#this post brought to you by CapStar

[great-and-small]

I have this weird thing where I always find kittens whenever a big storm is coming. It’s like they just spawn out of thin air when the pressure drops below 950 mb. When my mom’s current cat was a kitten we pulled her out of a wood pile the day before said wood pile was washed away into oblivion by floodwaters.

This pathetic creature showed up at my neighbor’s house two days ago covered in fleas, loaded with coccidia, and hissing like an absolute opossum.

He’s cleaned up nicely (survived bath) and is already taming down fast. He was a perfect gentleman today. I think he’s going to be a rather exceptional cat actually! Hopefully I’ll be able to foist him on my coworker who made the grave mistake of telling me she was considering a kitten a few weeks ago. I’d love to see him grow up. Scratchy-meow cats have a direct line to the most sentimental part of me.

[shrimpin-aint-easy]

hey friends!! holy crap I hate making this kind of post. I recently lost my cat for around two weeks, and I found her Sunday absolutely emaciated, anemic, severe upper respiratory infection, incredibly infected and deep wound on her left armpit, yellow, and infested with fleas. I brought her to work with me (vet) and spent the last of my greenery on medication and treatment for her; we ran her blood work and her liver values were sky high, and as I said, severely anemic. We are doing antibiotics (Convenia), Onsior, fluids, recovery food, Capstar and Senergy for the fleas, iron and mineral supplements. At home I’ve been steaming her in my bathroom and I have a humidifier in the room she is quarantined in. The total was $236 (to be as transparent as possible, lol) and I still need to pick up 2 more medications for her, another supplement & some lysine powder.

Would anyone be able to spare like $20 so I can go stock up on wet food cans for her?? She’s having a hard time chewing the dry kibble, and I need to go get her kitten food specifically to help with her weight anyways. My last little bit of extra money has to go to gas and food for myself

Here’s a picture of the poor old lady

She is doing a LOT better. I just need to stock up on wet food until I get paid next Thursday. Any little bit counts! I’m just going to get whatever cheap stuff I can for now. Any food is better than no food, and she needs all of the food.

💴 app: $metacat4

Vænmo: @sara-parkour

Thank you all, I’m sorry about this post and we will be back to scheduled shrimp activity 🍤

*** edited in a few things I forgot the first time. my mind is all over the place, I have a horrific living situation and I’m stressed about finances so forgive me 🫠

[catsbeaversandducks]

“I was so annoyed when you followed me and Gwen home, weaving in between my legs and making me trip over you the way cats do. Your pack-a-day smoker’s meow was less than endearing to me, screaming at the top of your lungs on my front porch, absolutely insisting on coming inside with us. I had 6 cats and a dog in the house already, and you were the last thing I needed when I was already running late for work.

I took Gwen inside and left you on the porch. You stared at me from the other side of the glass door, not giving up. It was starting to rain.

I finally took a closer look at you. You were skin and bones, matted, dirty, with sunken in cheek bones, juxtaposed by perfect winged eyeliner. I said something like, “God damn it,” as I scooped you up, popped a Capstar in your mouth, and stuck you in my bathroom. You were starving and ate two cans of wet food. I named you Bones, in honor of Halloween coming up as well as after your skeletal figure.

“A cat followed me home today.” I texted my husband. We have a running joke. I work at an animal shelter, so a lot of cats “follow” me home. “Literally this time,” I added, sending a picture of you on our porch and then in our bathroom. You were the happiest cat I’ve ever seen to be locked in a bathroom. You laid in the sink and sat on top of the toilet seat, surveying your new territory. You had already claimed my house as your new home on day one.

I posted your picture in my neighborhood groups online. You were just a stray, people said. You’d been around for a while. No one was looking for you or missing you. Everyone felt so sorry for you, but nobody could take you in or help you. They were glad you were inside now.

I took you to the vet later that week. You had so much wrong with you. He said that if you hadn’t decided to follow me home, you would have died within a week. That hit hard. Our meeting felt so purposeful now. Like we were meant to be together. You KNEW I was going to help you. You picked me.

As we followed up with the vet over the next few weeks, we soon got the devastating news that your kidneys were beyond repair. You had stage 4 kidney failure. They gave you six months to live. Six months was better than one week, I told you. We would make those six months count.

