My life is sometimes laughable. I walked into the grocery store and I heard this rapid panting. I am looking around and find between some advertising signs- this terrified kitten. I pulled her out and hustled her to the truck and put her in a carrier. I went inside and asked several clerks about it, but none of them even knew she was there!  I am calling her January and she is quite unique. She has a mack tabby head but her body is more of a sable pattern instead of stripes. Here she is and she is not feral at all- just scared out of her wits.But can you see what I mean about her body pattern? I will put up found ads on her but suspect someone just dumped her out of their car and took off-

She is not even two years old yet!

Although CATS is still substantially in debt to our vet, we are going to take Cagney in this afternoon and have a full work-up done on her. I did weigh her yesterday and at a year and a half old she weighs 18 pounds which is a lot of weight for a kitten. They aren’t considered a cat until they are 4 years old.

I am working with a commercial  photographer on an idea for a calendar for next year to raise monies for CATS. She has volunteered her time and effort to photograph all the 2016 cats- once when they arrive and again when they are healthy and ready for adoption. We are still working out the details on that. But regardless, I believe based on the aggression that Cagney is showing us that she is in pain. I hope I am wrong and instead she has been eating human food all her life. She is  a bit picky about her food so I have to wonder. But I just can’t sit back and accept her size as “normal” nor can I when the 30 days are up and she is officially mind, in good faith find her a new home where she can be cared for correctly for the rest of her life IF she is indeed sick.

This morning was the first time she has been friendly with me and she sat on my lap and almost crushed my chest- but she did accept my pets and strokes. It will cost us a few hundred dollars to do the lab work (If our vet agrees) So I will let you know the results in the end.

Cat Pee and hard drives do not mix! One of the latest arrivals that we call Goliath got out of his cage last week and unbeknownst to us, he baptized the back of my computer! Since he wasn’t a tomcat (thank God) it took a few days for the urine to work its corrosion inside my computer and BAM I am offline! LOL

Thank God for Mike, he used to build computers for a living, so he was able to rebuild mine to a certain extent.  I did lose some pretty important paperwork along with some photos, but it could have been so much worse.

In my absence- Berri, Porter, Anders, Lionel Gypsy, Badger, December and Nemo all went to new homes! Leaving us on Monday are Star, Linus, Sebastian and Nickle they will be turned over to the local shelter- spayed/neutered and put up for adoption.

Also MK- stands for Mystery Kitty who we have had now 12 years and NEVER been able to get close to her- is now letting me pet her and pick her up! She is one of the most beautiful cats here- part Persian and Maine Coon and probably 25 pounds. I was so shocked when she walked up to me, I picked her up and felt her all over for wounds, injuries, masses> Nothing but hair. The “visit” on her terms was short but sweet and I managed to flea-treat and de-worm her before she realized what she was doing and reverted to her semi-feral state.

The three kittens returned to us: Sophie, Cagney and Roscoe are a real surprise. They are so aggressive. Cagney and Roscoe  both attacked Journey. I have no idea what has happened to these kittens since I adopted them out over a year ago, but in order to keep peace, I had to put two of them into an outside enclosure. Sophie growls but she doesn’t attack so she is in the house mixing with the others. Sometimes people are not what they seem and this is a prime example. These kittens left her loving and in good weight. The couple insisted they took all the cats to the vet multiple times, but when I did some checking up on them- the clinic has never even heard of the people or the cats.  Oh well, over time, I will work with them and get them back to their loving head-bumping selves.

Well, I just caught a whiff of myself. No, I do not smell like cat pee! But I smell of sulphur dip and even though I have washed my hands umpty dozen times, I think it is time for calgon to take me away!

Hope all is well with all of you  and if you don’t receive your letter for tax purposes if you donated, please let me know. I will resend immediately.

God Bless us All-

This morning, the shelter took Barnum, Bailey, Porter and Anders. They also told me some sad news, the boarder kitty- the calico Gypsy was found to be in 3rd stage kidney failure. I did notice she was drinking a lot of water and ran her in for a diabetes test, but there wasn’t enough money in the kitty at the time to do anything else. I wish now, I had just run the CBC because I am sure she was suffering with this disease She was very quiet but I just thought it was because she missed her family. She was 14 years old.

Ironically her past owner was here not two days ago inquiring about “his cats.” I just told him they had all gone to better homes. He was upset, but they still have no home to put them in. He kept insisting these cats can’t be happy because they weren’t with him. I told him last time I visited the new adoptive home the cats were happy, playing and they had a secure future something he could not offer them. He finally left but he was not happy. I can’t do anything about that- I am here for the cats, not the people and to find a home that would not only take one senior kitty but two is pretty rare in these parts. I did not know that Gypsy was so ill or I would never have turned her over the shelter. I told the intake manager that had I known what was going on with her- I would have put her to sleep and out of her misery.

This morning I had to take Mike to the hospital for an echocardiogram. Because it was so cold outside 22 degrees, I decided to put Journey in her kennel instead of taking her with us. I also put her blanket in there with her- big mistake. It was the first time she has been separated from us since arriving here over a month ago. Let’s just say the condition of the blanket when we got home, showed us she has high separation anxiety! It was a big blanket too! Not no more- it is just shredded and there isn’t enough shreds left for me to feel comfortable about her not having some of it in her belly.

I am watching her closely for signs of distress and I gave her some mineral oil with her food tonight. Silly dog!

On the kitty front, the meds still haven’t arrived but on Monday I will be taking Porter and Anders to the humane shelter and hoping they will find a home from there. Porter has been here for quite awhile and willingly lived in a cage all that time. Not a good life for a kitty. I have given him every opportunity to NOT return back to the cage and he goes nuts if I leave him outside the darn thing. I hope he can find a loving home, where he is the only kitty and can have a proper life. He was one kitty left behind during an eviction from a trailer park. He is a sweet boy but he needs a life not in a cage.

Here he is on his short visits outdoors meeting Zara:

This is Anders- someone ditched him on a dead end road and he was rescued by a good Samaritan:

At 6 weeks old, she was stuffed into a bag and tossed by an uncaring person out on the I-5 Freeway. We got the call from the vet when a good Samaritan saw the toss and thought it odd how the bag landed. The woman did not have the money needed to fix the back legs and could we claim her? I said of course. That was in 2002.

This morning, I found her in the bushes out back. I tried to locate all the cats last night and get them inside away from the craziness of the fireworks. George even crawled under our home and corralled all the outside kitties so we could keep them safe. She was not around during the round-up. I looked for her until dusk, then hoped she would be survive the night. She did not. She would have been 14 years old this year. She walked with a bit of gimp and she was a pariah kitty and because she was picked on so often, she chose to be an inside/outside kitty. She never strayed, always at my feet during feeding times and I shall miss her. Our neighbor was shooting off his cannon and it was so loud and scary. I just wonder if her heart stopped? I don’t know, she was sharing Mike’s lap just last week.

On the medicine front- we have met our mark! Thank you beyond words for those of you who helped us out. I will get the liquid doxycycline on Monday and then the fun starts- medicating all the babies and also treating the now rampant ringworm. Crinkle’s tail is so full of ringworm that when we shaved her tail, it almost shredded out. She was free of ringworm last week. The new oral meds will be easier on them as well. With their URI keeping them damp with dip was just not working. So thank you again and now, because our ground is frozen, I need to go make a trip into the forest at the back of our property and find the right place to put a very courageous kitty to rest.

Happy New Year all- please stay safe, warm and loved.