Floppy gets a home!

It's official!!!  After two weeks at Carol's all is going well with Floppy, now renamed Bear.  He is still shy but purrs when she pats him, and is starting to explore and is working things out with her cats. So Floppy (Bear) has a real home!  I cried this morning when I saw him on the adopted page.  He's come a long way in the four years I've known him, I am so happy that he will never be cold or wet or in danger again.  You couldn't ask for a better home than Carol's!  In my shameless way I asked her if she would adopt him, knowing she has a soft spot for the cats who have lived rough.  I never imagined she would say yes.  But she did, in his case, the fact that he is older and FIV is a selling point for her, one of those amazing people who wants to help the cats who are "special".

So yay for Floppy!  It's a good day in our cat world!

Floppy before

Floppy safe inside

A good day to save cats

It's a long story, aren't they all?  My neighbour's daughter's boyfriend has an upstairs neighbour (confused yet?) who has a cat who had kittens.  Of course she reached out to me and I said sure I can help.  I went over Thursday evening and well it wasn't quite what I expected.  Momma was friendly and the kittens were hiding, the place was a mess to be polite.  Squalid is a more accurate terms, a wall of empty Laker Lager boxes, one litter box that was all urine and feces, but on the upside the guys were nice.

I went back yesterday and the kittens were in a room, so we managed to grab them, although I must say they are pretty wild, even though they were born inside I'm not sure they have been handled much but they will come around.  There was some talk of them giving up mamma too but they wouldn't sadly, at least though they will let me get her spayed, this was her third litter.

Then back to regularly scheduled programming, I fed my feral colonies (about 22 cats in total), and then we took a break and enjoyed a small grove of cherry trees near the colony.  Who needs the west end traffic and crowds?!

Second batch of kittens!

Well clearly kitten season is on!  Michelle's kittens are doing well so this week it was Susan's turn, a fellow trapper Brenda called to say she had caught five 4 week old kittens, could we help.  Susan volunteered without hesitation even though there would be some bottle feeding involved.  Who wouldn't want these cuties?  And even better news Brenda trapped the mom too who has now been spayed.

Lesley and I went back to try to trap our elusive females at the black and white colony and amazingly we got the mom of Michelle's kittens, and a male too under the drop trap.  For the first time, the mom didn't want to leave the trap, she wanted to stay and eat!  It took a bit to get her transferred into a trap, another reason we generally don't use a drop trap alone.

It's been a good week, kittens rescued, females spayed, that's our goal!

First kittens of 2017!

Lesley and I have been trapping at a new colony this spring, if you may remember the first time out we got six cats!  Then one and now nothing.  There are three females left to be spayed, two had kittens who died, and we didn't know what happened with the third litter, but last week a neighbour spied them in her yard, and discovered they were under the deck.  With the warm sunny weather on the weekend the kittens came out to play and were able to be grabbed.  Two days three kittens safe! They are probably about six weeks and Michelle is having a great time with them, they are figuring out eating and playing and just utterly delightful.  Thankfully they didn't have enough time to decide to be feral!  We have two black and white females and the grey and white is male.  These floofs will be snapped up!  I can't spend much time with them I too may succumb to their charms.

Ariel, Puck and Ophelia

Puck our boy

Ophelia the last to be caught

It is always so heartwarming knowing these loves will have a wonderful life!

My rounds

On a day when I'm feeding more than one colony my day goes something like this, after feeding my home colony and doing any catsits, I head to the CG colony where we have 10 cats who live in a laneway.  It's only a 5 minute drive, and I leave them with six or seven bowls of canned food and the same of dry food and water of course.  Since it's a laneway and can be busy I don't always see all the cats but usually see at least a half dozen.

In the afternoon I head south and go first to the yard where I feed our two groups of four, they are big canned food eaters and because they are all getting old, I often spoil them with Fancy Feast.  Then down the road I go to Mystery's spot, she is always there, unfortunately I rarely see Patches and Owen now due to the changes, but I have seen them in the last few weeks so I know they are ok. Around the corner to my last (and newest) feeding location, I love these two cats, Sadie the tortie gets so excited about her food, she dances!  They are the youngest of all I feed they are probably only about three years old, but in the most dangerous location.  Every day I breathe a sigh of relief when I see all my regulars.

