FRIDAY ON MY MIND (TWO GINGER KITTENS)

There are always exceptions but if I have a typical day it's like this -starts with an early (7.30) swim, followed by picking up cat(s) to take to the vets either for an appointment or to leave for some reason, and there's often something else to do after that. I tend to get a break from late morning (watch a recorded TV program, have lunch, then a nap) until mid-afternoon when it's out to the vets to collect cats and either take them home or to Carole's.

Today was just a little busier. I didn't have time for a swim as Carole needed more catfood so I went up to Asda to buy some and then over to Thorney Close, a council estate just off Durham Road, to pick up a cat to take to the vets for neutering. I got half an hour back home before setting off for a doctor's appointment (which often means a half hour wait but the doctor is a good one) for one of my regular checkups. Then back home and see above.

I was out early this time, 1.30, as I had to do a runaround. Across the Queen Alexandra Bridge to the North Hylton trading estate not far from the north bank of the Wear to Pets at Home to pick up kitten food, then to nearby Morrisons at Castletown, and after that to darkest Hylton Castle estate (named after the ruins of Hylton Castle -yes, a real old castle) to pick up some bedding for Carole from someone. I used to run Hylton Castle library for about four years in the mid-90's and know the area well. That done it was over to Carole's -it was like a loop with three stops along the bottom road before looping up and round back along the top road- to deliver all the stuff and pick up a cat to have her stitches out. I'd overestimated the time I needed for all this so I had about twenty minutes to spare playing with the cats and kittens and taking photographs.

I'm pleased to report that the most dangerous domestic cat on Earth is now no longer the most dangerous domestic cat on Earth. She still reaches out with a paw but it's to get your attention so you can make a fuss of her not so she can draw blood. Clearly she just needed time to settle down and feel secure.

Carole had also taken in two six week old ginger kittens.

Also playing around were a younger ginger kitten and her calico sibling plus a white and black formerly feral kitten.

 

And for your further delight-

The last photograph above is of the cat I was about to take to have her stitches (which are visible) out.

The cat safely and stitch-free back at Carole's it was off to a different vets to pick up the now neutered young tom cat to take back to Thorney Close and then home.

OH HAPPY DAY!

That's Wednesday, that is.

Another early start so I skipped swimming and went to pick up Mary and her little terror of a terrier Alec to take to Roker Park for neutering. Alec is lovely with people but highly overactive and attacks any animal -dog, cat, whatever, he comes across, except for housemate DJ the English Mastiff (and big softy) who I'd taken to be neutered on Monday. Mind you, he had a very difficult early life before Mary took him on.

At the vets was Elizabeth who'd brought the young cat Tilly (see previous post) to be neutered. I was able to give Elizabeth the good news that Tilly's previous owner, who'd had the cat pretty much dumped on her, was willing to give it another try following a promise of support from her adult daughter. So Elizabeth didn't need to come and pick the cat up in the afternoon as I'd do that when I came to collect Alec. Which is what happened.

Late morning and I received a phone call from a gentleman who asked if we could take in a 3 month old kitten which, after a quick call to Carole, we could and I'd come now and collect it.

When I got there (not far away) I got some more background about the situation. The gentleman and his wife were known cat-lovers and had, in the past, helped feed a colony of ferals that lived in a nearby abandoned factory. He'd been feeding a ginger feral in his back yard for the last five years and in the last few weeks a friendly kitten had started coming round to be fed. He'd also set up a cat kennel in the yard as a place to shelter and sleep for the two animals. He also had one cat of his own, a blind 17 year old female.

I told him that, while I was happy to take the kitten, we hadn't re-homed a cat or kitten in over three weeks and the best that would happen would be that it would be stuck in a cage for an indefinite period of time. It seemed to me that, and it was obvious he was fond of the little thing, the kitten would be better off staying where it was. As long as it didn't bother the older cat (which it didn't seemed to when it came inside), there was no reason why he shouldn't keep it. I'd picked it up and it happily purred away while I stroked it. I'd also take care of the neutering when it got a little older. I'd also de-flea and worm it in a few days time.

