14 Cats Fixed Today. Another Sob Story Cat Out of Stayton

Mac, the cat found in the Stayton trailer park starved nearly to death, face swollen from a bad tooth, and very dehydrated. Mac is one lucky lucky cat!!! Today was Mac's lucky day!




Those trailer park people called early this morning, wanting me to come get yet another cat. I have told them I can't take in cats, that the help offered was just for fixing, but they ignore this.

Their call came at 7:00 a.m., just as I'm trying to get ready to leave, to go pick up 12 other cats. I tell her this, but she won't relent and quit talking, so I hang up on her.

I took up 8 cats from one Tangent low income woman. She's so nice and sure doesn't whine and complain up and down and demand like the Stayton people, who have far more money.

Then I picked up four females off Knox Butte. They were two teen girls, the kittens of one of a pair of mothers. They found one mother with her kittens along the road, after seeing her in teh road dragging one kitten. Then they found the box the little family had been dumped in.

I already had one Stayton Siamese up at the clinic and then had the second in the car, 13 altogether in the car and one up at the clinic already. The road conditions were terrible. Driving rain, standing water on the road, blinding mists being thrown up by truckers' tires.

I debated whether to drive back to Stayton after dropping off the cats at the clinic. I had thrown a bag of fluids in my car, because the parkee had said the "kitten" was severely dehydrated.

I arrived, went inside their trailer, and all the older woman would say, hovering around me, following behind me was, "We can't keep him. We're throwing him back out if you don't take him." I fucking hated her today and told her daughter to keep that bitch away from me.

The cat isn't a kitten at all. It's an adult male. Very adult. Neutered. Front declawed, starved nearly to death, severely dehydrated and he had a swollen right upper jaw under his eye.

I gave him 180 cc of sub cu push fluids, managing to stick my thumb twice with an 18 guage needle in the process. Then I told the trailer park woman "I'm taking him. And I don't want to even see a glimpse of your mother as I leave. Is that understood?" The daughter nodded.

I took him straight up to the clinic. But I pulled over along the highway to call someone I know, to ask if she would help with a vet bill and described the situation. She didn't answer.

I went on to the clinic with him. Unbelievably, at 12:30 p.m., they already had all 14 cats fixed.

Dr. Chris took to the big male immediately and discussed cost effective measures. He felt his dehydration was partly due to problems drinking due to a bad upper tooth, which is also the cause of the facial swelling. Both his dehydration and extreme emaciation the vet felt were from being long on his own, either abandoned, lost or dumped, and, despite a faint heart murmur, he was confident the cat could recover.

He suggested combo testing then, if negative, antibiotics, sub cu fluids and in two weeks, removal of the bad tooth. Currently, he is too dehydrated and malnourished to undergo anesthesia so the bad tooth could be removed. He tested negative and got a long term antibiotic injection. Keni has him currently in a cage in her garage, all warm and snuggly in a nice fuzzy bed, comfortable and warm and safe.

My friend called back just in time, then called the clinic to take care of the bill and I could not stop sobbing. In relief, that the bill would be paid, since I have no money. In relief this horribly desperate cat finally found some kindness, some decent people who would help him, in his otherwise last moments on earth, so he could get basic needs met like food and water.

Who in the hell abandons a neutered declawed cat like that, let's a cat starve to death?

Today was Mac's luckiest day so far, I'd have to say. Maybe it was mine too, despite my grumblings. What a blessing to be able to help such a kitty, at his most desperate of times.

Washer Fails. Closely Followed by Dryer

Just when I'm all aglow, over getting some high target cats fixed, appliances take revenge and break.

I was washing my bedding because the cats are tossing out hairballs on my bed. Yukko.

I went into the bathroom, yes, to use it, and there's water pooling out from under the french doors, which I hate (I hate all french doors) behind which sit, in very cramped space, the washer and dryer.

I unplug it. I remove the drain hose, which is not plugged or even wet. And pull it out, without unscrewing the hot and cold water in hoses, because I can't unscrew them. They're sealed on with corrosion!

When doing this, I notice the dryer is venting lint right into the laundry room itself. That's because the vent has pulled off the back of the dryer and is actually crumpled and broken.

Dryer vents are made to be re attached or attached in the first place by midget contortionists. I swear that is the only type of person who could fit down between the back of a dryer and a wall but also at ground level. I told a repairman once the dryer vent industry needs to make some improvements. It's time.

I look online for reasons washers leak. I don't like the reasons I find.

The one that caught my eye: "boot or gasket failure on agitator. This usually occurs when doing heavy loads that become unbalanced." Hmmmm. Bedding. Heavy.

The other two leakage reasons, pump failure and water level switch failure aren't fun either. The switch could just be clogged in soap, the online article stated and said how to unclog it and test the switch to see if it is working by blowing into it, and listening for distinct clicks corresponding to the number of water levels you can adjust for in your washer. Pump failure, well, that means a new pump I guess.

There is another minor cause and that is holes in the drain pipe, which is cheap flexible corrugated plastic, the cheapest of the cheap corrugated plastic tubing, in the case of this washer.

Craning my head and pulling the bowl this way and that, while shining a flashlight down the edges, was not a good way to check for where the leak originates from. I'll have to take off the peek hole in the back to see better. That's for another day. Or that's for Mr. Landlord brother who said he was coming up this week and now has gone suddenly silent on me.

This is not a teensy weensy leak. This is a catastrophic flooding type leak and this was a sudden event. Been working just fine up til this last load. So what does that say about the three most common causes of washer leakage and my leak?

I will go out on a limb and say catastrophic agitator boot failure due to unbalanced load!!!! But what do I know. Only what I read online tonight. And how to use a mop.

Not one drop of water did it leak before this load. Damn this last load. Damn it to hell. And I have no bedding on which to sleep tonight.

Lost the 4th Caller on my Ad

I should have known. If somebody calls interested in a cat, jump on it, or they call somebody who does.