And then I fit in a lovely walk along the Spit, I love this time of the year, and the lake, especially if it's choppy and wavy, reminds me of the ocean.  On weekdays sometimes I'm lucky and don't see another person, just the water and the birds and the sky.

Then it's home to a sinkful of dishes to get ready for another day.

It's spring!

Almost seven years a scrawny and shy black and white cat showed up in our backyard.  What did we do?  Fed him of course, then got him neutered.   Charlie has never been content to be indoors though so as much as we don't like it, we have let him be our outside cat, but he has to spend the night inside.

He's very happy that it's spring as are we all, here he is today having a nap, on my plants sigh.

The colony in and out

My buddy Floppy is a bit scared but doing ok I think, I am able to pat him and today he came out and I sat him on my lap!  And even better I have a potential home lined up for him with an experienced cat person who I know!  It may take some time but I believe Floppy will be a cuddly guy like Gary is with us, and how wonderful if he never had to be cold or wet again.

The rest of Hank's gang seems more relaxed with him gone, it's so odd to be down to eight, four in each spot.  Only a few years ago we were twenty-five plus.

Pseudo and Jet

MC

Minky

Floppy's turn

I talk to my friends at Yonge Davenport a lot!!  Last week I picked up Mugsy and Pseudo, and took in Floppy.  Mugsy went back all healed up to his caretaker who has reported that Mugsy now comes inside and sits on her lap!   Pseudo spent a couple of days at Susan's and then went back to the colony.  On Thursday I easily picked up Floppy and took him to the vet, he has been getting friendlier and friendlier so we decided to see if he is homeable, especially since we think he might be the one fighting with Pseudo.

Floppy of course needed dental, and is FIV positive but is all vetted now and just recovering at the vet.  They are able to handle him and pill him so I feel encouraged about his future.

Floppy

On the trapping side, Lesley and I split up today to divide and conquer but so far the cats are winning. Lesley caught one female and we did retrap a cute young black cat who oddly has become friendly since his return a few weeks ago.  I took him to Michelle's and pulled him out of the trap and patted him on my lap and he purred!  A month ago though he couldn't be touched.  Cats!

We went to our Vic Park colony this morning to try to scoop the kittens who would have been four weeks today to discover that they died yesterday.  I just hate it when kittens die, it breaks my heart, maybe it was last week's nasty weather, who knows....another reason to TNR.

A week of vetting

A few days ago I was contacted by someone looking for help with a cat she is feeding outside while the homeowner is away, he showed up with a terrible wound and she didn't know what to do. Thankfully Mugsy the street cat lived in the east end so I went over with a trap and after meowing at me for a minute, he went right in.  We rushed him off the vet and he is now being treated for a very bad abcess.  Mugsy is older and already eartipped and of course he needs dental so now we are waiting for his person to return home. 

And lately I've been noticing Pseudo showing up late or not at all and with wounds so I was able to scoop him and take him into the vet.  Bloodwork was normal thankfully but he had lost weight and had a number of wounds.  I'm trying to figure out if he's fighting and with who.  For now he's getting a bit of R&R, we were hoping maybe he is friendly but so far he's not responding to life inside, but he certainly is eating well.  We will let him wait out the rain and enjoy some regular meals, and then next week I will take Floppy in to get him vetted and see how friendly he is, he might be the bully, it's so hard to know I don't see any fights.

When you start TNRing a young colony you don't think about the future but here we are many years later and the challenge for these ones is taking care of them in their old age.  I'm sure most of us who started feeding feral cats never expected them to live to be 10+.

Butch is a lap cat

Well Butch is not just a sweetie but a lap cat!  He seems very happy to be inside, eating up a storm and chatting away...

 From the bad cat files, we have a picture of what Jack (one of my catsitting clients) was up to when I wasn't there.

 And one of mine took advantage of a fridge door open too long!