So he's keeping the kitten and giving it a very good home.

Result! Two results! in fact.

Oh, and here is the little cutie.

EIGHT DAYS A WEEK

That's how I sometimes feel how much I can do. While, admittedly, late evening calls are rare, they do happen and one happened last week. I was watching a DVD and drinking wine around ten o'clock in the evening which is, to be truthful, a pretty regular occurrence when the phone went. The daughter of one of our regulars had seen a very thin kitten scavenging beside the bins at Macdonalds just over half a mile away down the road. While a long way from being drunk I'd be lucky to pass a breathalyser and I never under any circumstances drive after I've been drinking. So I told this lady if she could catch the kitten, I'd take it in. She went, checked, didn't see it, so next morning I drove along there and spoke to a maintenance guy on site. He'd been working since four in the morning and hadn't seen the kitten though he had seen a couple of foxes. Knowing of Animal Krackers, he said if he did come  across he'd let us know. But he never did.

Sunday morning is usually quiet but not Sunday gone. I got a call from a lady who needed to re-home a cat she'd more or less been dumped with. I knew about this one as Andrea had had hoped Elizabeth our new fosterer would take it on but I'd got in first with the four kittens. Feeling guilty, I contacted Elizabeth about it and she kindly agreed to take it on.

Then Carole rang in desperate need of food but there was a problem that, even though I had enough for her to last the day, the van was in use all tomorrow and later this morning by Susan. It seemed insoluble until Susan agreed to delay her use of the van.

So it was off to Pallion, an area of Sunderland not far from the river to pick up the cat, which turned out to be a pretty little thing, and then to Elizabeth's house at Dalton le Dale a few miles south. The four not really wild kittens she was fostering for us were coming along nicely, all four now playing together and purring when cuddled, so she took the cat cage they were living in, leaving free them to roam the spare room, and placed it in her conservatory. The kittens, although they'd recently been wormed, correctly so as results proved, they stil had a touch of diarrhea and we're waiting for sample results. Anyway, the cat, Tilly by name, was placed in the cage and is off for neutering tomorrow morning.  As you can she's very pretty but nervous -apparently she's had a bit of a rough time of it- and it's taking a few days for her to settle in.

And after that, the trip to Asda to buy cat food and empty the pet food donation bin, on to Sainsburys to empty theirs and off to Carole's to deliver it. 

Confession time. We haven't re-homed a cat for three weeks and we're getting desperate. We just can not take any more cats in. It's a shame because we have a lot of lovely friendly cats, almost all under two years of age, who would make great pets. Here are some of them.

THE MOST DANGEROUS DOMESTIC CAT ON EARTH

After dropping off the fecal samples (see previous post), I head up the A19 to Carole's where I had to pick up two cats to take to the vets to leave overnight for their neutering operations. Including the sweet little angel above who looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Not only would it melt, it would superheat so much she'd spit it out as boiling oil. Go anywhere near her and she lashes out. I bent down (her cage is on top of another cage) to take some photos of kittens and a paw stretched through the bars to swipe the top of my head. I don't know what's happened to her but she is so scared it comes out as unrestrained aggression.

And I had to put her in a cage.

I got a large towel, lifted the top off the cage and she was out of there like a shot and careening around the kitchen, leaping onto bench tops, jumping down, bolting into the cupboard where a very large dog sleeps, out again just as quickly and only stopped when Carole dropped the top of her cage on her. I then eased the cat carrier inside and pinned her in a corner so that she had no option but to go in it. All that remained was to carefully, very carefully, slot the plastic bolts into place.

Carole had a few new cats and kittens in so I took some photos of them and some of cats and kittens you've seen here before.

WILD KITTENS (CONTINUED)

So the four not really wild just nervous of people kittens had been with Elizabeth and Michael for a week now. Apart from a touch of diarrhea necessitating a trip to the vets, there'd been no problems. As I'd just got in some Drontol worming tablets for my own cats and Elizabeth had to take fecal samples to the vets, it was easy to combine the two by calling in with the Drontol and taking Elizabeth to the vets. Of course what would be even easier was for me to simply take the samples to the vets on the way home but that didn't occur to me until I was approaching her house and being waylaid by her neighbour's friendly young dog. I may be slow but I do get there in the end.

