I needed a smile and went to visit Dickens today. He looks so good, they have made him a playroom full of toys and it has windows so they can watch him play before going in to interact with him. I went in and sat on a chair and clicked my fingers and he ran over to me, smelled me, head-bump so I picked him up. He wrapped his wonderful paws around my neck and covered my face with kitty licks and kitty kisses!  Made all the bad stuff of yesterday just vanish! He has not let the absence of his radii bone in his front leg slow him down.

Here he is today- handsome fella!

Here he was when he left here:

Then I got an urgent plea from the local shelter. They had received four feral cats in a transport and due to their rules, they can’t have feral cats on their floor. One of them, a big orange boy bit someone and was on a quarantine- could I please take them? So I made a deal with them- if they would take Cagney – I would take their ferals. Done deal and the shelter is only 35 minutes from the house- not hours and hours away- So I went and got the ferals and they get Cagney on Monday. That gives Cagney enough time to decompress from all that travel so hopefully it will be a smooth trip. I know she will be adopted out quickly as long as she is the only cat in the cage and in the adoptees home. She is beautiful and she loves people so much.

I just walked in the door and my pissed-off meter is pegged to the max. The email? It was a practical joke! I wish I was kidding but I am not. 🙁

I got to the shop at noon and it was closed. Thinking she was at lunch, I went to the shop next door and inquired if they knew her? It was interesting when I walked into THAT shop- two beautiful cats came to greet me- a Ragdoll and a Maine Coon (white!) Beautiful! But I am digressing. I was so stressed because during the long ride- Cagney started open-mouth panting and I had to stop several times, douse her head with water, lay cool paper towels on her body and finally decided to heck with it and just took her out of the carrier and laid her on the passenger seat on my coat and turned on the air conditioner to help cool her down. Her ears were red they were so hot! I don’t travel the freeways unless there are no other options because traveling with cats, you never know what is going to happen. There was one time about 10:00 when she actually stopped breathing on me and I picked her up by her rear legs and swung her around until she started breathing again. I was so scared, shaking, crying praying- but she had made it- she made it all the way to the shop.

The two shopkeepers knew her and called her and handed me the phone. I said Hello this is mary anne miller of cats inc- met with silence then I heard “Who?” Who are you? I explained about the appointment about the special needs kitty- again- silence, confusion and she said “I have no idea what you are talking about!”

Stunned, I repeated that we had been emailing for a bit and that she had invited me to meet with her today at her shop. She’s like- “Hon, my husband is allergic to cats, and I really don’t like them all that much!”

Thank God, I had brought copies of the emails with me- and she met with me and looked at them. She was as confused as me until it all came together for her- and this is what I was told.

She does have a fourteen year old son. ALL the information in the email shared on my blog is true. But, her fourteen year old son has a 19 year old girlfriend that she found out about a few days ago. She put a kaboosh on the relationship immediately, grounding her son, and going over to the girl’s house and talking to the mom and telling both of them “This relationship ends NOW!”

The next day, her doorbell rings and there are three Mormans outside. She is confused (she is not Morman) They tell her she called for a ride to church and they are there to take her! Several other odd things have happened to her since that confrontation with the girl and then she tells me that she just signed up for a computer class a few weeks ago, and this girl helped her set up her emails and FB page. But she found it too confusing and confessed to me that she rarely uses email at all! This was all done for revenge because of the relationship being ended.

I don’t make this stuff up guys- I wish I did. I wish I held a boring life and just made stuff up to have people scratch their head and go “They did that?”

The long drive- the stress it put on Cagney (who by the way is not going anywhere at all)The scare when she got so hot she stopped breathing- the nasty windy, rainy blowy weather and the draw on the account to cover the gas which was promised (in another email) to be donated back to us plus more for the adoption.

I gave this woman all the emails that I had with me and I told her to go to the police- I know I would. But she is a retired sheriff and she is going to the police and I don’t think this 19 year old girl is in for a good time when that happens.

I’m just grateful Cagney didn’t die on this trip. I am glad to be home and I kept looking around for the television cameras thinking I was on “Let’s Get Punked” or something similar.

Cagney is fine now, she is lying on my lap probably wondering when the next road trip is coming her way. That answer is NEVER. I’ll put up with her growling at the other cats based on her reaction to being in a vehicle. Not fun-

A couple more things from this surreal day- the two shopkeepers offered to take Cagney to save her the strain of a long ride back home (but turned out they already had 9 cats!) The goal was to find Cagney a place where she would be the only kitty and much more comfortable. As I was driving through the town to go back home, I saw a Cat Adoption Store and went in and told the women what had happened and asked them if they had room to take her and find her a home on my behalf- when they took me into the cat area- I saw they too were full up and there was no more room in the Inn. Soo we just came home and here we are.

