Sorry, but Harry flew into my house, and was instantly pounced on by 10 of my 12 cats… It’s now dead, and I’m glad, because I hate it when bugs, most especially flies, get into my house. Yuck!

Via

Pusheen The Cat

Pusheen The Cat

Robin Olson‘s cat, Bob Dole, continues his battle with lymphoma, and the cost is of his chemo has really become a burden since she’s currently unemployed. Any amount you could donate would help her, and Bob, immensely, and will bless you with lots of good karma. :)

Seven Toys My Cats Absolutely LOVE:

	Mylar Ball Cat Toy $1.49 – $69.97 1.5", 2" & 3" diameter balls. Available in Single, multipack, and LARGE bulk quantities. The cats go crazy for these.
	Bergan Turbo Scratcher Cat Toy $12.60 Colors may vary. If color is important to you buy it somewhere you can choose the color you want. The Turbo Scratcher replacement pads last quite a long time, since both sides of the pad are usable. I’ve had my current Turbo Scratcher for 14+ years.
	FroliCat BOLT Interactive Laser Pet Toy $15.40 Fully automatic… Set it, and forget it! Shuts itself off after 15 minutes of play.
	FroliCat SWAY Magnetically Suspended Cat Toy $10.17 2 piece magnet set allows you to attach it to a variety of flat surfaces. The dangling cat toy can also be easily replaced.
	PETCO Laser Ring Pet Toy $2.99 Most comfortable laser pointer cat toy I have ever owned, fits nicely in your hand, and finally a laser pointer that has a button that doesn’t kill your finger from holding it down.
	Colorful Springs Cat Toy $4.86 – $4.89 / 10 pack. Available in thin, or wide sizes. Cats go crazy for these toys, like they do the mylar balls.
	Cat Charmer $4.15 Lots of fun for you, and your cat(s)… Plus you both get a workout at the same time.

The Reality Of Cat, And Dog, Overpopulation
(Caution- Graphic Photos!)

Estimated number of cats, and dogs, entering shelters each year: 6-8 million Estimated number of cats, and dogs, euthanized by shelters each year: 3-4 million Estimated number of cats, and dogs, adopted from shelters each year: 3-4 million Estimated number of cats, and dogs, reclaimed by owners from shelters each year: 30 percent of dogs and 2-5 percent of cats entering shelters Estimated number of animal shelters in the United States: 3,500 What you can do to combat pet overpopulation: Always spay, or neuter, your pets. Always adopt your pets from a legitimate shelter, or nonprofit rescue group. Consider all the responsibilities, and consequences, of pet ownership before deciding to get a pet, and always make a lifetime commitment to your pet. Educate your children, friends, family members, and co-workers, about pet overpopulation, adoption, and the importance of spaying, and neutering.

Locate Affordable, Low Cost Spay/Neuter Resources

Well, Leonardo, Dylan, Lorelei, Chuckles, Ebon, and Phoebe have all been spayed/neutered… Thank the Gods! Pookey picked them up last night, and didn’t return home with them until a little after 10 pm. They were a bit wobbly at first, but actually tolerated the surgery better than Nero, Tiberius, Marcus, and Maia, did at the beginning of August. Those four were HUGE SURLY BITCHES when they came home from being spayed/neutered.

This is the last of Juno’s kittens, and since she was spayed at the end of August, we won’t have to take any more cats to the clinic for the foreseeable future. *KNOCK ON WOOD*

Now I just have to wait until all the sex hormones work their way completely out of the kittens’ systems, but that shouldn’t take too long. Though they don’t really seem that interested in those kind of shenanigans anymore, just in recovering from their surgeries. The boys especially were funny last night; they wandered around the house a little drunkenly, looking like they were all searching for their missing testicles. lol.

Thankfully, they’re all back to being themselves, though the girls are taking it easier than the boys are. Not that I blame them. Their surgeries were a little more invasive than the boys’ were. Still, I’m very pleased with how much they’ve all recovered already, but I’m far more pleased that there won’t be any more damned kittens!!!   :D

<RANT>

We’ve had THIRTEEN cats spayed/neutered, at Kittico’s clinic in the last FOURTEEN months… Costing us well over $700. TWELVE of the cats were the kittens of Juno, the feral cat that I care for who hangs out in my back yard, and Juno herself was the THIRTEENTH.

Not to mention the $2k+ we had to spend at the Vet’s when Tiberius (The First) contracted Panleukopenia (Feline Distemper) when he was exposed to the disease at the clinic. (Yes, I learned my lesson from that… All the kittens that went to the clinic after that had ALL their shots, and time enough between the last of them to be sure they were fully protected. Though from what Pookey told me, the clinic now has a Panleukopenia outbreak protocol, which it didn’t have when Tiberius, and Minerva, went there in early December 2009. At least something good came from my first Tibee’s death.)