The 4th and final call I received on my four day ad occurred last night. I was tired, to be blunt, and having stomach issues (relief finally, and a need to stay near a bathroom). I was in no mood or capacity for visitors. That's why I asked they look over my website, figure out which cat might interest them and call today.

They did not call or e-mail today.

Darn it all.

The third caller actually wanted a kitten. I only have three kittens, who still have a few patches of ringworm.

So anyhow, that's the story on my ad and the calls. Not much luck. Depressing, yes, very much. But, I never give up.

I'm very happy to have rounded up six cats to take up to be fixed today. I'm very very happy the Stayton trailer park woman caught not only Samantha the Siamese, but also Samantha's mom, who looks just like her, who also will be fixed tomorrow. That should end a great deal of suffering in that park.

Samantha's very first litter all died. She was a teen and left them up in the insulation of a trailer, just left them.

Her second litter, five beauitful little Siamese kittens, were killed, all in one night. They were killed horribly. A resident found them the next morning. Their bodies were savaged and all five had had their heads bitten off. This was a raccoon attack, according to the resident. I would have guessed dogs.

Samantha no longer will have to worry about being knocked up or her kittens dying in very terrible ways. Neither will her mother.

Because of the brutality of life for all life forms, in that trailer park, YAY! Am so glad these last two will now be fixed. And if Poppa Inc. were not around, this could not happen. This makes about 20 cats fixed there or so I think.

Poppa Inc. money has prevented so much suffering far and wide for cats. Thank you Poppa Inc.

Stayton Trailer Park Siamese, Samantha, Caught!!!

The prolific Stayton trailer park Siamese, Samantha, has been caught, effectively ending her prolificity. If prolificity is a new word, I claim it as my invention. Sarah Palin, back off. This one's mine.

There is one more prolific Siamese to catch there. Her ovaries need the power button turned off, also.

I am really proud of that one park resident. I guess the two kittens I took out of there, to a Portland fosterer, friend of Poppa Inc's president, are doing good. They are now named Bunny and Lileth.

Today, six cats are getting fixed. Some are leftovers and finishers. I got the final 28th street female fixed today. I took in the last female from Looney Lane, although there are still three kittens there who need fixed. I took in the last two from a HEatherdale trailer (two males were fixed a couple weeks ago), and then the other two are from a family in Abany, who rescued both as tiny kittens.

Tomorrow, there may be quite a few going in. There may be four females from a Knox Butte family, who found one female in a box with her kittens along a road. There may be also seven Tangent cats from one household going in. The young woman there rescues cats she encounters in trouble, but needs help getting them fixed. Then Samantha the Siamese is getting fixed, too.

Be a good couple of days for cats in this area. Lots getting fixed. Most are females, too.

Below are photos of five, of the six cats fixed today.

Geary street boy and girl, fixed today.

The last of six adults fixed for this household in Albany. This is a girl.
One of two girls fixed today from Heatherdale Trailer Park.
Second Heatherdale female fixed today.

Three Cats Fixed Friday

Scraggles, the Lebanon kitten, fixed last Friday.
The seed worker's beautiful girl kitty, fixed last Friday.
And the absolutely gorgeous Albany male Andy, fixed last Friday.

I took up three cats to be fixed on Friday. I housed one man's cat overnight the night before surgery too, since he leaves for work so early. He works at a seed warehouse south of Corvallis where I got 27 cats fixed last winter.

There were more then, but the owner said, after I caught 27, worried about paying for the surgeries, "You're done."

He finally paid about a third of the cost for the surgeries. 20 of the 27 were females. He had thought there might be ten cats in all.

Now, because not all were fixed, more have bred there, the worker told me. I tried to get a different worker, a really nice guy, to get the owner to agree to trap them for the FCCO clinic, but that didn't go over either.

Oh well. Had to try!

Anyhow, the girl fixed Friday is very sweet. She is the offspring of another cat from the warehouse who was brought home by another worker, and then bred, producing this cat and more.

I hope to get that mother cat, originally from the warehouse, also fixed.

Then there was the beautiful Andy, a young male, from Albany, also fixed Friday.

And last but not least, Scraggles from the Lebanon situation, the latest, the little ringworm boy, who seems over it, was fixed. My scales weighed him in at 2.23 lbs, but the vet's scales showed him at 2.03 lbs. Our scales are two oz different. I think mine are right, because they're postal scales for weighing letters! You can't be two oounces off if weighing a letter to know what postage to apply. It could be a bad scale! But the clinic calibrates and checks theirs by weighing a small bag of cat food. I reminded them the weight of the bag is not included, only the weight of the food inside is declared, or supposed to be. That's why I think my scales are right!

While waiting on the cats to be fixed, I entertained myself for awhile watching squirrels in the parking lot of a local park up there.

Scary

I get another call on the ad. She claims she wants a free cat but wants to be sure it is a cat with claws. I ask if they have other pets because I hear dogs barking in the background.

She claims she's leaving the dog with "him" and is moving out today and needs a cat today. I say "That is a terribly chaotic time, to be moving, and taking in a cat on the same day. Why don't you contact me when you'e settled?" She insisted, she needed a cat today.

This is a scary call to a cat rescuer. The fact she wanted a cat with claws, as number one consideration, is a red flag. Nobody gets a cat the day they are moving. That would be so traumatic on the cat. She was on her computer, phone was connected, and she's moving today? I finally hung up.

Maybe she's legit and will contact me later on. You never know. But I won't adopt a cat to someone if they are moving, the same day.

Makes me scared to adopt out anymore. Makes me want to hermit away, shutter the windows, arm myself. Makes me scared for the cats and dogs and what they're in for, at their new "home".

She'll find a cat today somewhere.

Mosque the Wanna Be Killer Attended Sporadically Torched

Someone set fire to the Corvallis Mosque the wannabe mass killer, arrested in Portland, attended sporadically. Guess he wasn't that good of a Muslim actually, according to the Mosque leader, whatever they are called, because he didn't often attend prayers. Click post title to go to story.

The fire was small because it was spotted by a patrolling cop and quickly doused.

The Corvallis Fire Department said it was intentionally set.

