Today was a major clean-up the litterpans day. Most of them were tossed out having provided months of service and being pretty beat up in the process. Also flea-treated everyone but ran out of Advantage. Sure do know that I have more than my share of cats as generally a 6 pack of Big Dog Advantage lasts me at least two months. I was unable to flea-treat Chappy, Mercedes and Cole. I will treat them tomorrow when I buy more Advantage from my vet.

When they smell the chemicals they do skedaddle quite quickly but opening up some smelly tuna cat food helped to mask my true intent. Although I am not that comfortable applying what is essentially poison on their skin, the damage that fleas can ultimately cause, far negates the risk of the topical treatment. In all the years using Advantage and Frontline, I have had only one cat respond badly to the treatment.

Thanks for the comments about the gal who wants to help me. I have left it up to this. I have told her that if she wants me to help her with any rescue that falls into her lap, I will be more than willing to do so. But, I can’t and won’t stop in my day to wait for her to find time to come over and scoop out the litterpans. I do this routinely, daily more than once- I have to or I would have a litter pan revolt on my hands. I have invited her over just to hang with the cats, ask questions, help with feeding that type of thing. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances and I understand that she only wants to work with bottle babies and not do anything older. That’s fine- because those kittens are at great risk if left unattended and outside. I guess I was hoping after her big pep talk with me that she actually wanted to step in and rescue regardless. It’s a big step and I understand she has made her choice.

It stormed hard here today, but I managed to hang up several of the bird feeders outside our big bay window. The cats were on alert and Phoebe, being tired of being teased about the prey outside that she couldn’t get to- picked up a favorite toy of my cats here- the SmartyKat Chickadee Chirp. She carried this toy around with her for hours, growling whenever another cat came near to relieve her of her treasure. It was funny how she made the transistion from just viewing the outside birds from the window perch to capturing this stuffie and carrying it chirping around the house.

Cyrus is outside and at night he will follow me into the hay barn so I can lock him up safely. He has a big bed of hay in there that he lays on, he has food water and litter pans. I have tried repeatedly to blend him with my group but his cat aggression is to strong. I am searching high and low for someone with no cats who would love to have a kitten that loves people and other dogs but who would eat another cat for lunch! So far, no luck- but I am hopeful that I will find one soon. I put a cat carrier on the wellhouse and made a waterproof roof out of an old dog kennel pad. He spends the majority of the day inside the carrier- I can see him from the kitchen window. The pad is large enough and waterproof that he has a nice patio he can step out of- but it is right near our largest trees and this is coon-central at night. That is why he has to spend the night in the haybarn. He is such a lovely kitty, it breaks my heart that I can’t figure out a way to stop his cat aggression. A friend of mine told me to put him on Prozac. I have some from my vet, and I could put him on it, but I hate what it does to cats over time. Charlie was on it for quite awhile till I just quit and decided to put up with the occassional spraying Charlie does when feels upset. I put Cyrus on Petfinders tonight- here’s hoping his new family is out there waiting for him.