This is what I have decided to do and I want to thank all of you who weighed in, got me a bit calmer and made me look at the situation a bit differently. When it comes to the welfare of cats, I tend to sometimes get a bit anxious for their situation and not look at the whole picture.

This woman is a bully and a liar. I don’t tolerate either. She may think she is coming here to run the show, but I have news for her- God is in control. I will stay calm, I will not engage or insult her. I will give her two options.

1) She can sign the release form, give me the rest of the “ten” and get the heck out of dodge. I will tell her if I see her near our property again, I will have her arrested for trespassing.

2) So, they are her cats- she can go back with me to the barn, capture all her cats, put them back in the carriers they came in and she can take them with her EXCEPT for Juno and Gadget. She does not get them back until she pays me for the vet visits on their behalf as well as the feline specialist visit. Once I have the cash in hand, she can have them back as well. If she wants to see Juno, she can see him through the window only until she pays me what she owes me. Then she is to leave her and have no further contact with me or Mike.

Now I will be getting on the phone and calling the deputy and asking if I am within my rights to ask this of her.

Thanks for listening-

Legally- the cats are out of luck. If she presses the issue, I have to give the cats back or she can have me arrested for theft of “property” How sad, cats are only considered “property.”

The day is winding down now. She was a “no show.” The cats are still here.

A few days ago, the woman presented me with a cat in a trap. It looked pretty young and she said she had found it “awhile ago.” She couldn’t tell me if the cat was male or female just that it was found as a young kitten and never spayed/neutered. It had been in the trap for a bit, so when I got home, I released it into one of my large cages outdoors in the cat enclosure. It was Saturday when I got the trapped kitty and I didn’t want it to spend more days in the trap until the vet opened this morning.

It was eating and drinking and staring and growling, but I was able to step inside the cage several times and attend to business without being attacked. The woman called this kitty feral- I call it neglected and scared. Thankfully, I was right.

This morning, I went in with a thick blanket and enough clothing to get through a snowstorm. I wanted to just pick this cat up and put it inside a carrier and get it to the vet for testing/neutering vaccinating unless it tested positive- then it would get a bridge pass. 🙁

I step into the enclosure and shut and latch the door. The growling has started “Gadget” which is what I am calling this cat started growling the minute I opened the door (which is customary for this cat) I had never latched the door behind me before so I was a bit nervous. Gadget was perched on top of the cat carrier at the top level of the cage. I reached up with my blanket and covered her. The growling got louder, but she didn’t move.

Encouraged, I reached up and started to gently grab the neck so I could scruff the kitty and carry it down into the waiting carrier (waiting tipped up to the ceiling) No such luck- this long haired kitty has no extra skin due to malnutrition. I ended up with the cat on the floor behind my back. I was now sitting on the floor trying to get the cat wrapped up. I felt it behind my back and all sorts of bad thoughts raced through my head of what past “ferals” have done to me when they are trapped. I relaxed my body, started to slow breathe and pray. The cat ended up scrambling over my shoulder (thank God for two coats I was wearing) it raced up the wire, I stood up and wrapped the blanket around it, de-latched her claws from the wire and went to put her into the carrier. She escaped so we did it once more and this time success! The cat is now at the vet’s getting tested, examined and hopefully will be negative on the tests and will get neutered and we will start all over again to get it socialized and trusting humans.

It is a beautiful long-hair tuxedo kitty

In Jedi’s new home, she has a new toy. She isn’t that sure of it as it is a motion-detector type of toy where mice pop in and out of the holes. Her new owner Wendy introduced this to her the other day and here are the photos-

The toy is called Cheese Mountain:

This is Juno and I know he has seen better days. But I also know, deep in my heart that his future is brighter with us now. I took him to see the feline specialist and she said he is old- very old. Hard to say how old because he has no teeth. She has seen worse and she is concerned as I am about the amount of snot pouring out of his nose. We are starting him on zithromax for now and perhaps in two weeks if no clear response, she wants to see about putting him on prednisone (which I hate because of all the side effects) I am also giving him forte flora and L-Lysine in his baby food. He has healthy appetite, trouble walking (but all her cats seem to be a bit wobbly).
I hope in a week to put up another photo of him looking a tad better! Time will tell-

JUNO

Oh and imagine my surprise when I went out this morning to feed the barn sanctuary cats. There is another cat in with them! One of hers and she brought him over without calling or alerting us first! WHO does that? I would say something to her, but she has enough troubles but it really hissed me off she didn’t have the courtesy to tell us first.

That is what I was chanting over and over to myself this afternoon on the I-5 Freeway as I watched one of the kittens I was taking to be looked over for adoption go into heatstroke. Cagney was in a large carrier with her sister Sophie. Jordan was in the backseat in her carrier and Chauncey was also along for the ride. All the other cats and kittens were doing fine except for Cagney. Cag was clawing at the bars of the carrier, open mouth panting. When I stuck my fingers in between the bars to see if I could touch her ears, I became more alarmed- they were on fire! I couldn’t understand it. It was 63 degrees outside but I didn’t have the car heater on- and to make matters worse, I was on a portion of the freeway with NO exits for a few miles. I turned the ac on full blast and propped the carrier up higher to catch the air.

