Phone rings and I hear this lady say

“Are you who rescues kitties?”

I replied that I was and asked her what I could do for her?

“I have six day old kitties who are Pterodactyls” she replied

Cuse me? Did you see these kittens are Pterdactyls?”

“Yeah, you know lotsa toes?”

“oh you mean Polydactyls?”

“whatever, all of them are.”

Ok I am skeptical here- it is really rare for an entire litter to all have extra toes.

“Is the momcat in the picture?”

“She left and the kittens are in the barn. Steve McQueen brought them to me.”

“Steve McQueen the actor?” At this point I am looking around for the camera that says HA you have been punked!” Nope, no camera appeared in my living room.

“Can you come get em?” she asked, then she added “whoops gotta go!” Click…

I called back and it went to a full mailbox- I have no clue what that was about- but Steve McQueen has been dead since 1980 so I am not sure that I even want these kittens! LOL

This morning I dropped off Hook to his new forever home. I am thrilled that this home contains three guys and one girl as this cat is definitely a “man’s cat”. I told them all about this quirky cat and how he got his name because he hooks food off your plate when you aren’t looking and runs off with it to devour it.

They all seemed to be okay with it in fact they thought it downright hilarious. They are college students, but it is understood that Hook belongs to one of the guys and the others just get to share. I will miss this black devil, he was quite the character. But God is working and my black plague kitties are slowly finding wonderful homes!

One more black kitty has a new forever home and I couldn’t be more pleased. Now, all I have to figure out is how to dispel the popular myth that you can’t bond with older cats! I am unsure where that myth came from but it has been swallowed hook, line and sinker. I had a woman call me tonight about a kitten (I have four left) As we talked, she tells me she works 10 hours a day, four days a week. I am sorry but I am not going to put a kitten who has been previously abandoned into a home where he is going to feel like he is being abandoned almost every day of the week. I tried to talk her into taking ShyAnn because she is older and she likes to be alone- but the woman wanted a kitten so she would be able to bond with it quicker……..sigh…

So many of the older, beautiful cats get overlooked because of this preference.

We had a hospital bed arrive today for Mike. He is to stay off his foot for three weeks- he has a bad abscess that went to the bone. There is a fear of a bone infection so they are going to pack the wound three times a week and I am to change the bandage three times daily. If the infection doesn’t go away, then they will have to do surgery, something everyone wishes to avoid. It will not be a good surgery because it has been revealed that Mike has Charcot’s Disease which means that in his foot the soft tissue is dissolving and the bone is crumbling. So surgery will be risky to say the least-

The cats are a bit shy of the new bed because it moves but I am sure in a matter of an hour they will be on it keeping him company!

Yesterday, I drove over the mountain to deliver two black kitties to a new home. The new family was so thrilled with the kitties, they wanted to take all three, but they settled for Tansy and Tucker. It is rare for someone to contact me about wanting black kitties so I am very careful about who I approve for this type of adoption. I more than approve of this new home. They will be the only cats in the house with just two adults to love on them. Mike went with me and we hit snow coming over the pass- but thankfully not much of it. More is predicted today and tonight so I am glad I went right away on the mission of mercy. It seems strange not to have so many black kitties now- but it is a wonderful feeling knowing they will have a good life and be loved to the end of their days.

Took Fiona in and it is squamous cell- it has invaded her nose as well so it looks pretty bleak for her. I have to wait until the end of Feb unless she is really suffering and right now she is not- But I will keep an eye on her and also take her off the adoption list. I had a family interested in her too- which is unfortunate. They really wanted an older calico. I did tell them she was a cancer survivor so they were talking it over and will get back with me in a few days.

I am exhausted and will update tomorrow but tonight two more black kitties found a wonderful forever home! Taxi and Tandy now have two people to love them

Fiona, my sweet calico girl who was kept in a small birdcage over three years of her life and thrown kibble and birdseed when the owner thought about it- is now fighting cancer again. This cancer is a nasty one, squamous cell carcinoma. She had a few months after she arrived, the lesions cut off her earlobe in a surgery where I prayed for her every minute, and she is now 3 years cancer free- until this morning when petting her, I discovered the first lesion on her ear tip and the growth inside her ear.

I know from working with Twirl and Sundancer that when this cancer comes back- it does so with a vengance and it takes no prisoners. Typical in white kitties or kitties with light ear, this cancer takes hold quickly and destroys all in its path. I will soon have to bid this gentle soul a goodbye- but for now as it is only one small lesion, I am holding my breath and making a vet appointment. She did beat it for three years so maybe there is a chance she can beat it again-

Early in the morning before the house is awake, I sneak upstairs- ok well sneak isn’t really the word here. I try to sneak upstairs, but three or four black kitties seem to always accompany me. After doing a strange sort of kitty waltz around then in a very narrow space, I slip into the girls room to say good morning.

