Yesterday, I was collecting monies from my donation boxes around town. At one market, this woman (she looked like a church lady) dressed nicely in dress and heels, asked if she could talk to me for a minute. Turns out, she has 3 tomcats that are fighting with her 4 females (all spayed) she wanted me to come out immediately and get the toms and take them away. I told her I can’t do that. I can trap them for her, get them neutered but there are no homes for these cats- and these are all mackerel tabbies, very hard to rehome.

Then she started talking to me about the way that stray cats are treated- she bought me a cup of coffee and we sat down and we chatted. During this campaign she asked where I lived. I normally don’t tell people right where I live, but she disarmed me and I told her. She gave me $40.00 for the CATS and told me I was a true angel to strays. I should of known-

Lo and behold, this morning, I go outside and discover large piles of white fur by the shop. I look for signs of blood, broken claws teeth- anything nothing just top fur not even undercoat.

So I just start feeding and I hear growling underneath the shop so I grab a flashlight look underneath and see what are the odds? Three mackerel tabby toms glaring at me. I know they are toms because they are chubby cheeked and it smells like cat pee under there in the worst way!

Mike said, I should have told her when she asked me where I lived: “You know where the narrows are? Well in those hills, there’s a road. You turn on that road, and you go out through the pucker brush, around the blackberries, watch out for the trains at the railroad crossing, but you just keep going until you come to the river. Then you cross the river if you can- follow the road until it doesn’t go anywhere. Our farm is right there! LOL  I wish I was quick-thinking like he is, but I happen to trust people and that gets me into so much trouble.

I do have news for her though. Because our vet debt is now at $534.00 the $40.00 is not going to touch the testing, neutering and caring for the three tomcats. At best, it pays for one test on one male and that’s it. Next time, I will take Mike’s idea and run with it, being careful to get them on a road I know that dead-ends at the river and you CAN’T go any farther.

A little over 8 years ago, in the midst of a thunderstorm here at the house, I opened the back door to let the dog in and a kitten screamed through! He was soaking wet- Mike called him a hissing sponge! LOL  He was in the house for 9 days before I was able to put my hands on him and take him and get him neutered. We called him MK for Mystery Kitty. He lived in a semi-feral state in the house until about 5 years ago when during the delivery of medical equipment he got outside. he is beautiful, he is striking, he is a long-hair tuxedo boy with white chest, white belly and a white stripe down his back leg. I have NEVER been able to touch him since he went outside. I see him in the patio enclosure but he bolts out the exit the first thing when I come in to feed. I never pushed contact with him. My husband was falling ill and my time was taken up with all of that.

This morning, he was in the patio enclosure, but this time, he didn’t bolt. He meowed at me, which concerned me. I had never heard him meow before. He was right in front of me and fearing he had been in a fight (there’s a new dumped tomcat on the property) I reached down to pet him and he let me! I pet him all over, then steadied my breath and PICKED HIM UP! You have no idea what that felt like. He is in good weight, he let me hold him and explore for anything amiss for a good 5 minutes then he wanted down. I thought “Wow, Thank You God, I really needed this right now, the confirmation that I am doing the right thing for these cats.” So I thought, let me go in and grab some Revolution and see if I can for the first time put flea stuff on him. I came back, uncapped the medicine and he fled! But what a glorious 5 minutes of bonding time with him I had.

With all this craziness recently and two deaths right on top of each other my life was kind of spinning off center. For 5 minutes God reached down and made it all right again.

Update on Ebby- turns out it was not mastitis, but she has lost the inability to produce milk even though she has so much of it. The vet said that recently someone must have taken her away from the babies for a few days, or taken the babies away from her causing this painful condition. Then they brought the kittens back to her, but it was to late. Or she just left them for whatever reason as she was a barn cat. Who knows what happened to her. She is on 7 days of antibiotics, 4 days of pain relief and anti-inflammatories (I spelled that wrong sorry). I am to give her warm compresses twice a day which she loves. I got a video of the babies yesterday. They are so adorable. Mom tested negative, so the babies are good to go and hopefully will go on to lead long, healthy lives. I’ll get them back at 2 months and get them spayed and into homes. Karen the foster mom has named them Eeenie, Meenie, Minie, and Mo. LOL  They are bringing her great delight and I am proud to say she is known in this county as being the number one bottle baby feeder. usually she is full up but I caught her at a good time. She loves bottle babies. I do too, but right now, I can’t give them the time they need to thrive.