I'm not hot on any religions. Almost all religions discriminate against women. Islam is one of the worst in its treatment of women but there are plenty of others who discriminate terribly, like Mormons, Catholics, you name it.

I don't know even know how religions in our country get nonprofit status since they discriminate.

But, burning a church down, because someone went there now and then, who later decided his life ambition was to kill lots of people, is really stretching out the blame to distant points.

If we practised such vengefulness, churches drunk drivers attended would be routinely burned as would those attended by child molesters and spousal beaters and thieves and unpopular public figures.

It's ridiculous.

Would this kid ever have been able to create a bomb and destroy lives without the "aid" of the FBI? I don't know.

From what I've read, he wasn't much of a Muslim, but may have used that excuse to exhibit his violence and unhappiness. You don't want to kill massive numbers of people without some righteous excuse to lean on, I suppose, if you have some way to "blame" your inadequacies on something else and turn it into a righteous cause in your own head.

I read about him dressing in a white robe and red turban for his jihad video. That is comical, like he was an attention seeker, wanted to be seen as some super hero figure and his chosen path for doing so was to become a mass murderer.

He is a dangerous man, dangerous like those Columbine teens, dangerous like anyone who decides to take life. Those who plot extreme destruction for any reason need kept locked away from our world.

What about our military, our government, other governments, enacting wars that kill and mangle so many innocents? The Koreas are at it again. Are they collectively of the same class?

Countries must defend themselves against threats. But countries rarely limit now, use of military force to eliminate threats to invasion or aggression.

These questions are difficult to sort out--the rights and wrongs of when killing is ok, if you claim religion. The bible says it never is, right there in the Ten Commandments. But that particular commandment is not very popular unless you are talking about a fetus.

I'd have to classify myself as a hawk. I would have no qualms about taking up arms to protect myself or family, if I had one, or my country. Helping cats in this area has only made me understand how most people care only about themselves and some go far beyond that to actively prey on others. We live in a world of sharks and predatory humans. We are nasty.

I think the entire world should drop this whole pretense of religion. We are an extremely vicious and violent species.

That kid wanted to showcase his violence spectacularly. Glad he got caught. Good on the FBI. The kid one day would have found another way, had the FBI not set him up, to inflict his ego on the bodies of innocent people.

No Luck With My Ad

I've had an ad running now for three days. No luck so far. Not a single call, in fact, until this morning. The call woke me up.

She was hard to understand, a very old woman, who wants a dog but will settle for a cat. She's lonely. She lives in a seedy apartment building I am familiar with. Since she has no car and no money, the cat would never see a vet again and likely would never get any further anything, no flea treatment or wormer, no further vaccinations for the rest of its days.

I feel for her, but I can't send any of the cats here to such a fate. In the summer there, due to the heat and no air conditioners, doors and windows must be wide open. It is a very bad area of town. I can't do it. She wants an older cat but not so old it would have medical problems.

She says once again there are tons of free roaming strays in the area. I suggested she take one of the strays in, and I would get it fixed for her. I have gotten so many hundreds of cats fixed in a few blocks radius I can't even say, over the years. I am hoping some of those strays are fixed. Abandonment rates in that area too are very high.

I'm going to go visit her, because it is hard to judge a situation from an early morning phone call. Also, I'll print up some cards again, and leave them on doors over there in the area of people who may have unfixed cats again.

Wannabe Mass Killer Living Just 15 Miles From Me

It is scary to see on the news that a Corvallis resident, an Oregon State University student naturalized from Somalia, dreamed of killing massive numbers of Oregonians in fako religious jihad. Then he acted on his dream.

He thought Oregon was a great target because who would think it would happen in Oregon, of all places, the boondocks. There's nothing in most of Oregon, many people in the rest of America think, but trees, old hippies, rednecks and trailer parks.

He was arrested last night in Portland. He thought he had a van loaded with a bomb big enough to blow up people celebrating with their families in Pioneer Square, as the Christmas Tree was lit. Instead, he had a dud and FBI agents surrounding him. He screamed the usual Muslim jihad garbage when arrested. I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison, but unfortunately that will cost us Americans a lot of money.

Depression

Depression is creeping in on me. My inability to find homes for cats is the reason. I finally got my printer fixed, for about the zillionth time then printed and posted some fliers. I am running an ad but have not received a single call as a result. I post over and over again on various craigslists.

I can't afford all these cats. I am down to zero money right now. I spent the last of my money on gas, to run three cats up to be fixed today, including Scraggles, one of the three Lebanon ringworm kittens.

I am very much alone here, in this. This is an extremely lonely calling. And difficult. I have no partnerships with groups in this area who do have adoption venues. I can't get one because I am not a nonprofit.

I try my best. I get used, sure. I get used a lot. There was a message on my machine when I got home from a stranger who wanted me to come over right away to her house so she could get advice from me and also would I take care of her cats while she's gone. I have no idea who that might be, but it is someone who considers me free labor, a slave. I did not return the call.

It hurts I suppose, if I get tired, and think about it, the lack of respect for the work, but that goes with being a volunteer and with the type of people I run into, who don't fix their cats in the first place. There is usually, not always, but usually something wrong there to begin with.

My biggest cause for concern is the number of cats here. How to find some of them homes. The usual ways don't work for me here. They used to work for me, when I lived in Corvallis. I don't know. I wish I could move away, somewhere, I don't know. I suppose I need some human contact, some recreation, some laughter with other humans, some compassion myself.

On a really really depressing note, the Koreas are posturing for a fight, like two unfixed male cats, hissing, spitting, yowling, spray marking (the artillery fire) and arching on a fence.

Quick, somebody, send in a team of veterinarians to neuter them all.

Sam Will Be Leaving Me Soon

Sam will be leaving me soon. My brother has loved him since he first met him. And Sam wants more attention and some freedom. He will be a shop cat, at my brother's company and be allowed free access outside during the day but will be kept inside at night and on weekends. My brother will choose one of his friends here to go along with him, so he won't be lonely.