Normally, Gretel is hiding behind the dark sheet I have draped over a counter. She has all the comforts in the little cubicle she hides in and until this morning, she would wait for me to lift the curtain before crawling out from under the cat bed in the corner. They she will watch me closely as she eats the food offered. But this morning, as I lifted the sheet, I felt a head bump on my hand and she was waiting for me.

She came over to me and nudged me and insisted I pet her and so I laid down on the ground and we had quite the petting fest! It has started my day with a smile.

This morning, I went upstairs to work with the “Terrified Trio.” I am reading to them daily, Grey Matters (more about that later) and I am now at the point that Gretel will come out of hiding to lay near me and listen to adventures of Dulcie. I have playing upstairs the CD Harp of Hope which is already helping these cats to relax.

Afterward, I came downstairs to decompress and turned on TV only to be slammed in the face with the latest Doritos commercial that shows a dog burying something in the garden. You think at first it is a bone, until the camera pans down and you see a cat collar in the mound. The husband is nearby in the yard working and goes to stop the dog and is bribed by a bag of Doritos to keep his silence!

I am so baffled that a product as popular as Doritos has to resort to such tactics to sell a bag of chips? Maybe, I should invite some of their marketing team over to witness first-hand what happens to cats when they are victims of cruelty by the hands of people. This ad in my opinion propagates this type of behavior. I will no longer be buying any Frito-Lays product and I have been a fan of theirs for a very long time. But the insanity needs to stop and people need to see commercials where cats are treated with respect and not disdain.

Just an update, I did find out that this ad came from someone else as Doritos had a contest for a new ad.The winner got a huge prize I am told of a million dollars! The ad was voted on- unclear who voted for it. But still, to show this type of disdain for a cat is criminal. They already have a hard enough time surviving in this world- why add to that struggle?

Tonight, Mike had an order of chicken mcnuggets sitting on his table. He was nearby in his chair close enough to snack on the finger food if he was hungry. Hook came into the room and when I saw this black kitty making his entrance, I announced to Mike; “Incoming!” Mike replied that he was aware of Hook and was watching his dinner “like a hawk.”

About a minute later, Hook streaks by with a Mcnugget in his mouth! I laughed and told Mike that Hook had hooked another tasty morsel and had taken a chicken mcnugget. “No he didn’t” Mike said. “I have been here all the time watching him!” I just laughed, but Mike insisted- telling me the boxes of mcnuggets were still closed and he never saw Hook take anything.

A few minutes later, here comes Hook sneaking past towards Mike’s stash. Sure enough within seconds Hook again streaks by with another mcnugget.

Mike swore I must be mistaken. The boxes were closed and all his dinner was still intact….oh wait a minute? He had counted his stash and came up with two missing! LOL This sneaky blackness is so fast- you have no idea when he is going to strike. The other night, I was eating barbecue chicken and I had cut some of the meat off the bone. I didn’t see him enter the room, I didn’t see him creep up the chair and I didn’t see him until after his claw hooked a piece of meat and he took off! Bad Kitty! LOL I did have to chase him later because he took a whole wing off the plate and I can’t have my cats have cooked bones.

There’s a lady interested in adopting him and I have been very forthcoming about his habits. She thinks it is charming that he does this. I wonder what she will think when her food starts disappearing off her plate if the adoption goes through?

Ever since her spay, she has been going steadily downhill. Her right eye shows the upper eyelid flipped over and they have done several things with her to correct it, if that were all that was wrong with her, I would be able to work it out, but she has stopped eating and is now vomitting almost pure blood.

I am taking her in this morning and don’t believe she will be returning to the home and the people she has grown to love. She has been sleeping almost nonstop for several days behind the heater and yesterday, her littermate tried to attack her- another red flag to me that something is dreadfully wrong.

This is when the balance shifts and I am left with the decision of what to do. I see her as miserable despite repeated vet visits to get her comfortable. I want her misery to end for she is a special girl who deserves peace.

It is a part of rescue I abhor when I have to end a life before it has really began. She deserved so much better than she got, and I will miss this spot of black plagueness in the home for a long time. But there are just some things that you can’t come back from and sadly, I think this little girl is fading slowly, inch by inch, day by day.

I am back now and she is gone. I talked to vet at length about this kitten and I am thankful that she listened and respected my wishes. I suspect because of the broken tail that she was injured in some way and whatever happened to her was missed. I don’t know but I do know she was fading away- not interacting with the group, sleeping almost the entire day behind the heater which is always going non-stop these days as Mike is always so cold.

This was a new vet who saw her, but after I told her what had been going on, she agreed that putting her down was probably wise. Quince went so fast. They put the needle in, I saw the blood return and she was gone before they even pushed the plunger. Whatever was wrong with her, she couldn’t escape from and I have no doubt that as the days passed had I not taken her in- she would have sunk farther and farther away from her world. I couldn’t really afford to do this, but in the same breath, I couldn’t afford not to.