YAY!

An email I received this week!

Hello ~

Not sure if you remember me, but one of your T and R's adopted my family at the end of last year. He just had his first bday.

I wanted to share some pics and give you a quick update on him. He is healthy as a horse and is doing wonderful. We are glad that he found us.

He is the most amusing cat that has ever joined our family. Almost like a child reincarnated. For instance, as soon as it starts getting light in the morning, he is awake and expects everyone in the house to be awake too! He runs from room to room batting toys around, playing under the beds. Then when we are up, he takes a nap!

When he hears the medicine cabinet open,he runs in, gets in the sink and waits for me to put water in a cup so we can play.

Whoever is taking a shower has the pleasure of him getting between the liner and curtain and then batting the liner. If I spray the massager on the liner, he will get a running start and jump at the curtain!! When showers are done, he gets in the tub and plays in whatever water is left.

I think the most amusing thing he does is, he climbs up the security screen door and waits for one of us to get behind him. He then purrs, leans his head back, into whoever is behind him waiting to be petted.

I could go on about his antics, but this email would turn in to a book."

YAY!

Fixing the cat problem, one hoarder at a time

How on earth can one little neighborhood have such a huge cat problem???

Yesterday, I became aware of yet ANOTHER goddamned litter of kittens - and another hoarder.

This hoarder's story will be posted later. For now, though - let me ask:

If you know me, and know that I am trying to fix this situation in the neighborhood, and you live around the corner and you see me every day -

- why wouldn't you TELL me if there was a hoarder on your block???

- ESPECIALLY when the cats all got tossed outside, not spayed or neutered???

I've been seeing new cats and I had no idea where they were coming from. Now I know.

And at least now I can try to do something.

But if you don't tell me, I can't help.

Don't turn a blind eye next time.

It's amazing

When people are grateful, it's so much easier to invest in helping their animals.

<3

Roundup Day

I'll post photos later, but for today: I grabbed the three younglings from the backyard and put them into the library this morning.

I wasn't sure how I was going to do this; they are going to foster on Saturday, and I had no idea how I was going to round them up. I have no cages to put them in (my cages are all out on loan). Seeing all three of them in the yard this morning, I just picked them up, scruffing each one in turn and taking it into the house. The first two, I put into carriers so I wouldn't have a jailbreak when I brought in the others.

They were freaked. Totally freaked. Poor things.

I am glad I have a place for them to go to, but I am a little sad about this. At least they are safe until Transport Day.

As for you, Rescue Groups

I've had exactly two rescue groups help me, ever. One is Peter Zippi who provides me with so many vouchers for TNR. The other is LBSNF, who helped me round up the feral momma who got loose in my library last year, and who also sent a friend with a trap to my house so I could get Simon.

Note: nobody, no rescue group EVER, has taken animals from me. Ever.

With the exception of these two groups, I am no longer helping rescue orgs. Period. you guys won't help me, I won't help you. That's the way this works.

I am not going to do it for you

So, you have a feral/stray cat/kitten roaming around your yard and you'd like to do something about it? GREAT!

I will lend you traps, provide you with vouchers and info and appointments and everything you need to do this.

What? Oh, you want me to do it FOR you!

Um. No. I would if I had the time, but I don't. I can't.

I work 50 hours a week. Commute probably 1.5 hours a day on top of that. Come home, take care of my pets, take care of my ferals and strays, take care of my house - on some rare days, I may actually eat dinner. On the weekends, I am doing TNR in my own neighborhood, transporting kitties to foster homes, and maybe, just maybe, cleaning my house and if I am really lucky, I will have a social life. But those last two items are usually pretty unlikely.

So what I will do, is empower you so that you can do this. Because you? You can TOTALLY do this. I promise, you can do this.

Let me show you how!

Army of One

So how am I supposed to do this all on my own?

The TNR program that was being started at my local ACS sounded too good to be true - and sure enough, this is very much the case. It's a great program, but it doesn't help in my case. I can't leave a trap with Mrs. B down the street and have ACS come get the traps and TNR the cats - and Mrs. B isn't going to do it herself. In the first place, she doesn't drive and in the second place she can't afford it. And Mrs. C on the next block, she drives a tiny coupe and can't fit a trap into her car. These were going to be my weekday reinforcements, to ensure that we got everybody done this year, instead of waiting for me to have weekend TNR appointments made.

Except, please see the previous post about the Wellness Clinic.

For crying out loud.

Oh well. Brace yourself for kittens.

SNPLA New Wellness Clinic

SNPLA's wellness clinic is on Sundays now, at both Pico Rivera and San Pedro locations.

While I love these guys and what they do, can I just vent here for a moment?

I ONLY have the weekends to do TNR. Having only Saturdays available, between both clinics, is kind of not convenient.

They TNR program that I thought LBACS was putting in place didn't turn out to be what I thought, and I can't use it. And now SNPLA is limiting me to one day a weekend.

At this rate I will NEVER get everyone done.

I am very frustrated.

Speaking of traps

Ugh! I had a very nice HavAHart trap, donated to me by my friend Valerie (thank you!).

I lent it to Jackie, because her siamese tom that she's been trying to trap for AGES keeps getting out of the Harbor Freight traps.

... and it got stolen.

ARGH!

Reminds me, I need to add one to my Amazon Wish List.

Every day is a new adventure

So it was with great frustration that I noticed that last year's most prolific female kitty is once again pregnant. She is one of the few I had not been able to trap last year, with my attempts having been thwarted by the Hoarder Guy on the next block.

We've had at least one litter already this year, which was entirely undetected by both myself AND the family whose kids keep finding kittens. How this escaped our attention, I'll never know - but at this moment, they are pretty much living at my neighbor's house and coming to mine for wet food. I have no options for either placement or fostering at this time - that well went dry last year, what with 101 cats/kittens placed. So, for these guys, the plan is TNR; they are old enough.

Anyway:

So they went missing for a few days, and I ended up walking down the alley, looking into people's backyards (like a total goddamn creeper, I know) to try and locate the kittens.

And oh, looky: Hoarder Guy's female is pregnant again. Great.

I will get her; hopefully it will happen before she has kittens again. I know, I am a terrible person for planning to abort kittens. But - it's part of this whole Feral deal. It just goes with the territory.

Now I am just waiting to hear the details from LBACS about this TNR program; if this is indeed true, I am going to distribute traps all over the neighborhood and make this a community effort.

It would be a welcome relief; even though several of my neighbors were a big help last year, I still shouldered most of this load on my own, and I can't do it again this year.

Details will be posted as soon as I have info from LBACS.

In the meantime, here's my Crazy Cat Lady rescue supplies wish list:

Amazon Wish List for Rescue Stuffs

We need stuff, and I can't fund it all on my own.

More info to come :)

>^..^<