I just opened up my emails. Two waiting there from that boyfriend- I sent him a reply and asked him to please just leave me alone from here on in. I told him I just need to move past this whole weird mess. I didn’t say this to him in the email but if I do hear from him again, I will consider pressing charges for harassment.

Ebby which is the name I have given the kittens mom is in a bad way. Initially when she came here and she was inside the carrier with her babies, she was screaming and swatting and we were afraid the kittens were going to be harmed so we let her out hoping it was the carrier upsetting this barn cat. We tried four different times to introduce her to her family and she went into full feral state each time including once when she ran out of hiding grabbed the black kitty and flung it! Thankfully she landed in straw and she is fine.

So kittens went immediately into foster care and I kept mom. I gave her 24 hours to decompress and when I came back to check on her she appeared calm but once I tried to initiate contact- full feralness returned. It was only yesterday, that she finally allowed me to pet her and I was so alarmed to see she has mastitis! No wonder she was trying to kill her babies and anyone else who wanted to handle her.

She was non-stop crying (still is) initially I thought it was because she was in heat from being put into mourning for not having her babies, but now I am convinced that she is in great pain. The reason I think this- is I put her immediately on Baytril and started warm compresses on her belly. Because of her volatile nature, I took large hand towels, soaked them in warm water and nuked the towels for about a minute. By the time I would get the enclosure where she is, the towels were just the right temperature. I wrapped the towel underneath her belly and kind of engulfed all of her into the towel and just held her. That is the only time, she doesn’t cry. 🙁 I am waiting for the vet to open so I can rush her in. She didn’t have a fever so I didn’t take her to the emergency vet- she is subnormal though hanging about 99.8 pretty consistently. I hope they can help her- when I was able to express her breast- congealed nasty stringy milk came out. Looks like only one breast is not hardened and sore- 🙁 She is just a little black kitty owned by someone who could give a rip how many kittens she produced. I hope they spay her today. I hope they save her life.

This morning I went into town and I saw a squad car at the coffee booth so I parked and went up the officer and asked him that when he was through could I talk to him about something?

When he came over, I started telling him about the phone call of the lost cat and then the cat being found dead in Foster Lake. The officer turned out to be the arresting officer the night of the fight. He kind of held up his hands and said- whoa, the cat was found in Foster Lake! I said, “that’s what the guy told me and he sent me a picture of a cat that drowned, only the cat hadn’t drowned.” The officer said, no, the cat was not a drowning victim, the night of the call with all the noise, sirens, lights the cat did out and ran across the highway and got hit by a car. The man is a psychotic liar and he is trying to get his girlfriend arrested by claiming she killed the cat, when everyone there saw what happened. Matter of fact the man went ballistic when the cat got hit. The cat died instantly!

I told the cop about the 32 emails, 17 text messages and phone calls and he said if the guy contacts me again, I am to call the police immediately and they will arrest him for harassment! He told me to make a file and save everything just in case, but right now the guy is in jail because he hit his girlfriend. The officer said they know him well and he likes to play mind games…well, I guess he played me!

These babies came yesterday. The queen was trying to kill them because she had been a barn cat for a LOT of years without being spayed and I think she’s just HAD IT! So  these kittens are now required to depend on humans to keep their lives going.

Here they are, and right now, they are in foster care 3 girls 1 boy

I am not sure about putting this on the blog, because I doubt people would believe me. I’m having a hard time believing it myself. But I just need to get it out and get it done with, out of my head and move on and the best way for me to do that is to just write about it. So here goes. Please know before I dump this load that I can\t still see replies here-working on the why of that- but this is for me. This unbelievable story is for me to be able to move past and move on. I will warn you at the end, it will get a bit graphic in description- sigh…okay here we go-

Two days ago, the phone rings a man is upset. He told me he lost his cat. An 8 year old tuxedo which he called a bit obese. I started asking the obvious questions- how did the cat get lost- how long has the cat been gone- has the cat ever gotten out before and then he started sobbing and told me that he had had a huge fight with his girlfriend of 6 years. The fight centered around her jealousy of the cat (right there my red flag is up) claiming he loved the cat more than her. The fight escalated, the police were called, he was told to leave or be arrested, so he left- he walked into town to cool his jets.