And so we did. We spoiled you. You wore sweaters. We took you out for walks on a leash. You laid inside next to the space heater on cold days. You shared all of our meals. Your favorite was Taco Bell. You’d scream and scream at me when I brought it home. You were deaf and so loud. I’d hold out a bite of cheesy bean and rice burrito on my palm. Your teeth were a wreck, so you needed a little bit of help getting it in your mouth. But you knew I’d always help you.

We even microchipped you. I needed you to officially be a part of a family that loved you before you passed. Registering your chip in my name made it official. You were my cat.

Last night we gave you subq fluids and hand-fed you. I even brought you a Taco Bell taco, but you weren’t interested. You were so tired and so weak. You had been vomiting for days. My loud, outgoing, persistent little girl was so small now. It had only been 10 weeks since we brought you into our home, but your kidneys were already failing you.

This morning, you could hardly stand. I made you breakfast, but you couldn’t eat it. You got up and looked out the glass door outside for a few minutes, but you didn’t meow like you usually do. You made your way back to your bed, so slow and so weak. I hadn’t heard your voice in days, I realized. You were always shouting at me, always yelling demands. You knew how to make yourself heard. But not now. You were silent.

I heard your quiet request anyway. Today, I helped you end your suffering. You were so loved, Bones. You touched thousands of people with your story. You had articles written about you. You were just an old stray cat that everyone had ignored for years, but we all saw how special you really were. Your life mattered.

Our home is so quiet and empty without you, Bones. You weren’t the last thing I needed. You were everything I needed. Thank you for being a part of my life. I love you.”

By Laura Cassiday - The Adventures of Thomas the 26-year-old Cat

[carasueachterberg]

I said you wouldn’t hear from me while I am on ‘sabbatical’ in Virginia, but apparently, that isn’t true.

I came here to hike and work on our future home and write and read the stacks of books I brought with me; I didn’t come here to rescue animals. I planned to scrub and build and repair and plant, but instead, I find myself once again, up to my neck in rescuing animals.

The (insert expletive of your choice) man who lived here before us left us his cat. Plus the handful of feral cats he’d been feeding (and a bear that stops by in the mornings in search of whatever the cats didn’t eat).

There was nearly a month between when he moved out and we arrived. Contrary to what many people think, cats can’t always fend for themselves. At least not all of them, and not very well. We noticed a few cats on our previous visit but assumed they’d move along when their food source was gone. Worst case, I’d trap them and get them altered.

By the time we arrived for our extended time here, three of the four cats were mere skeletons. The tiny male orange cat was in the worst shape. All his bones protruded, he moved slowly and looked to be in a daze. His coat was rough and stained and you could see giant ticks hanging like a collection of jelly beans around his neck.

The brown tabby cat who had looked fairly healthy the first time we saw her now looked at us with dull green eyes, scratched at the door, mewling pitifully. Her ears were torn, her coat neglected, her limp belly sagging on a bony frame.

  I watched them for two days. I didn’t feed them – everyone said, “Don’t feed them, they’ll become dependent.”

We won’t be living here fulltime. We will come down as often as we can to continue to renovate the long-neglected cabin, but not often enough to feed these cats regularly. And eventually, we plan to rent the cabin to people and their dogs, so resident cats are truly not in the long-range plans.

But the cats were starving and dehydrated and probably anemic from fleas and ticks. I set out a bowl of water for Flannery on the porch and they flocked to it and drank it dry. There is a creek about a quarter-mile away, but the little stream that cuts through our property is dry this time of year.

I watched them for another day and then couldn’t bear it. “They’re starving to death,” I told Nick. “I can’t just watch.” My cat-allergic husband said nothing because he knows me.

I fed the cats. They couldn’t eat much at first. The little orange boy swatted at the food in frustration. He was too weak. So I went to the store and bought Capstar, a med that makes all the fleas and ticks fall right off – it doesn’t prevent them from coming back though, so I also bought Frontline. I shoved pills down the throats of the two cats who became our hesitant, jumpy friends. I can’t touch and rarely even see the other two.

The brown cat seems to be the mama of the two orange cats, who look like adolescents. We named her Molly Weasley (our cats are Harry Potter characters) and she began to fill out quickly and spends her days waiting at the door for us to let her in (which we don’t). She was obviously the (insert expletive of your choice) man’s former house cat. She and Flannery are bonding. She looks better already, and I will likely take her home with me.

The tiny orange boy kitty (Ian named him Fred Weasley) only looks marginally better. He’s moving better and leaped off the second story porch when Flannery sniffed him. Despite me shoving a pill down his throat the first time he let me touch him, he is hanging around. He seems to know we mean well.