My first inclination was to send Sage, but Sage is too independent minded to want to curl up next to Sam much. He needs another boy for that, a younger male. Nemo will be perfect. Nemo is young and athletic and adventurous. Sure, he would make a great house cat, but I'm not getting any offers and my brother would adore Nemo and give him a great life. My younger brother has turned into a real catman and he's not afraid to say it either.

It will be next week or the week after when I will say goodbye to Sam. That's if my brother gets set up for him. He's installing a locking cat door, creating a cat room for him, the whole thing.

Sam came from Millersburg. A woman was arrested and left two dogs locked inside her trailer and kicked out about 16 cats, to be left on their own, after she got out of jail. She left all her stuff too and never claimed most of it. Sam and Oci are the two still here from those 16 cats. I found homes for the others.

Laughs from TSA

Like it or not, a man's outraged outburst, "Don't Touch my Junk" has become a national T-shirt sell and wear craze. Thanks buddy, for the pre-Christmas market boost!

I loved the report of a woman, who took off her coat in the check in pat down line, to reveal a bikini underneath--which clearly displayed she carried no bomb strapped to anything. Bet some of those TSA guys sure wish they could have patted her down.

Humor and the TSA lines! I love it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I was going to go up to Poppa Inc's presidents place. She was having an "orphans" dinner. But my stomach has been acting up for two days and was so painful last night I couldn't sleep much. So I'm not going. Don't want to be around food I can't eat.

My doctor, when I had those stomach tests done, and the colonoscopy, said to get citricil, the powder you put in water, and drink, as a kind of bulk laxative, and that it was safe to use everyday. I had only used it once before.

I put some into a glass of water yesterday and drank it. Within ten minutes, my muscles were so weak, my legs started to buckle. I was trembling all over and I thought I was going to collapse. I finally looked the active ingredient up online. The sites I read said it sucks so much fluid out of your body into your gut so rapidly it can leave you with serious electrolyte depletion and cause the symptoms I was experiencing. It also said it is hard on the heart and kidneys for this reason. I had a bottle of gatorade, and drank it, and afterwards, the symptoms went away. I then threw the bottle of powder in the trash.

The Dangers We Face as the Planet Warms

The latest danger seeping forth from a warming planet is methane gas. It's in Siberia the report came from, and a Russian scientist slogging through softening ice and snow to check on seepages, bubbling up. What is seeping out, from beneath the thinning ice and snow? Methane gas.

Melting permafrost may release massive quantities of the gas, which is far more a hazard in warming than CO2. Yet it is barely mentioned in most reports of global warming.

Why? I think because it's an unpopular cause. People would rather crusade against SUV's and other man made sources of CO2 than discuss methane.

Why?

I think because it'd be a relatively easy fix to the global warming disaster. How? We'd all have to become vegetarians, that's how. Ruminates expel methane. Not just out the butt end, but they breath it out also.

There are more ruminants on the planet now than ever. Cows. Sheep. Goats.

Maybe it's an easy fix but to our carnivorous world, not an easy shift to make. It's a far easier change than any of the other changes, to reduce CO2 emissions, however.

We can't have it all and maintain.

In other news, N. Korea is at it again, saber rattling, posturing, hissing and yowling on a fence top. (give peace a chance--neuter all world leaders!)

Be hard to be South Korea. I bet it's hard to be a commoner in N. Korea. They are one completely controlled and hopeless population. So it seems to me. That nation sure underscores the glory of freedom.

Our nation is in trouble economically. We have to do what we need to do to come out of it, hold onto freedom, not become vulnerable to radicals, here in our country and beyond, who would lead us down a path to dictatorship or theocracy. We do not want to become a N. Korea or an Afghanistan or an Iran.

I watched Amazing Race last Sunday night. The teams were in Bangledesh. They all commented on the garbage everywhere, the filthy water, the stench in the air, the poverty. We don't want to become a Bangledesh either.

A lot of what happens to a country depends on its leaders.

My nephew is in Haiti working for his church. My brother told me something about the history of Haiti and how at one point, a leader became a Voodoo practioner and at one point, fearing his rival had turned himself into a black dog, he ordered all black dogs killed. He also feared educated people and many were killed, but most fled the country. This meant the future of Haiti was left in the hands of the illiterate. This has had long lasting implications for that country.

There are lessons to be learned from history and from what goes on in other countries. Many lessons.

Sarah Palin's rise is interesting to me. I understand why she is liked by so many people who are made to feel inferior by the lofty privileged elites who have ruled our country and our universities. People want to feel justified in their lifestyles and Sarah Palin appeals to the rough edged--the rednecks, the barely educated and uneducated, the working wage people, the cussers and rowdy bar drinkers, those who go to church on Sunday but are far from perfect, those fed up with the media, those who love guns, and anyone who thinks PC speech is a pile of bull.

I admire her guts, her ability to keep going despite the ferocious criticisms. She is just as quick with her attacks on others, maybe quicker. Those who cross her or even disagree, can expect retaliation of some sort. The fact she messes up words and misses facts does not bother her following. I have a curiosity about what she would do and how she would do, if elected President.

However, her own attributes scare me, if they remain as now if she did get the highest job. Her religious beliefs make me wonder if she wouldn't see this as a chance, to become a dictator of sorts, and declare our nation a theocracy, with her at its head. I get this feeling she might do that to our country.

John McCain drew her out of the shadows into the public arena and just as quickly, abandoned her. His own daughter paints a grim picture of her father's former running mate. Is that jealousy speaking or truth, I wonder.

Palin has made a fortune from the limelight and politics. She would be self-destructive to leave such a golden egg behind. Fame and fortune are often short lived for a celebrity.

How ethical is a person who leaves office half through a term? I imagine, no matter what she or anybody says to the contrary, she left because the golden egg was calling and there was nothing in it by comparison if she'd stayed out her term as governor.

I think she'll run. I think if elected she will break every rule and squirm out of any consequences. I don't know why I think that. I do, though. I still have a giant curiosity about what America would become if she were elected. Her own Republican party seems uncomfortable with the concept. Barbara Bush recently said about Palin, "I think she's beautiful. She seems so happy in Alaska. I wish she'd stay in Alaska."