When he came back, he found his car packed with all his stuff- plus the litter box, kitty litter, food, bed, scratching post but no cat (another flag raises) he asks where the cat is- was told “the cat got out.” He wanted to know if I had his cat. Said he figured his girlfriend would turn her into a shelter. I told him I am not a shelter and that if the fight centered around the cat, I would bet she wouldn’t turn into the shelter, because you have to pay the shelter to take it. I told him that I suspected she harmed the cat. He hung up on me and called back later and apologized and said I upset him.

We talked, I asked him to send me a photo which he did and holy cow this cat had to weigh 30 pounds easy. No way would a cat that fat be able to run anywhere! At his request as he didn’t have his computer, I posted on lost pets. He was offering a $150.00 reward. I posted the cross streets and there are people in our town that are so wonderful they sit on this page and go look for the missing pets. So I started getting private messages asking for the exact address which I gave privately.

One woman went there immediately and started looking in the woods behind the apartments for the cat. It was getting dark and starting to rain and she left to run an errand and pick up her granddaughter. And her granddaughter said when she heard the story Grandma let’s go back and look for kitty it’s getting dark and kitty is probably scared. So they went back.

When they drove down the half road that led to the woods, someone had dumped a huge pile of cat food in the road. Not on the side, or by the curb or in the grass but on the road, so they kicked it off to the grass and laid out food in the woods.

As they were leaving this woman came out of the apartment and she was wearing a hoody and she was lugging a wagon full of boulders- not rocks big boulders. Now it’s around 6:30 at night, the trail (which I was on this morning) is muddy and deep with flooded puddles, not an easy task to lug anything anywhere) but I am getting  ahead of myself. In the pouring rain this woman was lugging these huge boulders down the muddy trail. As she passed the car, my friend rolled down the window and said “Excuse Me?” She said the woman turned but didn’t say a word, just glared at here, so then she said “Have you seen a overweight tuxedo kitty with a white belly?”

The woman snarled “Who sent you?” Taken aback, she explained she’d seen the post on FB and was just trying to help.

Then she said the woman just growled and said “I can’t help  you!” and continued off into the woods with the boulders.

I knew right then that the cat didn’t get out. You do what I do and see what I see and you get a sense you wish you never had and you know. I told my friend to leave immediately. She wanted to go back in the morning, and I told her no. She wouldn’t let up, so I told her I would go in the morning, and I look for these boulders. 🙁

So 6:00 in the morning, I am on the trail with Cooper and a friend who met me there and we were just going to pretend to take the dogs for a run. I knew if there was a cat on the trail or off rain or not Cooper would find it. We searched for 2 hours no cat, no boulders just a raging creek we couldn’t get through or see up or down to look if there were boulders. We were soaked to the skin and cold and we just wanted to go home.

When we got to our vehicles, we noticed this woman watching us from the apartment the fight had been. She had a big dog with her and she was reading, but she was watching. So I wave my arms shout “Good morning!” Dead Silence. My friend tries “I like your dog!” Dead silence just a glared glared. We got out of there. I told Chris we aren’t doing this- there are some people you stay away from, Promise me you won’t come back. She promised.While all this is going on the boyfriend is flooding my in box with emails, he’s calling 27 friggin emails. I told him I thought she had killed the cat. I’m pretty direct and at that point tired of all the emails.

I had to go out and pick up some kittens today and when I

got home there were about 15 more emails from the guy. The last one- said he had found the cat drowned at the local lake. But for pity’s sake, he had put in the main email a picture of this cat dead. I just lost it- I already had Turner in my head and now I have this cat that had been terribly I don’t want to even go into that in my head. I told the guy he is a sick man and I hope he gets help soon. Who does that? God-

Then I went on FB and posted he had found the cat the cat was deceased and thanked those who went to look. And that blew up to people accusing me of perpetuating a hoax? So I blew up and I told them a few things, but I also told that he was going to the police and filing a report- but it won’t go anywhere. He’d already buried the cat and you have to keep them on ice in order to do a necropsy plus he has to prove she did it. I told them it was his fight and NO I was not going to release his, name her name, their address of send the photo of the dead cat (that so many people wanted!) to anyone unless a police officer told me otherwise. Then I turned off my computer and just broke down and sobbed for that poor kitty who deserved so much better than she got.

