This was his home when we pulled him and nine other suffering senior kitties from this outdoor, poorly protected enclosure. His  preference leaned to napping on the front porch or in the heated cat beds in the carport. Occasionally, he would enter into the larger cat enclosure to be with some of his brothers- but would start yelling at me to let him back out after about an hour.

Recently, he started to lose an incredible amount of weight and so off to the vet he went. The test results were not good- pointing towards an aggressive cancer in his intestine. Although, he was still eating, was still upright and tolerated being touched from time-to-time, we are not a fan here of waiting until the cat really begins to suffer and opted to put him down. At the time of his death, his pelvic bones were highly pronounced, his ribs were sticking out but he purred his way to the Bridge to join the 8 who traveled there before him.

Of the eight- two are left- Blake with the mushroom ears who was recently returned from an adoptive home of a year, and Bones, a black kitty now going blind, also outside and right now wondering where in the world his brother Sawyer got to this time.

Bye Sawyer- thank you for being our porch protector and the first cat we would see as we pulled into the carport to park. I will miss your graying face.

Almost one week ago, I stopped at a local restaurant and ordered food and came down 22 hours later with a whopping case of food poisoning. I never wish to be that ill again. They are trying to court me back with offers of free food but no thank you. They can’t seem to cook chicken correctly so I don’t want to take the chance.

I have been fighting this thing since then and only today do I feel that maybe I have achieved being a human again. Thanks to volunteers, we still have our food donation spot every week. I was so afraid of losing that wonderful opportunity for I have heard if you do a no-show they can just take the opportunity away from you should they wish to do so.

I also managed to adopt out three kittens- again with the help of volunteers- so Lennon, Jango and Sterling all have new homes. We said a fond and sad farewell to Sawyer who was put to sleep after being diagnosed with cancer. He was our porch sitter and protector since arriving here with the Seniors in Need. He was 17 years old and he will be sorely missed. We found out that Bones, Sawyer’s brother (same age) is going blind, and it was decided at our meeting to keep on the same track with him, even though he is an outside kitty. He doesn’t wish to come inside and mingle with the others, he knows the lay of the yard and as long as we don’t start changing things on him, he is of good weight, he is still eating, he is still upright and active and other than losing sight- he doesn’t appear to be suffering. We got Kahuna, Lennon, Jango and Sterling neutered also in that time frame. That is not a trip I want to make again when so much is going wrong internally on my part- but we got it done!

Dickens has been adopted out! You might remember her as the kitty who walks on her front elbows. But she lasted all of 5 minutes when she went online with her story and she went to a beautiful man who loves special needs kitties!

Well, I am still weak and shaky so it’s back to the couch for me. It is easy to be a couch potato when you have no energy and 5 kittens who wants to lie on you or next to you to purr you back to health!

Thanks in a very large part to SO many of you- our vet debt now stands at $1,359.88 so thank you all of you- you have my heart for all you did.

He is sleek, he is beautiful, he is too old to still retain his balls (they will be leaving in two days). I can put my hands on him, but he is pet-aggressive if you pet him more than a few minutes. He looks to have some Russian Blue in there somewhere, when the light hits the top of his fur there is a bluish tint. He might have a home, but since they have a young child, I need to assess his temperament a few days after he loses those balls. 🙂

His brother (McCartney) is more elusive and quite ill with a URI. You can see the Siamese influence in his eyes and face but he is just a mackerel tabby. The dad Kahuna is out in the Introduction cage spraying his welcome. His neuter will be Thursday as well. He is extremely unsocialized for living indoors his entire life. But, I will work with him slowly and we will see how it goes. Right now, he runs from me every chance he gets. I will probably have to transport him in a trap to make it safe for everyone on the day of the neuter. It is much harder to get a confined cat into a trap, then it is to get a cat running outdoors to go into a trap. So we will see what happens. A local shelter is doing the neuters at a very low-cost- otherwise this would not be possible.

It is quiet, consists of two adults and one cat in a quiet cul-de-sac. Kitty was loving once out of the crate and she was working it for all she was worth. it is a great home!  I also got the male Siamese this morning from the lady. Now all that is left is socialize him, get him neutered and find this gorgeous boy a home.

I finally put her inside the newly insulated cat enclosure outside. She is so much happier out there now. No barking puppy, no medical machines pumping no brothers in the next room calling out to her. I went and sat with her for about an hour until she did finally calm down. Last I checked, she was asleep- she finally ate some food and used the litterpan. I know our house is chaos at time- and this confirms my suspicion she needs to be a very quiet home when she does get adopted out. I see her with an elderly woman because all she wants me to do is pet her endlessly while she catches cat naps on my lap.

I know that I sound like a broken record at times when I ask for donations but locally raising money only brings in a few dollars at best. This week we brought in $11.45 from three different locations. Doesn’t matter, it all goes right on the vet bill. The bill is carried at Faithful Friends in Lebanon under my name Mary Anne Miller. Their phone number is 541-451-1319 that way anyone thinking the monies might be getting misspent can just make a direct payment of a few dollars on the bill and not go through Paypal at all. To those of you who dug deep and sent a few dollars- we sure do want to thank you. We raised a total of $113.00 towards Shasta’s spay.