Sarah Palin isn't going to stay in Alaska. She's smarter than that. There are golden eggs to be collected at every turn. And America yearns for outspoken politicians to whom they can relate and who seem to relate to their everyday lives and mirror their outrages loudly, in a commoners language. Get it, Democrats?

Snow!

Woke up to snow! It is 27 degrees out. Guess the freeway is clogged in wrecks.

It's Snowing

Snow just began to fall, in a freezing wind whipped sparse flurry. Nothing substantial so far.

It's so cold though, if there's moisture coming down, will likely be snow.

Guess there were 10 or more crashes on the Santiam Pass, people not equipped for snow and ice, combined with people speeding, of course.

They've closed it to traffic now, I hear.

I feel bad for the strays out there, even the owned cats not allowed inside and given no shelter from the cold.

I'm in a brittle mood. I'm tired out mainly, stomach hurting. Netflix is upping their prices so I am cancelling. Can't say I'll miss it much. I have not rented a movie I would call "marginally good" for quite some time. They're upping their prices for DVD rentals while lowering their prices for unlimited streaming to TV or computer. I don't watch movies on my computer because it's in a teensy room with an uncomfortable falling apart chair, and my PC overheats now quickly. It's starting to fail.

I don't have a streaming device for the TV. So I'll cancel netflix. Without a credit card, Redbox is out for me, too. Oh well.

I stayed up too late Saturday night, after trapping the barn cats, hoping to catch that church ditch kitten. He's not going to make it long if I don't catch him. Now, this darn weather, makes me all tight in the stomach to think of him out there.

I slept a couple hours Sunday afternoon, after returning from the clinic for awhile, then fell asleep at about 9:00 on my couch, only to awaken at about 3:00 a.m. and be unable to get back to sleep last night.

Now the Stayton trapping again. Helping the old woman who failed to catch the third kitten today. She said tonight that the trap was soggy. I wonder why she didn't cover it better, with a tarp then. There is nowhere to trap over there out of the rain. I used to have a couple of trap boxes, as covers in bad weather, but they were heavy to load and unload and carry, and eventually fell apart. I need to figure out something. I have only a few traps right now and most are severely beat up. But she called me, the old woman, at 8:30. I'd just fallen asleep on my couch. I really need to be in bed right now, so off I go.

I wonder how much snow there might be on the ground tomorrow morning. I hope to sleep in for once!

Photos of the Nine Females--Six Fixed Yesterday, Three Today.

Below are photos of the six females fixed yesterday from the barn just outside Albany. Today, another female was fixed from there. I was also contacted by the Stayton trailer park woman again about two kittens, desperate, and threatened by a neighbor there. I appealed to Poppa Inc's president, asking for advice. She has a friend willing to foster them.

So, after a bad night of sleep, I headed up very early so I could pick them up on the way to Wilsonville with the final barn girl. They are a very pretty Lynx Pt. Siamese female and her sister, a brown tabby tux. I stayed up there while the three girls were being fixed, to save on gas. Snow was predicted for today but none showed, just heavy rain.

This evening, I returned the seven females to the barn lady.

I also heard from Tamara. She was able to get the 17 females fixed today, that the FCCO could not do, of the 71 she and her group brought up from Coos County, to the Corvallis FCCO clinic yesterday. She got all 17 done today at the Eugene WAG clinic. YAY!

The rural Albany barn brown tabby tame female, spayed today.
Brown tabby on white female, from the barn, fixed at the FCCO clinic yesterday.
Another rural barn female, fixed yesterday.
Black barn female fixed yesterday at the FCCO clinic.
Black tabby tux barn female fixed at the FCCO clinic.
One of the two white females from the barn, fixed yesterday.
One of two white females, fixed yesterday.A terrible photo of the Stayton brown tabby tux kitten, fixed today, and then taken immediately into foster.
Also a bad photo of the beautiful Lynx Pt. Siamese kitten, from the Stayton trailer park, spayed today, then who went with her sister into foster.

98 Cats Fixed Today at Corvallis FCCO clinic

In the end, today in Corvallis, 98 cats were fixed at the FCCO clinic. 72 had come up from Coos County, with Tamara, formerly of Albany and her new S/Nipped nonprofit that is putting together a Humane Alliance low cost spay neuter clinic in North Bend.

17 of those Coos County cats did not get fixed, however, because the volunteer vets ran out of steam and time to do them. So, of the 115 cats who were brought to the clinic to be fixed, 98 were fixed.

I felt bad for Tamara and her two volunteers. That is a lot of work to round up that many cats and transport them so far to be fixed, only to have 17 not make it through. I hope she can find a way to get them fixed. She is extremely dedicated.

I had reservations for five cats but took in six from a rural location just outside Albany. There are barn cats. The old woman used to take in cats whose owners could not care for them, to live in and be fed in her barn. She brought in two that the former owners claimed to be fixed. However, they were not and reproduced. There used to be a lot more cats at her barn, but they have been killed by various predators, the most common she sees: foxes. She had foxes on her front porch even.

All six of the cats I trapped in her barn turned out to be girls. Then, I'd seen another one I didn't catch peeking from the far end of the barn. This evening, she put that cat, also a female she took in from someone, into a carrier. She had not seen the cat in quite some time. I'll try to get her fixed tomorrow or the next day.

I went back to see if I could catch the Siamese church kitten. I did not see the kitten, but I saw the animal I saw last night. It's not as big as I thought and I'm still not sure what it is. I smelled it first, from clear across the road. It was a skunklike smell but not quite like a skunk. I saw it run and thought at first it was a possum, then it turned and stood on its back legs, sniffing the air. It looks sort of like a ferret, but I'm not sure it is a ferret. It's in the weasel family and that spells trouble for kittens. Anything in the weasel family is a vicious hunter and can kill animals several times their weight.