The kittens, relaxed in their room with the cage open, they have started to play with each other. Two of them have begun to purr when picked up and cuddled. Also they are easier to get hold of, though they do usually make a run for it when you put them down. 

Here are the photographs taken during my visit.

THE FATE OF ED

At the end of the previous post, I mentioned Ed, the very loveable one year old fluffy black and white cat who needed an exploratory operation because of an enlarged liver.

When the vet operated this morning he found that poor Ed was in quite a mess. Apart from the liver, he had several enlarged glands, almost certainly feline leukemia, and probably several other things wrong with him. Carole was phoned while Ed was still on the operating table and it was agreed, as I had suggested to the vet yesterday, with the only other alternative being a slow and painful death, he was put to sleep while still under the anaesthetic.

That's two cats we've lost recently, one old, one young. It happens, I know, it happens. But it's still sad.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed by the time of the next post with stories of re-homed cats and lots of pictures of rescued cats and cute kittens.

MONDAY, MONDAY, SO GOOD TO ME

5.15 Woken up by Big Ted wanting to be out. Should have been the work of less than a minute, but instead the pungent odour of cat poo wafts from the corner litter tray on the little landing, so down to the kitchen to empty, clean and refill the tray and let more cats out. That done, hands washed, and back to bed to try to catch some last minutes of sleep.

5.45  I'm just entering a light doze when Susan shouts for me to clean the cat litter tray in the front bedroom where Lily the grey cat who is bullied by some of the others sleeps. Lily won't crap in the same box she pees in which sometimes results in crap on the floor, or rather on the paper Susan puts down. So, downstairs, empty, clean, wash hands, go back to-  Oh sod it, I'm wide awake now. Go back downstairs, put several dishes of cat food down and microwave some porridge, watching News 24 while I'm eating it.

6.10 I'm back upstairs and on the computer, checking for emails -someone might have ordered something from me overnight, which does happens and I do have an order to post. I periodically weed out my collection of books, graphic novels, CDs and DVDs and put them up for sale on Amazon Marketplace. Nothing, so I check out a couple of newspaper websites.

7.00  I'm supposed to be going swimming in half an hour but as I have to be back home by 8.15 to transport furniture from the charity's van which is parked outside the house to the shop and then get to Carole's and on to the vets by 9.00, I decide to skip the swim and have a bath instead, cleaning out another smelly litter tray first. 

7.30  I'm just about thinking of putting down the book I'm reading when there's a knock at the front door. Obviously I can't answer it and neither can Susan who's still half asleep. Two minutes later, there's an even louder knock, however, while being out of the bath, but wet and naked, I let Susan get it. Not unusually, there's someone with a large wagon who needs to make a delivery down the back lane but can't because our van is sticking out. So I hurridly get dressed, tell Susan I'll go to the post office at the same time. Susan then tells me to unload the furniture back into the garage as the shop is full of stuff. Muttering under my breath I do as I'm told and skip the post office.

8.45  I arrive at Carole's expecting to collect two cats for neutering, but there's a third, Ed, which needs checking out and she's coming with me. So, to the vets where a problem is found with Ed, a friendly one year old who been very sick several times, who has to be left as well. After dropping Carole off home, I head back to Grangetown to post the order and return home. I need to get food for Carole (well, the cats she looks after) as she's run out, which is okay with Susan who doesn't need the van until later. So off to Asda to buy about a hundred tins of Kit-e-Kat and empty the donated pet food bin we have there. I'm pleasantly surprised about how much cat food is in it and surprised again at Sainsbury's a few minutes later for the same reason. Ten minutes late and I'm unloading it all into the garage and tell Susan that the van's all hers except that she now doesn't need it until three o'clock.