So I ask, why did someone feel the need to put this snarky-assed sticker on the page protector, attached to all of my kittens’ carriers, that held the clinic’s paperwork?! And, yes, all six stickers had "absorb" highlighted. *rolls her eyes*

WTF?! Every other time I’ve sent cats to the clinic I HAVE included a towel in each of their carriers. You know how they all came home dear reader? EVERY DAMNED TIME the towel was completely clean, and newspapers were placed on top of it by someone at the clinic. So, this time, because I figured that it’s just a complete waste of time, and effort, to put towels in the carriers, I receive this snarky-assed sticker. Nice.

This is especially insulting: "It’s the HUMANE thing to do!" *mutters angrily* Evidently because I didn’t put a towel, newspaper, or other absorbant bedding into the cats’ carriers that makes me cruel, barbaric, and lacking in compassion, and mercy. So, it’s cancelled out the fact that I’ve:

• Rescued 12 kittens that I knew would be doomed, to the miserable life of a feral cat, if I did nothing.
• Trapped, spayed, and released the feral female cat who had given birth to all of those 12 kittens. A cat that would have basically continued to have litter, after litter, until the end of her life.
• Fed, watered, and given up the active use of my storage shed to make sure the FOUR feral cats that hang around my back yard have a place to get shelter in inclement weather.
• Spent countless hours, from June 2005 – April 2007, on creating, and maintaining a website for an organization dedicated to helping stray, and feral, cats. The same organization whose clinic worker thought it would be "helpful" to put a snarky-assed sticker on the clinic’s paperwork page protector.

So the next time you want to put this snarky-assed sticker on the clinic paperwork page protector, just roll your eyes, and sigh, or whatever you do when you’re peeved, and DON’T put the damned sticker on. OK?

It’s disrespectful to all the people who are being responsible cat owners/guardians, and have brought their cats to the clinic to get them spayed, or neutered. People who are at the clinic because they want to help, in any little way they can, to lessen the suffering that pet over-population brings with it. People who are spending their hard earned money to do this at a time when money is tight. People who are just as committed as you to caring for animals, so give them a break, and stop chastising them like a child for any minor mistake you may think they’ve made.

</RANT>

*takes a deep, cleansing breath*

Chuckles, Phoebe, Lorelei, Ebon, Dylan, and Leonardo, will be visiting "Catnip Mountain" very, very soon… They should have gone at the end of November, but the funds that we set aside for their trip were unhappily used up when Augustus got sick, and Yule didn’t give us a chance to catch our breath.

Right now, we have six six-month-old kittens hitting puberty. *sighs* The girls have these "new" feelings, and the boys are sniffing around, and bothering, them. Luckily they don’t know how to do anything yet, but that won’t last for long, and thankfully things will be taken care of before they figure it out. Still, it’s driving me batshit. I’m just glad that it only happens occasionally, otherwise I’d have to lodge the girls in my walk in closet until I could get them all spayed, and neutered.

Fortunately these are the LAST of the kittens Juno had, before I got her spayed, so there will be no more trips to Catnip Mountain after this one. This Thursday (1/6) is the date of the kittens’ departure, and I’m sure they’re all going to have shitloads of fun. ;)

We had a very, very frightening experience tonight… Morgan has one of those pop up, mesh hampers with two long, nylon loop handles on it, and Phoebe somehow got one of the handles around her neck. Don’t ask me how she did this, she’s one of our smallest kittens, and the loop handles on the hamper are quite large. I’m chalking it up to pure dumb luck.

Well, naturally she freaked totally out, and ran out of Morgan’s room, and into the computer room dragging the hamper behind her. She ran under Pookey’s computer desk, and because she couldn’t get “away” from the hamper that was “chasing” her, she then proceeded to circle one of the desk’s legs several times. This wrapped the loop handle tightly around the desk’s legs, and her neck. She was seriously choking herself. Hard. It was so fucking surreal.

Freaking out even more, she thrashed around wildly, making the terrifying situation even worse. She bit, and scratched, the hell out of Pookey’s hand as he was trying to help her. I quickly determined there was no way to just untangle her from the desk’s leg, so I frantically grabbed a pair of scissors, all the while wondering if she was going to choke herself to death before I could rescue her, then cut one end of the handle off the hamper. That didn’t successfully free her, so I had to cut the other end off the hamper as well. Thank the Gods that did the trick, and that there was no lasting harm done to her.

