Tying Up Loose Ends

Last year I took in 3 cats from the local shelter.  Dennis, Carrie, and Ozzier were their names.  You can read more about them here: left-click-thingy here and here.

A little bit of follow-up is in order.  There’s been a lot that’s happened in the last year.  Jopty the gerbil had a stroke and died.  Alice the indoor cat’s leukemia took its toll, she started to fail, and she was euthanized.  Daisy the Doodle Poodle reached the end of her life, and she was euthanized.   Gladys the Guinea Pig had recurring urinary tract infections, which most probably indicated cancer, which these little rodent types can get if they live long enough, and she was euthanized.  Precious Paisley the Problem Cat was failing, and she was euthanized.  Shenobie’s (Sugar’s dog) bladder cancer was ending his life, and he was euthanized.  And the best sister-in-law in the world was diagnosed with aggressive bone marrow cancer, and in spite of remission, the cancer reared its ugly head and took over.  She went to hospice, and was gone in one week.  One.  Week.  I get a lump in my throat just rereading all this.

SIL was a hospice nurse.  Ironic, no?  One of her patient’s had several cats, and she was worried about what would happen to the cats when she was gone.  The largest one was a black cat, and for some strange reason, black cats and dogs are the last to be adopted.  So SIL took in Big Bubba, who is still living a happy life with SIL’s husband.  This makes me reconsider the old saying that cats have nine lives.  I always thought that meant that a cat can survive a life-threatening injury and recover.  I now think it means, to me in this particular circumstance, that a cat can have a new life with a new situation, like Big Bubba having one owner that died from cancer, then having another owner that died from cancer, then living with my BIL.  Hope my BIL takes good care of himself.

All of this which leads us back to Dennis, Carrie, and Ozzie.

After the initial release, I didn’t see Carrie for three weeks, and I didn’t know that Carrie had made her way down Resurrection Road to a double-wide.  The neighbor sent me a text that there was a cat under her trailer.  When I went to investigate, I was delighted to see that it was Carrie, even though she was emaciated.  I scooped her into a crate and took her back with me.  The next day she was back at the neighbor’s trailer.  While the neighbor agreed that Carrie was a nice cat, she didn’t want a cat, and was worried that Carrie might do some damage under the trailer, like pulling out some insulation, and the landlord would be mighty unhappy.  Plus somehow during the night, Carrie had managed to injure her skin, and had an opening the size of a quarter on her flank.  I opted to take her back to the shelter.  At that time, I had Alice the leukemia positive cat indoors with me, and I couldn’t wouldn’t take Carrie indoors with me.  After all, this is a 31′ RV.  Two cats inside.  I’m a little nuts, but that was even too much for me, exposing an injured cat to a leukemia positive cat, which is probably the subject for another post in greater detail.  Carrie was most probably euthanized, for I didn’t see her posted on www.petfinder.com after I relinquished her, damaged and unhealthily thin.  Time and care would heal her, but I don’t know if she was afforded that option.

Then there was Ozzie.  He was a tease to the other cats.  It started off mildly enough, but Sylvia was stalked and injured by Ozzie, RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I knew that Ozzie’s days were numbered here at the Swamped! Plantation and Cat-Cussing Facility.  He went to be a barn cat for a vet tech.

And lastly, we have Dennis.  With Ozzie out of the way, Dennis took over the position as head stalker.  He didn’t care who he stalked.  He was the only male in the group of five, and I wonder if he were trying to overthrow the regime.  Needless to say, it didn’t work, and I took him back to the shelter.  The girls were here first, and I needed to preserve their safety.

Occasionally the local shelter can shift animals to other shelters that have room and resources for them.  Today I was looking at petfinder.com to see if Black and Yellow had been listed at the local shelter, then I looked at some of the outlying shelters.  I didn’t find Black and Yellow, but I did find Dennis.

I think Dennis is on Life #5 now.  Good luck in finding Life #6.

So Much To Say, So Little Time

There’s so much animal news, and so little time. 

Some sad, some troublesome, and some hopeful.

On the sad front, I haven’t written about Jopty the Gerbil’s demise, Alice the Cat’s demise, and Gladys the Guinea Pig’s downhill slide that will probably end later this week. 

Troublesome news, as always, regards the springtime, or in this case, the unseasonably warm weather, causing cats and dogs to go into hormonal happiness.  Surging hormones once again brings roaming, yowling, fighting, attacks, and unnatural accidents, as we might refer to as “HBC”, or “Hit By Car”. 

A bit hopeful means that animal people are acting to resolve animal welfare issues.  Like shelters cooperating together to get appropriate treatment for animals, transports to relocate adoptable animals to new areas that have openings for new adoptees, and people working together to get aid for animals that need help.  There’s a case of galloping demodectic mange that has turned very problematic, and I hope to get aid to the animal before the owners, mere children, get evicted and slip away into the night.

So there you see that it’s not for a lack of topics that I haven’t been writing, but for lack of focus and hope.

Alice The Cat Makes a Resolution

Alice: "Hmm. So what Rawls was really saying here in his groundbreaking 'A Theory of Justice' was that cats should have unlimited access to books, cellphones, and wool yarn."

Alice the cat has resolved to read more in 2012.

Alice: "But first we need to understand the state of political theory prior to Rawls's work."

Couldn’t she have started with something easier to read than “Rawls:  A Theory of Justice and its Critics”?  Like Cat in the Hat?

Alice: "Really, it's quite simple. Rawls advocates liberal servings of canned cat food. Every day."

