#bc I fully know better it’s the entire reason I even have those wildlife gloves

[einsteinbrosofficial]

What kind of accident happened that ended with a TNR and a rabies hold? Like I need to know about all of this

@sleepywinchesters Disclaimer do as I say not as I do. This is a story of hubris.

Cat professionals don’t judge me I know where I went wrong I just thought I was built different

Our TNR program only has one dropoff day a week & you have to make your appointment with # of cats ahead of time.

I have two traps so I’m aiming for 2, I’ve trapped for this colony before and it usually took multiple tries to get the right cats! Like I’d have to free at least 2 fixed cats for every unfixed one I caught.

I tell you this so my decision making doesn’t sound as stupid lol.

I was prepared to stake out these cats for hours at a time every night until my drop off appointment. So I start trapping like. 5 days early.

I also set up a big dog cage with some essentials in case I got any of them TOO early, which other cat people will see as red flag # 1 but I SWEAR makes sense with how much work I put into socializing these cats and I would not have pulled that move if I hadn’t been working with this cat colony since 2018.

Ok my dumb decisions have been detailed.

So anyway I literally set myself up with stakeout snacks and everything and I catch two cats within 10 minutes of trapping.

One of the cats I trapped is Charlie Chaplin. I’ve been feeding him about 4 years and he has a mustache and like a week before this he let me get within two feet of him without running.

I go to transfer Charlie to the dog crate (at my home where he’ll be chilling on the patio) and when I go to close the gate door behind him it got STUCK.

Charlie is terrified and he BOLTS and does an actually very beautiful leap DIRECTLY INTO THE POOL.

As I have since found out he’s largely blind in one eye! Which explains a lot of this! So he is now experiencing a pool for the first time in his life completely by accident.

I panic and start throwing all of my electronics off my person so I can jump in. He figures out swimming, escapes the pool, and then scales 10 feet of patio screen and starts trying to spider-man upside down across the roof.

Charlie then jumps down and proceeds to jump directly into the pool AGAIN! I jump after him because his head kept dipping underwater the first time (bc he has presumably never swam in his life before this) and I’m worried. I did not put on my wildlife handling gloves before this, which is another goof. I scoop under his tummy and I’m trying to carry him to the edge of the pool while keeping his head above water.

Anyway to Charlie this is actually even worse because he doesn’t know I’m trying to remove him from the pool, he bites the absolute SHIT out of my arm (valid), I get him to the edge of the pool and let go bc fucking ow, he JUMPS BACK IN THE POOL.

At this point my bonus sister tosses me a towel to grab him with and I manage to catch him safely and deposit him in the crate. Then I had a half hour long panic attack abt whether I had to euth him over me being stupid but I didn’t lol

If you’re unfamiliar with the protocol for potential rabies exposure, the literal only way to test for rabies is to euthanize the animal and biopsy their brains. There’s no way to test an animal while keeping it alive. A lot of the time if you’re able to you need to try and capture the animal that bit you and hand it over to whatever doctor you go to so they can send it for testing. Like. Secured though. Or already dead. Don’t give your doctor a loose potentially rabid animal.

HOWEVER, if the animal is a cat or dog specifically and is not otherwise showing obvious symptoms you have the option to isolate and observe them for 10 days. There’s research showing that dogs & cats who are far enough into the disease to transmit it (apparently they can’t transmit it during the incubation period, yay) will either show symptoms or die within 10 days. ONLY applicable to dogs and cats. If they show symptoms (or die) you send them to be tested, according to the county rabies coordinator I called about this.

I did not in fact have to get a rabies shot because we have already gotten past day 10 of his observation period and he’s chillin.

Also the other cat I caught early did fine, already got spayed and vaxxed and released. I just saw her earlier today when I went to check on the colony and she ran away as soon as she saw me lmao.