Well I took the new cat to the vet and weighed him 18 pounds! They checked for a chip and found one. I was so elated thinking that someone was frantically looking for him. Well, they don’t want him. This is this 5 year old’s history:

Purchased along with his brother at a local shelter at 3 months old. Declawed at 6 months old (both kittens) happened along with the neuter. Kicked outside because of behavior issues- (brother is still living outside) The cat was then given to a friend because “she just fell so much in love with him! He is such a beautiful cat, such a love, so friendly..” when she wound down I asked- “Do you want him back?”

No hesitation in her voice “No.”

Apparently after he was given to someone who “fell in love with him” she in turn gave him to another friend so he could be a barn kitty. A declawed cat as a barn kitty? I just want to smack someone!

“He wanders” she said.

People just stun me- they simply do. I brought “Bentley” home and he is now upstairs and he is decompressing poor kitty. He is a very vocal kitty, earlier, he was curled into a very small ball on my lap and he was sleeping, but he was crying at the same time. I am going to give him a few days to adjust then put an ad in the paper and see if I can find a special home for this beautiful boy.

I got the call tonight during dinner. Someone in town has found a cat and he can’t keep him. The kitty has been declawed so putting him out in the barn is out of the question and he won’t stay in the house. He went on to say that the kitty is now losing some of his hair and asked me to please take him…sigh…

This gentleman is always dropping off cat food and stall dry here so I couldn’t turn him down. I went to get this kitty and I’ll be dipped, but I think he is a Snowshoe! Of course when I took out my camera, he turned his back as if to say he is to good to have his photo taken. I will take him in tomorrow and see if he is microchipped. Chances are if I am right and he is a snowshoe and has been declawed (poor kitty) they also put a chip in him.

Here he is- I haven’t named him yet. I just feel sorry for him being declawed and then finding his way outside whether deliberately or accidentally.

I have him outside in the introduction cage because Shawn said he hates being in the house. I don’t even know if he is a tom or not- I haven’t checked but would put money on it that he is.

I finally landed on how to name these kittens. When Mike first saw all the kittens in the pen- he said “Damn, look at all the kittens!” My sentiments exactly, so I am naming them after dam’s of the world.

For the black boys we have Sinclair and Bartlett and for the cow kitties we have McGuire and Quincy.

I still haven’t landed on a name for them yet- gee can you tell they are related? LOL
They are all boys-

Tonight, I took three of my older cats to their new home. The people live in a nice farmhouse on 8 acres. They have a huge grain barn that is getting over-run with mice. I took them my best mousers: Baker, Trump, Slim and Squirrel. The place is so isolated and beautiful, I know once the cats are released in a few days they will be in heaven.

These kittens still need to be with momma. It makes me wonder as I watch them interact and race around the bedroom, if she was able to be with them naturally much at all, or did they spend all their time in the pen with her? I see a lot of social confusion with the litter and the two cow kitties will be playing with the others and let out this horrific meow/growl/hiss combination. The sound is very formidable. Stops me in my tracks every time and I have to go and investigate if there is an injured kitty in the wake of it. There never is- but it is a chilling sound. Reminds me of when two toms square off over a queen. Lots of testerones running amuck in the bedroom right now.

Delilah has recovered from her stroke almost 100% and I have tried putting her into other rooms so she doesn’t have to deal with the kittens, but she always want back in the bedroom. She is ignoring them to a large extent (I wish I knew her secret!) LOL I do know that these kittens need to still be with mom so she can complete the socialization and training process- but this is not a perfect world and I will have to step in and try to be mom for awhile.

I talked to a friend the other day, she is also a fellow kitten rescuer. Her batting average is higher than mine and I was asking her what I am doing wrong that these cats aren’t making it recently. Never in all the years of rescue have I run across so many ill or damaged kittens and cats. She told me that she rescues with the support of a non-profit group of people. They go to the shelters and pick the healthy kittens to adopt out. The ones with the sniffles, eye discharges etc.. they are left behind. They also rarely take black kittens from the shelters going more towards other colored kittens as they are easy to adopt out.

She said “Mary Anne, you don’t have that option. You get in the hard cases, the ones who should already be gone and what you do, to the best of your ability you do a great job.”

I know she isn’t blowing snow up my skirt. She has always been straight with me about anything I have asked.

I think, when you rescue if you don’t ask those probing questions from time to time, you shouldn’t rescue. Because then you either get an over-inflated ego, you become complacent or you burn out.

I chose several years ago not to involve myself with any of the local rescues. I didn’t like their politics. I struck out on my own and yes I get stalled from time to time, but like my friend said- don’t think of the ones you lost, think of the ones that went on to live.

It’s a good thing I had this period of self-discovery because yesterday four more kittens arrived. I believe them to be about 7 weeks old. All boys, two black and two adorable cow kitties. They are part of this bunch here.

He took a turn for the worse at the vet tonight and it was decided just to end his pain. I asked for a necropsy knowing full well that sometimes this gives you more questions than answers.

Goodbye Em- I am so sorry that you aren’t here with us, but I am so glad you are out of your pain.

There’s a glimmer of hope. After five barium studies it doesn’t look like the string idea is the problem. My vet said if the string was indeed cutting off passage, then Em wouldn’t have passed the barium the correct way. He is eating- he is playing- he wants out of his cage and I think he has captured the office staffs’ hearts! They are taking him out for lap time when they can. He is still there, the vet wants to force feed him some more try to figure out the strange shadow in his tummy and he might even come home tonight-

They are keeping him one more day as the barium study they did on him showed some unusual things. He will be dewormed later this afternoon in the hopes that what we see on the film are worm plugs, and then a second study will be performed on him. If it is a surgical fix, I have told the vet (with much regret) to just put him down. I am praying these are worm plugs that we are seeing in the intestine.

After investigating what I saw on the films further, I have a deep fear that he somehow got into thread or string and that is what we are seeing looped around his intestines. I am so careful about NOT giving kitties string- so he had to have found some sort of loose thread somewhere and eaten it. Once they get something in their mouth, because of the barbs in their tongues, they have no choice but to swallow it.