10.45 Coffee and a light very early lunch. Potter about on the Internet for a while.

11.50  And I'm reloading the cat food back into the van and set off for my dentist's appointment. I've gone private recently because I was sick of new fillings dropping out after five minutes. Costs a lot more but the dentist is excellent and everyone else in the family uses him. The surgery is only a couple of minutes drive from Carole's, so I go there next and drop of the cat food. And then I take away lots of black sacks, all full of soiled cat bedding and used litter, to the council tip. This is not one of my favourite jobs. It's not all a life of glamour rescuing cats you know. On the way home I call in at Asda again because none of the cats will eat Asda's own brand of dried food, which is the only brand of dried food we get given, and only settle for Go-Cat. (If anyone from Go-Cat is reading this then I would be delighted to publicise your excellent product in this blog in exchange for donations of it.)

1.45  A couple of hours to myself (translation: nap time).

4.15  Off to Carole's who's taking another cat for neutering and leaving it there overnight. The two now-neutered females are fine, not happy, but fine. Sadly there is bad news about Ed. His blood tests have shown some kind of imbalance in his liver and an x-ray has shown it to be severely enlarged and the vet recommends an exploratory operation. After some discussion, I go along with it but stress that we don't have the funds for prolonged treatment. At the back of my mind is what happened to that other poor cat after an exploratory operation recently (see recent posts for details).

5.45  Home.

WILD KITTENS

Being involved in animal rescue isn't exactly a 9-5 job. I can get a call at any time, though mostly it is during the day but that's 7 days a week. There is, however, one morning a week when I try to exempt myself from being on call which is Wednesday morning when I meet my two ex-library retired friends Denise and Sylvia whom I've known for 40 years (and sometimes Phil) for coffee at (currently) Starbucks in The Bridges shopping centre in the middle of the city. Denise and Sylvia are both cat lovers (but not Phil) each having a cat each (except for Phil). I usually update them with cat rescue stories and show them photos on the camera screen before Phil arrives.

Denise also looks after a bunch of strays.

At the back of her house is a rather unkempt and overgrown garden with a shed which makes it a haven for the several local strays which she and a neighbour also feed. About 8 weeks ago, a female (who had been left behind when a family moved) had four kittens. Over coffee about 3 weeks ago, Denise told me she'd rang one local rescue several times without receiving an answer so I rang Carole immediately to see if she'd take them which she would. Then, as I was taking one cat through to Tracy's rescue at Burnhope, I thought she might have them. In the end she didn't and Carole was busy and so was I so when I finally asked her again she couldn't take them.

By this time I'd met Elizabeth and her son Michael (see previous post) who'd  volunteered to foster for us so I rang her asking her if she'd take two, thinking that four would be two (pun) many. Elizabeth would happily take all four.  I did warn her that, although not feral, the kittens were only used to being handled by Denise and were quite wild and definitely not house-trained and I'd bring my cage from the garage.

This was all done in a bit of rush and in the space of an hour I'd folded up the cage, packed it in the van, driven to Denise's house where she had the kittens in a box and we transferred them to a large cat carrier, driven two exits down the A19 and through Seaham to a nice part just outside where Elizabeth and Michael live.

The following photos were taken the next morning when I dropped of some flea-killer which I'd forgotten in the rush the day before.

Elizabeth with the kittens now named Arthur, Merlin, Gawain, & Galahad.

Arthur (far right) is the largest and the most scared.

 

In the few days since then, they have all started using the litter tray which is useful as they've been given free run of the small bedroom where they are kept. Elizabeth tells me that they don't really play together but if one starts washing all the other follow suit and if one goes to sleep so do the others. They are also slowly getting used to being held and cuddled but it's still early days. I'll keep you informed of their progress.

CAT IN THE CAGE: UPDATE

R.I.P.

She  seemed to perk up when she came back from the vets and ate half a sachet of food. Next day she didn't eat anything. Today a lady who is very experienced with cats and has seven of her own offered to take her for a few days, getting her out of my cold garage. Sadly she wasn't there more than four hours before, not to my surprise, she slipped away. She hadn't eaten anything in two days and was sleeping her way to death.