I finally made it to an exit and raced into a fast food restaurant with a limp kitten in my hands. A worker saw me with the cat and yelled at me “Hey no animals allowed” but her words fell on deaf ears as I shut the bathroom door behind me and started to fill up the bathroom sink with lukewarm water. I slowly lowered Cag’s body into the water and I was crying to God thinking I had killed this little girl. The worker came in behind me and she was saying something again about animals being prohibited, but when she saw what was going on, she stood still and said “Can I do anything?” I asked for some sort of a rag, towel anything so I could get water on the head. In a few minutes she was back and I soaked the rag and placed it on Cag’s head and just held it. Thankfully, she started stirring, showing life and gasping for breath. I picked her up by her back legs and holding her firmly, I swung her up in the air and back down between my legs (much like you do to a kitten who is aspirating on liquids) on the second trip, she was Cagney again, but she was shivering. I wrapped her up in a second rag that just appeared and cuddled her close. She started to meow but nothing came out. She was spent and I was exhausted.

I finally put her back in another carrier in the car and started off again but when I was once again stuck in traffic (this time by the Portland Airport) I looked over at her and she was open-mouth breathing again! I was about 20 minutes from where I needed to be, so I called the person involved in the adoption and asked that they please have on hand a bowl of cool water and a washrag when we arrived. Bless his heart, he was ready for us and was even standing outside the residence so I could find the house quicker.

Cag is fine now. In fact, she slept all the way home as if nothing happened? They really liked her too- but I told them she was off the adoption list right now until I could get her home and be sure she is okay. Like I said, all the other cats are fine.

Jordan got adopted! It was a first for me, and elderly woman was interested in Jordan, but Jordan had peed on the way up (it was a 2 hour drive) and she didn’t smell that pleasant. I ended up giving her a bath and brushing her dry and Dorothy decided to adopt her. We put her into the sewing room and the first thing she did was vanish from sight behind a file cabinet. I have no doubt she is going to hide. She hid from me. she hid from a friend of mine who kept her for me for about a month- but eventually, she came out and was a total lovebug. As I told Dorothy, I wish I had instant kittens, but I don’t. You just have to be patient and let them figure out they are safe without crowding them. Hopefully, in a few days, she will come out and become another loved member of that household.

Volunteering isn’t for everyone but there are plenty of organizations in the world today in need of volunteers. When you volunteer around animals, you are tested at every turn. You find yourself facing some hard truths about the human race, you need compassion and the ability to also steel yourself at times when faced with what humans can do to other species.But, it can also be so rewarding.

I just dismissed a new volunteer. She showed up to help out and I took her around and introduced her to the cats and told her their stories. When she met Juno (one of the new arrivals with a chronic URI) snot was just pouring out of his nose. He was trying to eat, but the snot was draining down into his food bowl.

She stepped back and took a look around and said “You know Ms. Miller,it would be easier on me if you stopped taking everyone’s mistakes!”

I turned to look at her and saw her so defeated and broken- and she hasn’t even started yet! I told her I was grateful she stopped by and hoped she found some place to volunteer that would fullfil her but this wasn’t the place. Then I escorted her to her car and watched her drive away.

I have never turned down someone’s offer to help me with physical labor here- but for her- this isn’t what she would be able to handle. You have to have compassion but you also have to have a stout heart and know these animals are not at fault for being here.

The interview went well. Every Thursday, I am to report to their loading dock where they will put whatever cat products they have available into my truck. I went this morning to sign the rest of the paperwork and this is what came home with me- and NO it wasn’t another cat! LOL

Needed as badly as food is cat litter and they were kind in that department as well

Several of the cats are coming out now when I am in with them. They all bear the unfortunate physical characteristics of cats who have suffered malnutrition. Their faces and chins show that distinctness and several of them move very slowly across the ground when they walk. I am renaming them so here are the four bravest-

Morgan

Juno

Sawyer

Keegan

This morning when I stepped inside the new enclosure, I immediately sat on the ground. Two of the cats came over to give me a sniff then they darted off into the corner to hide. I opened up their cans of food and poured out dry- checked the litterpans for action (none) not surprising and then just let them be. I know they are safe, they are dry, warm and eventually they will come to know they are loved. Three people are anxiously waiting to adopt one- I had a family show up yesterday and against my better judgement, I took them inside to meet the kitties. Didn’t work at all and I told them that as we were walking to the building. They had only been here for twenty minutes (the cats) so nothing happened that I didn’t expect. But they had twin girls 12 years old that wanted to see the cats and the dad was the handyman who made all this possible- so I broke my cardinal rule. They did get to pet and see my cats on the way out of the yard so it wasn’t a total bust.

Could only trap five, they are nervous and I tried to get some photos of them as they were let out into their new world. They are all so skinny 🙁 She set out traps for the other five as they got out during the transition