Pookey’s right hand was another matter entirely, though thankfully he’s left-handed. Phoebe had sunk her teeth, and claws, deep into it. While I was making sure she was alright, he was cleaning his wounds at the kitchen sink, after having left a blood trail on his way there. Putting some gentle pressure on the wounds staunched most of the bleeding. I made him up an ice pack, after I had dosed him with some Tylenol, and got him comfortable on the couch. I put his hand on a pillow, wrapped it in a clean dish towel, and had him ice his hand for a bit. The cold helped keep the bruising, and swelling, down a lot. Still, his hand is going to be sore as hell for the next few day, but hopefully it’ll heal well. *sighs*

Now Morgan’s hamper has absolutely NO HANDLES on it, as I cut the other one off it just in case. Better safe, than sorry. I definitely don’t want to go through that again.

I finally got around to taking new pictures of all the cats last night… I had to take 20 million pictures to get 12 decent ones, but it’s done. Though, I now feel sorry for people who have to take pictures of pets for a living, considering all I had to go through just to get those 12. Poor bastards.

Julius	Minerva
Tiberius	Nero
Marcus	Maia
Chuckles	Phoebe
Dylan	Leonardo
Ebon	Lorelei

Early Thursday Morning…

Pookey: Hey Tiberius, Nero, Mia, and Marcus, do you all want to go to Catnip Mountain?

Kittens: Catnip Mountain?! Yes!!!

*Pookey bundles each kitten into their own cat carrier, and loads them in the car, for the trip to Catnip Mountain. Hours later we see the four kittens moaning, and groaning, in their carriers.*

Tiberius: Oh, Gods. What happened? Aw! They took my freakin’ balls!

On July 20th, when they were 4 weeks, and 3 days old, I was able to rescue this third litter (two girls, and four boys) when she finally took them out into the open, and was nursing them in the yard. I was hoping for them to be around 6 weeks before rescuing them, but I took the opportunity that was offered, not knowing if I would get such a good chance to get every one of them again.

On the bright side, three days later I successfully trapped Juno with the help of one of her loudest kittens. I placed the kitten in a secure cat carrier, and put the opening to the end of the trap, then covered where they joined one another with a towel. It worked like a charm, though it took Juno going in the trap a few times to actually set it off. lol. We bought a Havahart Large Collapsible Easy Set Trap to do this, and it worked beautifully. Once Juno goes to be spayed, I’ll be donating it to Cat Matchers, a local no kill animal adoption organization.

I also had an great idea… I have a decently sized walk-in closet, in my bedroom, that was easily cleared out, and thought that I could use it to make a cozy nest in it for Juno, and the kittens. I placed a sheet lined box for Juno to hide in, along with food, water, and a cat box with clay litter, that the kittens had already been using, in it. The kittens, even though they had gotten used to us, were being obstinate about eating well, so I figured that they’d do much better if their mom was caring for them. I was right, both Juno, and the kittens, took to one another quickly, and seem quite happy in the closet. I plan on letting her rear them there, while I take out a few of them at a time, to romp around, and be played with, in my living room. That way they’ll be well fed, kept clean as only a mom cat can keep them, and will still get well socialized so they won’t end up like their poor mother.

Juno’s backstory: She’s has been hanging around my backyard almost 2 years now. At first, I thought she was someone’s pet who was allowed outside. Then, last May, while Pookey, and I, were doing yard work in the back we came upon two kittens near the shed we have in the rear of our yard, and were shocked. Unfortunately, while we did search for more kittens, we missed the other two kittens in the litter. Thankfully they were both males, the only female in the litter being one of the kittens we found. By the time I saw the two other kittens weeks later, it was sadly too late, as they were definitely feral by then. *sad sigh*

The only thing that was a blessing about the two missed kittens being with her is that they kept her from going into heat, so she didn’t have a second litter until early this March. The second litter I was able to rescue when they were a tad over six weeks old. Unfortunately rescuing all of the kittens in the second litter made her go into heat almost immediately, so here we are with her third one. Her LAST litter.

Though Juno is definitely feral, she’s obviously is an owned cat that went wild, and tolerates me rather well. Not well enough to touch her, but she looks to me to feed her, and will let me be close to her unless she feels especially paranoid. She’ll be spayed after the kittens are weaned, and I’ll be returning her to my back yard, where I’ll try to make her life as good as I can.

Lastly, seven cats – Augustus, Julius, Minerva, Tiberius, Nero, Mia, and Marcus – is more than enough for me, so Cat Matchers will be helping me get the kittens adopted. I definitely do not want them to go to people who find euthanizing animals, they find inconvenient, acceptable. I’m one of those people that feel once you adopt a pet it’s for life, even with animals that have issues. None of us are perfect, and if something that won’t be important in ten years makes you carelessly discard a pet, then you need to reexamine yourself, and seek to improve upon your character.