Just got this email and want to share it with all of you. Also want to say thank you for the private and public messages sent on behalf of the death of Turner and mystery kitty Oreo. I will say that for some reason I can only see replies by one reader and not the rest. I go into the backdoor of this blog and I see the comments sitting in spam (for some reason) and hit approve and see the change, but I don’t see the replies. This has gone on without my noticing since December of last year! So apologies to those waiting for replies and never getting them. I am sure it is my computer because my webmaster sent me a screen shot and it shows all the replies no problem.

A few months ago, I clicked on a link that I should have checked out with the person before doing. It was on FB suddenly my computer freezes- I get a flashing Microsoft logo and an ominous voice over my speakers tell me that if I turn off my computer they will spread viruses throughout the kingdom of the Internet (show me rolling my eyes) I of course freak call my IT stepson who lives in Colorado, he logs in and clears it in 20 seconds. Laughs at me and says don’t worry about it, not from Microsoft they can’t do anything. Forget it- but ever since then I am having problems with my computer. So tonight I am going to ask him again for help (I hate to do it even though he is so good at it) I just don’t like to bother people. We’ll see what happens but for now all I am seeing is the first response to each post and nothing afterward even when I reply to the comment.

Ok here is the letter about Jet-Eye the Fearless!

Dear Mary Anne,

Just a quick note to say the kitty has calmed down by a factor of 10. He is OK with not jumping around like crazy or trying to scratch me in the face when I hold him carefully.

I wonder how much his itching is behavioral rather than allergy related. He isn’t stopping to itch every 2 minutes like his first 3 days. Yes, flea control helps but that doesn’t explain the frequency he would stop to itch. Let’s hope it is gone!! (He will eat 1 type of dry food now; the type Clancy likes best.) He also copies everything Clancy does like pulling the carpet apart with his claws like a boss.

I believe he has adjusted to our home now. Clancy played with him last night and this morning without running to the cat door to try to escape. Jet jumps over him like Sterling did and they stampede thru the house like thunder.

Fearless kitten will rumble with powerful Clancy as if he could actually win. Clancy is 17 lbs of muscle and strength and responds to Jet’s energy in kind. Fun to watch

Will try to email you a picture of Jet today – I need to practice first with my phone.

Robin

So guys if you reply and I don’t please know I am not ignoring you. Except for a darn sty in my right eye that impedes my vision a bit, I am fine. It’s my computer that is apparently sick.

There was another cat here that I took to the vet this morning and unfortunately her Bridge Pass has been stamped as well. Her gums were yellow, her ear tips were yellow, her eyes were yellow the pads of her feet were yellow. Running an FeLV test on her was a moot point, she was as far gone as Turner but not as old- vet estimates age at 4 or 5. Cost of Euthanasia for her $123.00 I guess they will just have to bill me for it. The cost on my heart today is heavy. Turner is now buried under the walnut tree and I will plant flowers after the rains today in her honor.

This time the vet visit included x-rays and blood work. Turner’s heart rate was 200- the bladder completely empty as is the colon. The blood work will be back tomorrow morning and we will know if this is kidney failure or cancer or something else. She just has no gas left in the tank. She got off the x-ray table and bit a tech but in 20 seconds she was exhausted and just panting in the corner. Still in rapid dehydration even with getting 180 ml of fluids daily. I am to bump it up to 200 ml a day. When I got her home, she bit me when I tried to lift her out of the carrier. I really don’t want tomorrow to come. I have a feeling I know what is going to happen to her.

Yesterday I was blessed to receive 16 cases of canned cat food. Instead of bring them all inside (it was raining to beat heck!) I stacked them inside a cardboard box in my carport. I figured I would carry them in when the weather got nicer. This morning, I go  out there and the box is gone!

I admit to being scatterbrained, so I looked inside of all the cat enclosures, inside the house- in the truck, The food is gone- vanished into thin air. Nothing else has been tampered with. They can’t access our back yard unless they climb the fences because we lock the gates now . I’m so bummed. We had 10 cans left from the last donation and now I am going to have to make those cans stretch to next week.

I am going to do one last look around before I call the sheriff and report the theft.:( They left the cat litter- just not the food.

On a better note, Ms. Turner is eating on her own and I popped her on the scale. She has gained one pound since the vet visit. She is still getting fluids and being very vocal about her inside stay- but she is still with us and not in pain so that is all that matters to me.