It could be a dumped ferret. I pulled the trap, not wanting it in there, but maybe I should trap the thing, to have a closer look. It's probably somebodies dumped ferret. Darn people anyhows.

98 cats fixed prevents a whole lot of suffering.

Kudos to the FCCO and to the OSU pre vet med club and shelter club for their hard work to put it together, to the volunteers, especially the vets and techs, too, and to all us out there trying hard to stop the suffering caused by overpopulation.

It's Alive

One of the church ditch kittens I didn't catch. I saw it tonight. I set a trap, and later, saw the strangest animal. I could not identify the animal. It was long hair adult large cat size, silverish white in color and very very stealthy as it moved off the moment I saw it and vanished into the brush.

It was too small to be a coyote, wrong hair length and movements to be a possum. Color and movement wrong to be a coon.

Could have been a silver fox. I hope that is not the case. Too light colored to be a bobcat. Skunk? Not unless it's a skunk without any black on it.

I'm going with an unknown adult cat, Siamese, or a silver fox. That's my guess. I pulled the trap because kittens are off sleeping by this hour and I don't want to draw in strange predators.

I wish I could have gotten a better look at this animal. Yes, it could have been a coyote pup, but the silverish white very long hair, more like a fox than a coyote, and the long long hair was more like a cat, that maybe the feeders don't know is there. Cats with hair too long for function are the result of us wonderful humans in our infinite wisdom and obsession with sexual manipulations.

Except on Sunday, when we're very righteous and prudish.

I'm going to be really really surprised if I set a trap over there, and come up with an adult silver fox instead of a Siamese kitten. Or a bobcat. Or a mutated coyote with really really short legs and really really long hair. Boy. Hmmmm. I'll have to figure out a plan, just in case. A Plan B.

6 Caught for Clinic Tomorrow

I have five reservations in tomorrow's clinic. I caught six cats. Hopefully that will be ok to take six instead of five.

I went out to the rural trailer colony caretaker's mother's place. She's a really nice lady. I caught six and entertained a tame gray female who was dumped off there a few years back, to keep her out of the traps, while waiting. There may be one or two more, but I caught six of them, in very short order.

Thankfully. Because it's cold. Really cold.

Might snow tomorrow, someone said. Wouldn't that be something. There was snow in the hills, very low.

Target, Iraq Hero Dog, Brought to States, Loved even by Oprah, Dead Six Weeks Later. Killed by Shelter

It's tragic to hear that Target, a military dog who risked her life to attack a suicide bomber sneaking into soldiers barracks, has been killed by a shelter in Arizona.

The dogs' Iraq handler moved heaven and earth to get Target back to the states after she saved so many soldiers' lives and finally was successful. She got out, one day, at her soldier's home in Arizona, was picked up by animal control. When the soldier was informed she was at the shelter, he went to get her, only to be told she'd been killed that morning, in a "mistaken euthanasia" by a shelter worker.

Shelters never were meant to be the mass killing zones they are now. They are supposed to be to protect animals and give them a safehaven. But now, death by shelter is the most common cause of death for healthy dogs, cats, kittens and puppies. Shelters should be ashamed and rename themselves "Animal Holocaust Centers" or "Animal Hold and Kill Centers".

Maybe if they had to name themselves what they really are, change would come, because of public outrage. But maybe not. The public likes to take their excess animals to "shelters", dump them off and pretend in lala land minds, they'll all get homes. They tell their kids so too.

Shelters exist as co dependents to human animal cruelty and neglectful behavior. If they didn't exist to kill off the excess quietly, we'd have to change, be more responsible and kinder.

Target is dead because shelters kill with abandon. They killed a hero. There should be outrage.

Cats Here, New Photos

Shaulin, who came here over a year ago, from the Albany Bengal mans' colony. She is now kind of fat.
Brambles, who has been here almost four years, from the Hate Thy Neighbor colony, with chronic persistent herpes, adores kittens and is a sweet benign kitty.
Buffy, with issues, from the 120 cats fixed out off Gerig, the BS colony. Buffy will never be adopted.
Starry, one of the three N. Albany swamp kittens, two of whom are still here.
Nemo, Starry's brother.
Nemo again.
Jade, from Millersburg, and Honey, from the homeless camp, on the back of my couch. Jade is a delight, eager to please and fun loving.
Sage, the laid back super loving torti, from Lebanon, whom the people up there claimed was feral, who was alive in fleas when I picked her up and dripping wet in the carrier, as were her four boys, because they hosed them down.
Smolder, one of Sage's four boys, with drooping upper eyelid. He just got over a cold. Now Shaggy has it.
Dickens, another of Sage's boys.
Miss Daisy, my blessed deaf cush kitty, cushed into a down comforter, one of her favorite places.

FCCO Clinic Tomorrow

Freshly painted garage wall. Some caulking of cracks between the boards I put up still needs done.
To the far right, the boards I put up join sheet rock put up by a former tenant, and there is still one vacant uncovered section to cover. The garage is a mess, as you might imagine, with the shelves I used to store things upon dismantled and no shelves put up yet on the wall. It wasn't easy to cut the outlet hole because I don't have a jigsaw. So I drilled out a few holes and then cut the outlet hole in the board covering that area using a kitchen steak knife!


Tomorrow, a FCCO clinic will be held at the fairgrounds. I registered for five cats some time ago. But then I heard nothing, and thought the clinic had been cancelled. I got the cats I was going to trap for the FCCO clinic fixed through Poppa Inc. funds. Then a few days ago, I got a response from the coordinator the clinic was on for Sunday. Now what to do, about the five cats I registered for but already got fixed.

I've finished the colonies I've been working, except the one adult left to catch clear up outside Lebanon at the Attic cats. Catching that one would be a long ordeal.

There are two cats at Heatherdale who would qualify, since they were abandoned and living as strays, even though tame.

I can take them in.

There are cats who need to go in, several from Albany, but I cannot get caregiver cooperation or go ahead on it. LIke at the Bengal man colony. He has more needing fixed. He asked for help doing it a couple months ago, to which I immediately agreed, but has not responded since. There were three left to catch on 20th, in a colony there, but I can't get them to respond either.

