She is done for with these kittens. Although still endowed with plenty of milk- last night, she threw up her paws and looked at me and said with her eyes: “I surrender!” Then she turned and hissed at her family, swiped at a couple of them. Her new home is above theirs in a comfy 4’x4′ cage we custom made for her on the fly, Thanks to George!

So now, I am the go-for girl. The bottle feeder, the stimulator, the cuddler. I just wish there weren’t so many of them! LOL  I made a big batch of kitten glop and we are good to go. Some of them are using the litterpan now (mom showed them how) but there are others who need assistance.

I’m hopefully going to take Jetta in this morning to have Steve take a look at her and tell me what if anything we might be /*ac77 (that is the queen herself walking across my keyboard) “You talkin about me Mom?”   I would like to know what we are facing with her mouth being so odd. She is sitting in my lap trying to get behind my computer (off limits to all cats) I’m also going to have to bring Kiab in to be spayed. One of her nipples has gotten a whole lot bigger in 24 hours. Maybe her bare nipples means that she is pregnant and not that she has babies already somewhere. Hard to say. It’s going to be a busy morning here. I will update about the vet visit when I am able to.

She is a beautiful kitty who only wants to be held. When we aren’t holding her, she cries until we do.

I just put her on the CATS Inc. facebook page. If anyone wants to add her to their page- please do. Not exactly sure what her abnormality is all about but it doesn’t seem to faze her in the least!

CATSInc.

Today, a friend of mine told me about this kitten running around a park near her home. She told me that this kitty has “two noses” and no home. She told me if I could take it in, she would help out as much as possible with her. She was concerned because the park is frequented by feral dogs. A two-nosed kitten? Never heard of such a thing, so I asked her to bring her to me.

She is so skinny, very friendly and at first I thought it was a cleft palate, but the roof of her mouth is solid. If it were a cleft palate, she would have a hole in the roof of her mouth just below her nose. She would be getting food into her nose when she eats- but she eats just fine.

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She has a split down the center of the bridge of her nose. Her right nostril is bigger than her left and if you look inside, you see that she has three nostrils- not two. Her right nostril is separated in the center by another smaller wall of tissue creating three nostrils. Pretty astonishing.  She can eat and drink just fine-

Last night I got a call from a gentleman rancher who had adopted from me about 10 years ago. His cat just passed away from lymphoma (she was a nice tortie). He asked me to bring four cats over for his heated barn. He raises heifers on his 90 acre spread. I took over four of my best mousers and once he releases them from their large dog carriers in a week or two, they are going to be in heaven. I wanted to ask him to adopt me! LOL I would have taken more photos but my battery went dead.

I made sure to set them up nicely in these carriers but I know they are stressed out right now. Only three were eating when I left- Malcolm was hiding in the litterpan. But they are lucky kitties- their playground is huge!

We have a skunk that has been spraying the cat enclosure so the family came inside tonight. Aurora has enough to deal with without having to worry about a skunk who wants the food she smells inside the enclosure.

Here is Aurora with her two newly adopted kittens-

The one that is tuned into something greater than yourself? The one that sometimes gets drowned out by cell phones, car pools, errands to run and alarm clocks? I received a call from a local shelter. They had cat food (dry) and cat litter for me! I jump in my car, I’m tooling down the road thanking God for this call and I pass a box (Jim Beam whiskey box) just sitting at the side of the road. It was all sealed up in twine. It looked really out-of-place.

The voice said: “Stop!”

I said in my head- “Can’t, places to go, people to see!” The voice again stronger said “Mary Anne STOP the car! I sighed, slid over the side of the road and backed up closer to the box. I got out, picked it up (heard the meows) and tears just slid down my face. Cats do not get any breaks around here.

Once I got to the shelter, I borrowed a room and opened the box. Inside is this adorable ((probably 7 week old orange kitten) and a mackerel tabby. I picked up the older one she is about a year old. She was friendly. I turned her over and saw evidence that she was nursing. The kitten in the box was way to old to belong to her- but somewhere, she has kittens. More alarmingly, she had poop dangling from her rear. I borrowed a warm rag and gently tried to release the pressure for her- she is stuffed full of grass and pebbles! She is bone thin- and out on the porch right now. She feels “pregnant” but for now, she will stay on the porch while I try to get her unbound up with Laxatone, Lactulose and wet food.  The kitten is in the bedroom in a cage- he’s a cutie- a long hair. I am thankful I stopped and at the same time sorry that I did because I really don’t have any room right now. For the first time, the mackerel who got spayed this morning is forced to stay inside a large dog carrier until I can figure something else out. My hope is she might accept Yin and Yang and they can all be feline friendly in the deck enclosure.

