard on the stairs. Tortie mom is so tiny and skinny- she ate two cans of canned kitten food like she hasn’t seen food in a very long time- bless her tortie heart!

Happy Late Birthday to me-

Eye issues

Just dropped him at the vets, they will work him in hopefully before they go to surgery. He had large pockets of swelling underneath his jaw this morning, a temp of 104 and his eyes are all goopy. Not a good start to his usually active, rambunctious day-

Here he is at a better time:

Roscoe

I am still shaking as is Roscoe. The only thing I can figure out is that he was either chasing another cat or being chased. I heard a most unholy noise coming from inside the cat tunnel. I thought at first two cats were fighting, but the noise was different unlike anything I have ever heard before. As I type this, I pray I never hear anything like that again. I ran outside into the cat enclosure and looked at the tunnel entrance. Roscoe was dangling in midair at the end of the tunnel and something was inside his mouth. It took a minute for me to figure out what it was- it was a bungee cord that usually is fastened tight to the end of the tunnel- only this time, it was loose. The hook part was in Roscoe’s mouth! I gently grabbed him, held him up and very carefully dislodged the bungee thanking God that it was a big bungee and not a smaller one.

I hustled a shaking Roscoe into the house and under strong light looked in his mouth and it was full of blood. Holding his head down, I put a little bit of warm water into his mouth and the blood and water ran out. I was so shocked, I have never even encountered something like this. All the clinics are closed and my feline specialist is out of town- so for now, Roscoe is quiet inside of a crate and I am watching for him to either have blood running from his nose, or mouth or for his belly to swell. I am denying him water and food and will keep vigil through the night with him.

I went and cut the bungee cord down and looking at it in strong light, I see his blood all up and down the hook with severe bite marks on almost every inch of the hook. I will call my vet in the morning and take him in- please just pray for him will you?

Star is showing some worrisome symptoms. I am waiting for the vet clinic to open and then I will get her in, get her tested and go from there. It is as if there is a disconnect from her mouth to the food? She is hungry and she goes for the food, but she just sits in front of it (almost like she is praying) I gave her water and she drank it eagerly- so this is not distemper- thank you God. I can syringe feed her and she laps it up, but there is just something not quite right in this young one. My estimate is for her first vet visit today- it will be about $130.50 because I am sure they will run a snap test on her. If anyone can help even a little bit- it would help her out immensely. My other thought is someone either dropped her, slapped her or hit her when she was a kitten and she is neurologically challenged-

This is your friendly cyber-beggar signing off now and headed for the phone-

Update: Negative on all the testing, no microchip found and neurologically she is sound. Suspect that she has been traumatized while eating either by a bully cat, perhaps a dog or even a human as she hunches down as if expecting for her world to end. Will work with her slowly- they found no spay scar so she will be spayed Weds.

About 20 minutes ago, a 6 month old female black kitten joined the ranks here.Someone dropped her in the middle of nowhere and left her to the fates. A hiker and her family found her and brought her to me. I am naming her Star in honor of my friend Chris- who just lost her precious black star a few weeks ago. May she have a long and luxurious life with us as Star had with Chris and her group.

Star is outside in the Introduction Cage and she is very pretty and dainty once the weeds were combed out of her fur-

I slept in the bedroom last night! With six kittens in there, what was I thinking? Towards about 2:00 a.m. I felt like Gulliver in Lilliput being held captive by small critters- even the bottle babies, once they figured out that Mom was in the room- came up to sleep with me. I slept with one eye opened, so afraid that I would crush a small one. I barely moved. Then Jordan came out from under the bed and she joined the group although from a distance. Every time a kitten got close to her she growled and I had to play referee and matchmaker and tell her to hush, that they were babies and they may be annoying at times but they were not a threat.

Sofia has decided that right by my left ear is the BEST place to sleep regardless of how many times I tried to discourage her. Lacey wants on my neck with her butt near my nose (a privilege to other cats not so much to us humans) As for Cagney, I must have brought a small mouse with me to bed and it burrowed under my armpit because she spent a large part of the morning digging at my armpit and trying to go after it. The three bottle babies- now one month old slept on my legs. I am still amazed they climbed all the way up the blanket to join the others, but I guess they figured there must be some sort of food fest up there.

When I finally did fall asleep- it was from pure exhaustion and this morning, all the kitties were cuddled around jordan so go figure. Guess she is mom now. I looked at her expression and grinned. It looked like she was saying to me “If you can’t beat em- join em!”

Phone call the other morning:

“Is this Cats Inc?
“Yes it is-what can I do for you?”
“I have too many cats!”
“Congratulations! So do I”
(silence then) “Huh?” I have 37 cats and I need to get rid of them. COME AND GET THEM!” The last part was screaming.
(Seriously, who calls someone and asks them to take 37 cats? THAT’S a cat sanctuary all in itself.)

I told her I was sorry, I was full up- even my vet bill was full and I couldn’t take one cat let alone 37. I did give her other resources to try- but doubt that they will help her either. She was so angry when we ended the call and I shouldn’t have been flippant but the phone call followed an incident where someone stole 2 large bags of cat food and a case of canned food out of my car. I was not amused. t also followed the death of Vic and was just a bad set of circumstances.

I am stalling about cleaning out Vic’s room. I don’t think I can go up there right now. I removed the food and scooped the pans but am leaving a full cleaning for a few more days to collect myself.

I do have to laugh though, the bottle babies are in the bedroom with the other older litter and every time I go to feed the young ones, Lacey gets so jealous. She jumps on my lap and tries to get my attention- headbumps the hand that is holding the bottle and tries to get me to pet her. She has done it five times now-so I know she is jealous. She does get her share of attention but i guess she doesn’t want to share me with anyone else.

Here are the two girls; Serena and Jazz in their new home. I might not have been able to let Vic enjoy a full life, but at least these two sweeties will have that opportunity.

This is a hard post to make even though I have only had this handsome lad not even a month- but his blood results are back and they are according to the vet “as bad as it can get.” He is a kidney kitty- his kidneys are failing fast. He has a large amount of blood in his urine and his urine is not concentrating. He has a high amount of reticylocytes in him and he is losinng RNA fairly quickly. In other words, he is living on borrowed time- and all of this because of fleas and neglect! He has a low red blood count (which we expected) but he has a high white count which means internal damage beyond the kidneys. He will meet with an angel at 3:00 this afternoon- and yes, I will be there til the end because he hasn’t had anyone there for him in a very long time-