It's frustrating to not be able to finish a colony completely. It's also common. The caregivers tire of the effort, even though usually, they're not the ones making the effort. The Rural Trailer colony had about two left, but the complication there is the woman won't check traps on her porch, and that is a long way to drive check them and release ones already fixed. I can't sit in her driveway because the cats won't come out with me that close to where they eat. So that is clean up I"ve put off, too.

Yesterday, I had a day in Corvallis. I found an offer of free cans and bottles on craigslist and responded. I "won" the offer since they love cats and picked up a carload of cans and bottles! I turned them in at three stores, garnering about $21 which I used to put gas in my car. I also bought one shelf, and hardware that will hold, eventually about three shelves, at the Habitat store in Corvallis for a total of $4, which is why I love that store so much.

That's for the garage wall. I really inflamed myself putting up the last wood on the wall. This project has been going on for awhile. Any spare pieces of decent size thin plywood I get I cut to put on that wall to cover the insulation I've also installed.

It took me a long time to accumulate the insulation to for that wall. When I had the money, I'd buy a $10 roll and staple it up. I knew it had to be covered, however. So I'd save up any plywood pieces I came across to use.

The biggest part was getting out the heavy but disintegrating particle board shelves some other renter had made and sat against that wall. Moisture in the garage had its effect over time on those shelves and pieces had become wet and flaked off. It was teetery and dangerous because of its weight. It almost fell on me when I was knocking it apart. It had to go, I knew, but I kept putting off that heavy job. Sometimes there is no avoiding such painful tasks in the end, because of the danger of not doing them.

It's legal to cover a garage wall in plywood, instead of sheet rock that does not adjoin a residential space. This wall does not adjoin residential space. Using plywood makes it easier to attach things. Some former tenant covered part of the wall in very thin sheet rock and I left that up, even though it was not insulated beneath. It was too much to take it off. It's only a small area on the wall that also has a work bench and wall storage shelves.

I caulked cracks yesterday until I ran out of spackle. Then I painted the wall anyway, most of it, despite not filling some cracks, will do that one day when I get more spackle. I gave it two coats of the same gray paint I used on a bedroom wall.

While in Corvallis, I also walked in three 16 lb bags of cat food to the homeless campers, one for each. It had begun to pour by that time. One of the campers arrived back on his bike and helped me walk the bags in, even carrying the last bag to deliver out to the farthest camper as I followed behind with other food for that camper's cat. Bobby and two other cats shot out of one tent when I came around the corner to the last camp. In the first campers tent, his cat, "Biker" is now hanging out with the short hair brown tabby tux female. They're best buddies, he said. At the second camper's tent, the old long hair female was inside pacing. "She's hungry. Richard ran out of food," the camper with me said glumly. "Good thing you came today."

I poured out food into a bowl he had there for that purpose. She had retreated to the back of his tent, until she saw the food, then she tore into it. Richard takes care of her. His other favorite cat whom I got fixed a year ago, died a couple months back when hit by a car. He was devastated over the loss. This cat, Sabrina, was left behind by younger campers. She's older and clings to Richard like he's god in heaven.

There are not that many cats left in the camps. I took the majority of them out of there. Poppa's president still has one of those she took in a year ago--Trudy. She had two other adult females from these camps she took in a few years before that, but both have now died, one of peritonitis and one of cancer.

I still have four cats from this camp: Zach, Teddy, Starr and Honey.

I feel a pride in getting that area cleaned up. Besides the 52 I got fixed from that side, across the way and down the road just half mile, I took out almost three dozen cats, which was not easy either. And behind the homeless camps, I got about 18 fixed in total, fed by other people.

While at the Habitat store I ran into former neighbors, from way back when in the duplex in the Freddies district. That was a hard time for me. I'd just come off being homeless and had been badly beaten on the psyche ward by staff and had that horrible injury. However, I could not get medical help for it as the doctors told me my symptoms, of spinal cord shut down, were really symptoms of mental illness. I was in such horrible pain, I don't like to remember much about those years.

She and her boyfriend lived on the other side and we battled a decrepid ill maintained property. They were students then. She'd had one wall heater spark and fall off the wall. I had one that didn't work. The roof leaked. The phoneline didn't work because water in the walls destroyed it. A particle board shed door, water engorged, crashed down from its own weight, narrowly missing me. In the end, HUD refused to re-approve it and I desperately searched for somewhere else to live.

That resulted in my writer friend writing a column, describing the faults of the rental, and quoting me as saying "despite these things, it is the best place I've ever lived," which was pathetic in itself. That prompted another Corvallis slumlord to contact my writer friend offering up her slum shack for me to rent. This prompted five more years of hell, because I had no choice but to take that offer. I did not know the misery I was in for.

My neighbors also had moved out. They bought a house, a fixer upper, and are still fixing it up, she said, with a knowing smile aimed at her husband, who returned it.

They now have two kids and are married. Their kids are beautiful. She is a stay at home mom and he still has his job. They looked great and it was good to see them. I am happy they are doing so well.

The Albany woman who feeds the mom and three teens got the two boys I caught in and fixed at her own vet yesterday. I got those two traps back, to use today, if I find any cats to catch to take to the clinic. I offered a spot to the woman with the three teens, for the third of hers, but she declined and said she preferred to take the cat, once we catch her, to her own vet. I don't blame her. She's a nice woman and close to 90 years of age. I would have guessed 66 or 67. I told her she looks incredible for her age.

Horrible Case of Animal Abuse In Albany. Hank, the Starving Dog

Click post title to go to story about Hank, a dog who nearly starved to death in an Albany backyard. A neighbor called police. A community service officer, unable to get the residents to respond, spent the night outside the fence. Hank was 100 pounds underweight. The photo shows a dog in despair, bones protruding and it's a horrible sight to see.

And yet.

And yet, cats are abandoned, neglected and abused everyday here in Linn County, with no consequences for those who do these things. Why is it different for dogs? Why do they matter and cats not matter? I wonder that all the time. I run into so much neglect and abandonment and law enforcement apathy over cats, I no longer call it in.