The tiny orange girl kitty (Ginny Weasley) is keeping her distance. She comes to eat when we are not outside, but is still too frightened and we rarely see her.

The big gray tomcat is the only one who seems to be able to take care of himself. He is not starving like the others and only shows up on occasion, never climbs the post to the second story porch where the other cats eat. I don’t know that he’s a tom, I’ve just decided that he is. He doesn’t have a name yet because I haven’t seen him in a week.

I don’t want four cats. But something has to be done. I will only be here another week and a half.

I called the local animal control officer who told me that they ‘don’t deal with cats unless they’re injured’ which seemed an odd response. These cats look pretty injured to me, but he suggested I contact the Warren County Humane Society. So, I did.

And yes, they do have a TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release) program, but it’s out of money for the year, and also, they don’t accept strays. They could help me out with their ‘low-cost’ program ($90 per cat for spay plus rabies shot) if I come in and paid in advance and then brought the cats on the designated morning at 7 am and picked them up that night at 8pm.

But what then? I bring the cats back here and release them to starve to death?

There have been many times when I am asked—what about cats? Do you get involved in cat rescue? I always say, “I totally get that the cat crises eclipses the dog problem, but I can’t go there. Not yet.”

The way I see it is that we domesticated dogs and they cannot survive without us. Cats, on the other hand, have a few more resources.

But these four, at least three of them, well, they don’t seem to know how to use those resources.

And while I don’t want to be a cat rescuer, I don’t see that I have a choice here. I will bring Molly and maybe Fred home with me, but I don’t know what to do with Ginny or Tom. I bought traps and paid for two cats to be spayed/neutered and given their rabies. The assigned day was today.

Last night I set two traps, hoping to catch Fred and Ginny. The traps have been under the porch for two weeks, ziptied open, next to the post the cats climb to access the porch. Last night I cut the zipties and placed half a can of sardines in each and hoped for the best. I said goodnight to Molly on the porch and went to bed, hoping she wouldn’t be the cat I trapped.

I got up at 5:30, after a fitfull night dreaming of trapped cats (it was always Tom, so much so that I was certain he was in the trap when I got up). Flannery and I hurried out to check the traps. They were both empty, untriggered, but the sardines were gone.

Not knowing what else to do, I put Molly in my cat carrier and dropped her off at the Humane Society to be spayed. Remembering that I was told the money I paid was nonrefundable, I asked if I could transfer the money for today’s extra spay to the next spay day (a month from now when I will need to make a special trip down here) and try again to catch one of my cats and was told, “I’ll pass this along to the powers that be and we will see.”

I’ve decided not to get angry. Yet. But I have already begun to understand why so many people don’t bother to spay and neuter their pets (or their feral friends) when it is so terribly inconvenient and expensive. I am determined to fix these cats and while I don’t want to spend this much money to do it, I’ll find a way. But what about the person who struggles to pay their own bills? Or what about the person who has to get a ride to the Humane Society or has to work or doesn’t own a trap or a hard-sided carrier or care so much if their cat impregnates another cat? Certainly, it should be easier than this.

If anyone out there is in the market for a cat, let me know. I’d be happy to deliver one to you. If I could just catch one.

Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to know more about my blogs and books, visit CaraWrites.com or subscribe to my occasional e-newsletter.

If you’d like to know more about the book, Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs, visit AnotherGoodDog.org, where you can find more pictures of the dogs from the book (and some of their happily-ever-after stories), information on fostering, and what you can do right now to help shelter animals! You can also purchase a signed copy or several other items whose profits benefit shelter dogs!

If you would like to know more about the situation in our rural animal shelters in the south and the struggle to save dogs, check out my other blog, Who Will Let the Dogs Out.

If you’d like to know how you can volunteer, foster, adopt or donate with OPH, click here. And if you’d like more pictures and videos of my foster dogs past and present, be sure to join the Another Good Dog Facebook group.

I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to comment here on the blog, email carasueachterberg@gmail.com or connect with me on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram.

 Best,

Cara

Released August 2018 from Pegasus Books and available now

  I Didn't Come Here to Rescue Animals but no one told all these cats that... #spayandneuter #TNR #WarrenCounty I said you wouldn’t hear from me while I am on ‘sabbatical’ in Virginia, but apparently, that isn’t true.