It’s going to be a long year.

Bacon! It’s Bacon!

Last month when the SIL and I were at the Kitchens on the Square in Savannah, I spotted the perfect, thoughtful gift for my nephew who loves bacon.  Yup.  Bacon.  If you look at his facebook profile picture, it’s bacon.

Alice: "Yes, it's bacon, but really? Who can afford the calories?"

Alice: "Bacon, say hello to my foot."

BioBags, O Yeah

I really dislike having an indoor cat.  Not because I dislike an indoor cat, but because I DISLIKE a litter box.  And I dislike how almost every evening when I’m talking on the phone to Sugar, Alice uses the litter box.  (Not sure what she’s commenting about.)  Her litter box is located in the fold-down bed compartment over the driver and passenger seats.  I took out the mattress years ago (Could that be – was it really years ago when I started living in this box?), and that’s where Gladys the guinea pig and Jopty the gerbil live in their cages.  So that makes Alice’s litter box about two feet above my head when I sit in my chair at the computer and on the telephone. 

I’ve used the plastic doggy litter bags to dispose of the contents when I scoop out her box.  Last week I ran out of plastic.  In search of a better bag, I found *COMPOSTABLE!* poop bags.  I was so excited, I could just poop share the good news with you.

Regular polyethylene-based plastic bags can take over 100 years to degrade and are not compostable.  Less than 2% of all plastic bags ever get recycled.  Plastic bags litter our streets, backwoods, and waterways.  Studies indicate that 100,000 marine animals and 2 million birds die every year from ingesting or being caught up in plastic debris.

Some manufacturers are blending additives to polyethylene to produce “degradable” bags.  Unfortunately, this process fragments the bags into pieces of plastic debris that do not meet the ASTM D6400 standard for compostable plastic.

Nature Knows The Difference.

BioBag products are made from GMO Free starch, vegetable oil and the world’s first patented polymer.  No polyethylene is used in the production process.  We are fully certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) and meet the requirements of California and Minnesota law regarding ASTM Compliance.

In Which Things Get Complicated

On Monday, November 22, 2010, a man walked in the door of the vet clinic.  He said that he had trapped a cat, and could we please tell him if it’s a boy or a girl?  He stated that he worked for a hunting club in the area, and there are feral cats in the vicinity, but only male cats were allowed, because of course female cats are good at math, their particular specialty being multiplication. 

I was dubious as to how we were to actually get a clear shot at the animal’s hindquarters, especially since feral cats ball up into a wad of stubborn anger when they are trapped.  I asked the man if the cat could be handled, and he replied that he had touched the cat.  I suggested that he bring the cat inside to an exam room so that we could assess the situation.

I must say that I was surprised that he brought the cat to the vet clinic and not taken the cat to the animal shelter where it would most likely be euthanized.  I was equally surprised when the cat in the trap was a young thing who seemed shy, not feral.  In the exam room, the vet, the man, and I discussed how this would all play out, for we found that the cat was female, about 3 or 4 months old. 

I offered to pay for the spay surgery and vaccinations, and to take her home to foster her while trying to place her in a permanent home.  It’s an inconvenience to have a cat in a 31′ RV.  The litter box issues alone can be enough to blow the windows out, but I determined to be a good housekeeper and keep things as clean as possible.  This seemed like a good solution, and the man said if I couldn’t get a home for her, he would take her back to the hunting plantation to be released, and that he would pay for her expenses.  This sounded like a win/win.  The vet elected to spay her the next day, in order for her to have time to be de-wormed and to get a couple good meals and vitamins for strength. 

After the surgery on Tuesday, I took her home.  She was already much less shy, although she hid some, several times getting completely up in the dashboard on the driver’s side.  I stood on my head to look up into the dashboard and saw nothing but wires and such automotive-type stuff, but I could hear her inside.  I worried that she would continue to hide and get trapped inside somehow, and I have to call for reinforcements to take the front end of the RV apart to free the cat.  After a few days, she was comfortable enough to establish her position on the driver’s chair, although a few times she looked longingly at the dashboard, perhaps remembering the good old days when she used to play hide-and-seek. 

On Friday, we had a substitute vet, and I elected to take the cat to the vet for a re-check, and it just so happened that Karen at Maranatha Farm dropped in with a dog that had been in a dog fight.  I showed the cat to her, explained the situation, and she offered to take the cat to an adoption fair in a few days at a retirement community where she would be the only kitten and would probably have a very good chance at an adoption.  Another win/win. 

I told Karen that the cat had not been tested for feline aids or feline leukemia, but I felt sure that the tests would be a formality and that she would be negative for both.  For shelters that test for these diseases, a positive result can insure euthanasia. 

The substitute vet and I drew enough blood to run the test.  This particular test needs only 3 drops of blood.  The test for feline aids was negative, and the test for feline leukemia was… positive.  This was not a win/win.

I took little Alice back to the RV wonderland, and debated what to do.  Feline leuk is a “friendly” disease, and is passed in fluids that are shared by cats, like a shared litter box, shared water bowl, shared food bowl, sneezes, and grooming.  I read into the night about what to do about feline leuk positive cats.  The only conclusion that I developed was that I had no conclusion.  I’ll keep her inside away from the other cats and retest her in 6 months to see if she’s negative, although she probably won’t be.  And I’ll try to remember to scoop the box every day.

So you’re wondering was a feline leuk cat looks like?  Hope you’re ready for the pictures of this wild animal.