I just think I got to her too late. By the time I was contacted about her it was too late. She just didn't have any more strength left and I believe she would have died whether she had the operation or not.

My thanks to Elizabeth and her son for the kind help they gave. Perhaps another time, we'll be more successful.

CATS IN THE CAGE IN MY GARAGE

Sorry about the long delay between posts but I mislaid my camera at some point and only found it a short time ago today. For some reason, apart from being busy and just not in the damn mood, it put me off posting as I like to have new photos with a post. There've been a few things going on and I may mention some of them if they come to mind, but otherwise I'm concentrating on two cats.

The first one-

-was an 18 month old tabby who was dropped off at Roker Park vets for neutering and thence to be put in our tender care, except that the only space for him was in the cage in my garage. He turned out to be a nice little cat, friendly but a little shy. Luckily Tracy at Burnhope agreed to take him a couple of days later. My camera having just gone missing it meant I couldn't take any photos but I probably wouldn't have anyway. It was a grey overcast day and as I drove up the steep long bank to Burnhope, the mist grew thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker until by the time I got to Tracy's you could barely see the trees on the main road 50 yards away. All the animals -the ferals, the cockerels, the donkeys and horse were all indoors. 

And that's it for the tabby. Here are a few more photos of him.

There's a much longer story about the second cat. Here she is.

At lunchtime on Tuesday I received a call from the admin offices of student accommodation at Low Row down by the river. A very thin but friendly cat had been hanging around for a couple of days and they were worried about it. So I did what I usually do: jump.

This is a bit of a source of discord between Susan and myself. Susan believes that when I hear the words help and cat, I shouldn't just jump up and go into action, I should pause and consider what alternative actions are available to me. She's right, of course. Something else happened this week involving a cat where I agreed to a certain course of action and then told Susan about it. She came up with a different idea which, ultimately, had the same ending but meant it didn't cost us money and the situation was resolved in less time and effort than it otherwise would have taken. Can't argue with that.

In this case, however, the only alternative was to leave the cat where it was. So I went and got her and she was extremely thin. I took her home to the cage in the garage which I'd set up with cat litter tray, food, water, and bedding -the sort of tent you can see her sitting in which is thick and cosy and keeps her warm.

During the course of the afternoon, she twice soiled the bedding material I'd laid down on the floor of the cage. Usually I use scrap bits of carpet but I didn't have any. She ate the single sachet of food I'd put down. On Wednesday she didn't eat any of the food I'd put down and soiled the cat-tent. She was also curled up and none-responsive. Now I was really concerned so I managed to get her booked in a Roker Park vets to be checked over. Mr Murphy found a swelling in her stomach which he thought might be cancer and suggested an exploratory operation. Because this would cost over a hundred pounds, I rang Susan to check that it was okay, expecting to be given the go-ahead. Susan was at the shop and she mentioned it to another committee member who was there who suggested waiting a couple of days to see how things developed. I got very annoyed about this, said a couple of rude things and said I'd pay for the expletive deleted operation myself. As it turned, this time I was right.

The operation would go ahead the next morning with the understanding that if they found cancer, the cat would be euthanised while unconscious. I gave them my mobile number as I was going to be out and about for quite a while. Part of this out and about was taking a guy and his cat from Hetton on the far south west of the city boundary to the new PDSA hospital on the north side of the river and taking them (just him as it sadly turned out) back home. This was the alternative that Susan came up with which  I mentioned above.

To everyone's surprise, it wasn't cancer. What they found was a seriously large mass consisting of human hair, cat fur, and fragments of tin foil. This was almost certainly what was causing the problem -though Mr Murphy suggested the possibility that it might be FIV (feline AIDS). So, she's being kept in the cage in my garage for a while as she hopefully recovers. You can't tell from the photographs but almost all her underneath has been shaved. I had her back again today for a checkup and there'll be another visit next Wednesday afternoon.

She's not out of the woods yet, but I'm hopeful. I'll let you know how she gets on.