Just received the following email from an ad I put out over a week ago to find Cagney a new home: For me, after reading her email- it seems to be the perfect place for this cat- waiting to hear back from her now- and hoping for a road trip tomorrow morning. It will be 6 hours round trip but well worth it for Cagney to finally find somewhere she fits in-

Hello, I am very interested in your black and white kitty.  I will tell you a bit about myself, and what I can offer her, and you can see if you think we would be a match. I am retired, a young 52 year old, from the sheriff’s department in California.  I rented out my California home and purchased a 2nd home in Elkton, Oregon.  I moved here 4 months ago, for the Elkton school for my 14 year old son. I also wanted land, and room to garden, grow our own food, and for my animals. I have a horse, miniature horses, and miniature goats.  Though I am retired, I opened a little shabby chic shop in Sutherlin, Oregon, where I spend all my time.  The shop is more of a tax write off, hobby, than anything else, but it’s so far been surprisingly profitable.  I have many return clients and wish to have a pet mascot in the shop, to greet clients and for the kids to pet when they come in.  I keep it heated, and comfortable.  I have a delightfully beautiful cat bed, and the shop is about 1K square feet.  Kitty can sit on my lap all day while I’m there, listening to Enya with me, and greeting my peoples who come to shop.  I think she would like it, it’s a quiet shop, with soft music playing constantly.  It’s spacious and comfortable.  I can afford the very best of food, care, and medical veterinarian care as needed/required.  I have never given away an animal, once they are mine, they are mine and I take good care of them.  If you think this situation would be ideal for your kitty, let me know. Thank you, Julie.  You are welcome to come by my shop and visit anytime to see the conditions. 

This was his home when we pulled him and nine other suffering senior kitties from this outdoor, poorly protected enclosure. His  preference leaned to napping on the front porch or in the heated cat beds in the carport. Occasionally, he would enter into the larger cat enclosure to be with some of his brothers- but would start yelling at me to let him back out after about an hour.

Recently, he started to lose an incredible amount of weight and so off to the vet he went. The test results were not good- pointing towards an aggressive cancer in his intestine. Although, he was still eating, was still upright and tolerated being touched from time-to-time, we are not a fan here of waiting until the cat really begins to suffer and opted to put him down. At the time of his death, his pelvic bones were highly pronounced, his ribs were sticking out but he purred his way to the Bridge to join the 8 who traveled there before him.

Of the eight- two are left- Blake with the mushroom ears who was recently returned from an adoptive home of a year, and Bones, a black kitty now going blind, also outside and right now wondering where in the world his brother Sawyer got to this time.

Bye Sawyer- thank you for being our porch protector and the first cat we would see as we pulled into the carport to park. I will miss your graying face.

Almost one week ago, I stopped at a local restaurant and ordered food and came down 22 hours later with a whopping case of food poisoning. I never wish to be that ill again. They are trying to court me back with offers of free food but no thank you. They can’t seem to cook chicken correctly so I don’t want to take the chance.

I have been fighting this thing since then and only today do I feel that maybe I have achieved being a human again. Thanks to volunteers, we still have our food donation spot every week. I was so afraid of losing that wonderful opportunity for I have heard if you do a no-show they can just take the opportunity away from you should they wish to do so.

I also managed to adopt out three kittens- again with the help of volunteers- so Lennon, Jango and Sterling all have new homes. We said a fond and sad farewell to Sawyer who was put to sleep after being diagnosed with cancer. He was our porch sitter and protector since arriving here with the Seniors in Need. He was 17 years old and he will be sorely missed. We found out that Bones, Sawyer’s brother (same age) is going blind, and it was decided at our meeting to keep on the same track with him, even though he is an outside kitty. He doesn’t wish to come inside and mingle with the others, he knows the lay of the yard and as long as we don’t start changing things on him, he is of good weight, he is still eating, he is still upright and active and other than losing sight- he doesn’t appear to be suffering. We got Kahuna, Lennon, Jango and Sterling neutered also in that time frame. That is not a trip I want to make again when so much is going wrong internally on my part- but we got it done!

Dickens has been adopted out! You might remember her as the kitty who walks on her front elbows. But she lasted all of 5 minutes when she went online with her story and she went to a beautiful man who loves special needs kitties!

Well, I am still weak and shaky so it’s back to the couch for me. It is easy to be a couch potato when you have no energy and 5 kittens who wants to lie on you or next to you to purr you back to health!

Thanks in a very large part to SO many of you- our vet debt now stands at $1,359.88 so thank you all of you- you have my heart for all you did.

He is sleek, he is beautiful, he is too old to still retain his balls (they will be leaving in two days). I can put my hands on him, but he is pet-aggressive if you pet him more than a few minutes. He looks to have some Russian Blue in there somewhere, when the light hits the top of his fur there is a bluish tint. He might have a home, but since they have a young child, I need to assess his temperament a few days after he loses those balls. 🙂

His brother (McCartney) is more elusive and quite ill with a URI. You can see the Siamese influence in his eyes and face but he is just a mackerel tabby. The dad Kahuna is out in the Introduction cage spraying his welcome. His neuter will be Thursday as well. He is extremely unsocialized for living indoors his entire life. But, I will work with him slowly and we will see how it goes. Right now, he runs from me every chance he gets. I will probably have to transport him in a trap to make it safe for everyone on the day of the neuter. It is much harder to get a confined cat into a trap, then it is to get a cat running outdoors to go into a trap. So we will see what happens. A local shelter is doing the neuters at a very low-cost- otherwise this would not be possible.