The two kittens who froze this morning and came back are now with Aurora! She accepted them with open paws. When I left her, she was cleaning them as they were nursing. Give that queen a big crown! Mother’s milk is so much better than what I could give them. I will keep checking on them- but the warming cave is sitting at 70 degrees so they are warm, warm warm right now next to mom’s belly.

Mike just shook his head when I came home with more cats. He said if he could figure out how to disconnect my cat magnet, he would do so. I told him he would also have to shut off that small voice in my head- the one voice, I know, belongs to God.

Someone left a box of kittens and a pregnant mom on our porch last night. It dropped down to 39 degrees last night! I didn’t know the box was there and this morning when I went to let Brandi out of the house, she wanted to go out the front door (not normal for her). I let her out and she ran over to the box, started pawing at it and whining. I knew it wasn’t a good thing.

I picked up the box and carried it inside. There were 5 kittens (about 2 weeks old) and a pregnant (anxious mom) inside. Three of the kittens had already had their Bridge pass stamped. I worked for a few hours bringing the other two back- they are barely here. The family is at the vet right now- the kittens for evaluation- mom is getting spayed.

The remaining kittens are bone thin. Mom was friendly enough for me to examine her. She has had multiple litters this year (her tummy is almost hairless around her nipples! But she is bone dry- no milk- no more. Do I have room for them? No! Do I have the resources to care for them- barely. But I cry for the three who did not survive: a small golden boy, a tuxedo kitty and a tortie. Mom is a torbie. The two surviving kittens are both girls a mackerel tabby and a white kitty with black ears and a black head (a miniature Hope).

I was determined despite our huge vet bill that this queen would never have to deal with kittens again in her life. She looked like she would have them tonight. Now, she won’t have to worry about it. People don’t understand the stresses that a nursing mom faces, and like the Tortie Aurora, this torbie looks to be under a  year old. This should have NEVER happened on so many fronts!

Just got back from the vet with Hope and we have decided to try her on Doxy and also pet tinc for now. I asked him what in the world non-regenerative anemia is and he pointed out her blood results. Normally, when people (and cats) are losing blood- the body (bone marrow) goes on alert and manufactures more. Her reticulocyte should be 7.0-50.0 and it is sitting at a 5!

In other words according to my awesome vet who makes this technical stuff easier to understand: Her bone marrow is chillin out and not worried about the blood loss. Why? Could be several reasons: cancer certainly in the forefront- lyme disease another concern although ticks aren’t common in the valley. Also a chronic infection that is just slowly bleeding her out. She isn’t a candidate for a blood transfusion yet- but she is darn close! She just needs prayer and time.

As with all of the cats here, I have to determine if she is adoptable, is she a lifer- or is she one who just needs to be put out of her misery? Right now, we are at a wait-and- see mode.

We have given her a two-week window of TLC and meds and then will run the hemocrit again (It’s a fairly cheap blood test) If it is up- then we are good to go- if it stays at 22.5 (should be 28.8-52.7) then we will assume it is cancer and once she starts to really suffer, we will do the dirty deed.

But through all of this since she has arrived (she came on the 23^rd) she is gaining weight rapidly. Even between vet appoints (42 hours ago) she has gained 2 quarters of a pound! Now there is a rare lymphoma where all the nutrients in the body go into feeding the tumor and that could be what is going on here, but I don’t think so. Years ago, I had a kitty with this type of lymphoma and she bulged in one spot on her side. Hope is gaining weight all the way around.

So that’s where we stand right now.

Just to let you know, the sanctuary is in need of money to cover the vet debt. But we also need canned cat and kitten food badly. Winter is setting in and the cats outside need the wet food to keep warm. Dry food is donated here now twice a week! YAY! So for now, we are good with that. But if I had to put out a wish list it would be:

donations of $
canned kitten/canned cat food
garbage bags
PAM cooking spray (makes cleaning litterpans a snap)

Thanks for listening, thanks for caring- please pray for Hope and Tweedledee and that the new kitty (Licorice) Isn’t pregnant! I can’t take her in right now. I wish I could.

One more thing. Because we are NOT a selective rescue. We take the hard cases, the ones who are sick, afflicted with PTSD not the easy ones, the beautiful ones (although sometimes we luck out and get some beauties here!) Our vet bill will always be high. If you want to cut out the middleman and send a donation to our vet clinic- here is their information:

Animal Clinic
185 North Santiam Highway
Lebanon  OR  97355

Make it to the attention of Eartha and say within the context of the envelope the monies are for CATS Inc., or Mary Anne Miller