This morning, I took her over to Midge for her photo shoot. Midge’s room has full length mirrors on the closet there and when Shasta saw herself in the mirror- she ran full on into the mirror and slammed it with her head! I went after her to capture her but before I could get to her in time, she did it four more times! She hit hard and I have been watching her for signs of trauma, but other than doing a lot of meowing (constantly) I don’t see a change in her behavior.

Here is one photo of her before we called it a day. She was pretty much anxious during the whole experience. The only time she was calm was when she was in my arms. She is a beautiful kitty.

I decided to use this bizarre rescue as a lesson to others and this is the current ad running online in the hopes of finding her a good, loving home.

Shasta

Right now, she is in a small cage near my computer and I am sure that tonight will be a repeat of last night. I got no sleep at all- she cried all night, very softly, no yowling but she is clearly not happy being confined. I may  just let her out in a few minutes into the house and see how that goes- just so we can sleep tonight.

So thanks again those of you who pitched in to help us NOT increase our already sky-high vet bill.

With the arrival of the new kittens, I had a surprise this morning when I went into the room. The girl was heavily pregnant!  Knowing it was an inbred pregnancy, I called the vet and took her in to be spayed this morning. I can deal with the intact males- worse case scenario the longer we hold off on the neuters the more of a chance they start spraying and or fighting- but I can’t have a litter here right now- especially from an inbred colony. 🙁

If you can send any money our way right now, it is needed! I have to cover at least this day’s visit with testing and spaying an take home pain medication will run $190.00  I don’t want us to run up any more vet bill then necessary and take the risk of having our clinic tell us we need to take a hike (although they would say it nicely I am sure).

Here are the three new ones- they are no way 6 months old- more like 8 or 9 months at best. The girl that I am calling Shasta is the one with white on her chest and face. The boys are yet unnamed and scared of their own shadow at this point and time.

Still no word from her about the parents. I tried calling the number she left me but it rings to empty air. 🙁  I suspect she will not relinquish her “moneymakers” any time soon and because she insisted we meet in town- I have no clue where she lives.

Here she is after her spay- we raised $68.00 towards the spay, the rest is tacked on to the existing bill

I think she is grateful she doesn’t have to become a young, unwed mother! 🙂 Either that or she is feeling the effects of the anesthesia- LOL

By the way, the woman with the queen and the male tracked me down in town today. She called here and Mike told her I was doing errands in town and she found me at the store. She said she will bring the cats to me tomorrow and when I told her Shasta was pregnant and being spayed she burst out crying. And I don’t think it was tears of joy.

(Shaking my head here) I just got a call from a lady who has three, 3 month old kittens and she is looking to “get rid of them.”  GRRR I hate that term. Anyway, talking to her although she speaks broken English, she tells me she had 6 kittens, but she ran out of money to feed them, so she put three of them outside her home and told them to “Go Hunt” then she stopped feeding those three. She said that three weeks later, she went outside and found them all dead on her stoop- said they were really skinny and wanted to know why they didn’t hunt!

So- I am going to take her remaining three kittens and am waiting for her to call me back to tell me she has captured them in carriers. Supposedly, they love her and run in the house. I really didn’t want to do any more kittens for quite awhile and have been in prayer over this whole non-profit thing for weeks- but sometimes God pulls me back into it and if I don’t take these babies- God is the only One who will know what will happen to them!

This was Cagney when she first arrived here over a year ago with her sister and 2 brothers:

This is her in December of last year when she was returned to us (along with the others) when the family found themselves homeless. She was 27 pounds! I rushed her to the vet thinking she  might be hyperthyroid- but all tests panned out negative. She was just fat!

Now, she weighs 11 pounds! Still fat but not as bad. This weekend will be her day- I take her later on to a lady who will photograph her and we will get her online and advertise her as a special needs kitty. She has a horrible habit of growling at the other cats and this can be off-putting. It has caused us some issues here and made us rehome her sister and two brothers because at every turn, she was out to get them. She wasn’t kidding either- so all the other cats are living in separate homes away from each other and doing splendidly.

I had to keep her with us to be sure she wouldn’t repeat the initial first day of aggression that she showed me. She has not- but will not allow any other cat in my lap when she is there first. She has to be the only cat in a home or disaster can result.

I will post her new photos in a bit after I go to Midge’s photo shoot- LOL This elderly woman is incredible- she has survived brain cancer twice and lives in a beautiful home by the river and wants to photograph all my cats to get them into home and also to put them on a calendar and offer the calendar for sale. We met at the cat food aisle in the local grocery store and struck up a friendship.

Here she is in her photo shoot:

We don’t currently have the funds to buy 200 calendars and sell at the upcoming Jamboree- right now, our priority stays with paying down the vet debt- now sitting at $2,169.88  (going down but ever so slowly).  We really need donations folks. I don’t know how else to put it. I am about ready to lose my good standing with my vet 🙁 and we have two more males to neuter before they start spraying.

Reports coming in are glowing. She has made fast friends with the resident Russian Blue and today is the first day they played together racing around the house, taking turns chasing each other. Kate reports that Smokey has never been happier and Nickles now called Indigo is settling in as if she belonged there. 🙂