I remember the horrible case of starving cats out on Kelly Road. I got a corrections officer, whom I knew, because he's a board member at Safehaven, to call a deputy he knew, so the case could be investigated.

But nothing was ever done, and, because I did call, and they wanted the cats back, even though they admitted freely to the deputy they don't feed them, I had to return them. This nearly killed my soul, to return those cats to certain slow horrible death. I found out later from a neighbor they all died. The vet had been abhored to find even internal organs shriveled from starvation.

I still have guilt over returning those cats to certain death.

Cats don't matter here. I so badly regret calling the deputy on those cats. I would have had it out with them personally, threatened them with a lawsuit, informed them of what the vet found or told them the cats died in surgery.

I'm glad Hank was saved, but I do wish the law would enforce the law on abuse, neglect and abandonment when it comes to cats also.

I also wonder if people making all those nasty comments about that woman, who caused such suffering, have their own pets fixed. It is the single most important and helpful thing a person could ever do to prevent massive amounts of animal suffering and death.

Michael Vick Leaves Horrific Legacy While Football People Forget

Click post title to go to LA Times story about the legacy of cruelty left by Michael Vick--in one of his dogs the monster beat and used as a bait dog.

In his football success, in the fact he may end up MVP, he believes all is forgiven and forgotten, perhaps even secretly condoned, with winks of approval, for his behavior towards dogs.

Another player, Desean Jackson, said to a reporter "We were like pitbulls ready to get out of the cage." A fan of Vick's behavior, no doubt.

Where are our values? This man hasn't changed. Michael Vick playing? Turn off the game. Show your heart for Mel, the dog in the article, one of Vick's victims.

Winning in America is everything. Brutality and violence are rewarded. Kindness is no longer considered an American value.

It is on the surface, but it isn't really.

Michael Vick is clear testimony to American values.

Greed. Violence. Winning.

Four Albany Cats Fixed Today

Smokey, Heatherdale owned male, fixed today.
Chucky, Smokey's brother, neutered today.
Female brown tab tux long hair teen, spayed today.
DLH black male teen, fixed today. This makes the last of the five feral teens needing trapped and fixed. If only I could determine, from varying accounts, who the mom might be and where she hangs out, to prevent further unwanted litters being born there.

Four more Heatherdale cats were fixed today. The last two, of five kittens, got fixed. And, two big brothers, from a different household, but who free roam, were fixed. In all, three males and one female.

The clinic told me they did 48 surgeries today. That's damn cool!

I had a bet on, with an assistant there, over the sexes of the two feral kittens. I said the brown tabby was a girl and the black a boy. I got it right and won a Twix. I based my opinion of the black long hair being a boy on the way he was charging around in the trap and even meowing. Little feral girls don't take such stupid risks. Boys do. I got it right! But I lucked out because he was doing teen boy feral behavior. Teen boy ferals are lucky if they survive teenhood.

I tell people girl kittens are more paranoid but there are good reasons for that. They in their lives will have to do all the hard stuff. They'll have to raise and nurture kittens while finding food and watching out for danger and fending off threats to her kittens. The boys don't do shit. They go look for love and fights and that's it. Doesn't take brains, which includes healthy paranoia, for that. Neuter them, they get brains suddenly, since the blood isn't flowing before that to the upper brain. Neuter them and they get their lives back and it's beautiful.

It's fun, the sex bets. I hope they'll all, at the clinic, get in on the feral sex bet pool next time around.

Pleasure Acres McFaddin Dies

Click post title to go to obit of a Corvallis man, who lived on and owned Pleasure Acres.

I had no idea who lived there, but part of the property, or adjoining property, a rental, had a huge cat issue. I got about 25 fixed for the renters. They told me they came from the barns way back there with the horses. I asked them repeatedly to contact those folks, to see if they needed help getting cats fixed in the barn. I don't know if they ever did or didn't. I got all the cats fixed at property close to the road. I never really knew if that was part of the Pleasure Acres property or not.

But I named the colony Pleasure Acres colony.

I got cats fixed on the far side of the Pleasure Acres property too, in the homeless camps that used to be where Home Depot is now, and after that, behind Home Depot. I took about three dozen cats out of that area, on the other side, slogging down the tracks through a blizzard once, to check traps I left set. I named the black long hair cat I caught Bliz, in fact.

Those cats were on the far side of Pleasure Acres.

I never knew if, like the homeless said, and those renters, that the cats were originating in the barns on Pleasure Acres or not because I was never able to get ahold of the people who lived there. It's posted No Trespassing and I could just never find out anything to know if the cats were originating there or not.

It's interesting now to read about the man who owned Pleasure Acres. But I still wonder if there are cats in the barns who need fixed. It could be there never were, and that the various other parties involved told tales to divert blame from themselves for creating a cat problem by not fixing their cats.

Three Albany Kittens Fixed Today

I don't know if this blue pt. Siamese is fixed or not. I seem to remember getting her fixed. She has no eartip. We might catch her just to make sure.
The unknown blue pt again.
DLH black tux male kitten, fixed today.
DLH black male kitten, fixed today.
DLH black female kitten, fixed today.

We caught three of what we thought were just four kittens, feral, living over in the trailer park. I took them up today to be fixed. They were two boys and one girl. All have beautiful long hair.

I left a trap with the woman, who told me she caught the last one. So I stopped by the trailer park on the way home. But on the way in, I stopped to chat with a woman I'd helped with cats a couple years ago. She now watches also, for any new cats. She said the neighbors across the street had a gray male. So she knocked on their door. They had not one, but two adult gray males, brothers, and they hauled them out, in two carriers, one loaned to them by the neighbor.

I then went to pick up the last kitten. Only it was a brown tabby long hair. The last two I saw, when there in the dark last night, and I caught one of them, were both black. You know what that means. There's still at least one more kitten who needs caught. She will keep trying.

Update: The fifth kitten is caught!!! Now to figure out who mom of kittens might be.