38 posts tagged “boxcar cats”

They got to it six months after they originally said they would, but the city's development agency finally razed the Boxcar Colony site.  Here's the before (when I was feeding them from 2006 up till relocation in the fall of 2008 -- and remember, my trapping partner Joyce fed them here for NINE years):

Winter view:

At the side of the boxcars, flowers like this grew:

And here's the After, photos I took today.  Same tree:

And here's the view looking straight in from the street at the side, toward where the tulips and lilacs were:

This is a pile of the railroad ties that were under the boxcars.  I once crawled in underneath, along the ties, to retrieve a cat's body so it wouldn't dceompose next to a feeding area.

It makes me sad to look at this, although all logic says it shouldn't.  It always made me kind of sad before that the cats were there in the first place, among barbed wire, rusted railcar undercarriages, and dirty water runoff from the restaurant pipes, with their water bowls freezing over in the winter.  Now they're all in homes, or at the horse farm.  And this area hasn't been demolished to put in yet another condo tower (for once), this is actually going to be recreated as a park (that's why the tree is still standing).  So that's good, right? 

Instead of feeling melancholy, I should feel very pleased and proud, because I personally started up the plan for management of this colony in the first place, and then, for the relocation, so that the scene above didn't happen with cats still on the property, getting scattered as their unusual home was destroyed.

Maybe someday I'll write a book about those two years I got to know the Boxcar colony.

 

Just for fun, because I recently received a grownup photo of one of my boxcar colony kitten rescues, I thought I'd do a then and now comparison.

Then:  at about six-weeks, living rough:

 

He's one of a trio that didn't get rescued till four months old, but socialized nicely, anyway.

And here's a portrait taken by his new family, age 3.

Look how refined!  He likes to sit on his mom's piano, even while it's being played (she plays professionally and teaches students in the home).  I've titled the photo "Oscar on piano" to keep it straight in my voluminous boxcar cat photo files, but his name actually became Meow Ming.

He also looks a LOT like my cat Sodapop (no relation).

Number of cats taken to vet today:  3

Number of cat photos taken today:  about a dozen

Confirming that my cats are healthy for another year:  $432.00  (What, you were expecting "priceless"?  No, there's definitely a price, and it ain't cheap.)

So, yes, today was the annual excursion to the vet with me juggling three cat carriers into and out of cabs.  At least it was a sunny day above zero Celsius for a change.  This was my load, safely deposited in the waiting room at my destination, Downtown Animal Hospital. 

Tumbleweed's in the blue carrier and Macaroon (or MacAroon, as they have her in the database -- someone must have thought she was a Scottish cat) is on the bench in the soft, over-the-shoulder carrier, That's Sodapop in the bottom carrier, already squishing himself into the back corner.  The techs took their weights, during which  it was like a forceps delivery getting Sodapop out of his carrier, and everybody's gained weight since last year.  (I had noticed Macaroon becoming a bit of a pudge lately.  Seems they're all up by at least a pound.)

We went into an exam room, where I didn't bother to shut them back in their carriers.  The irrepressible Macaroon, of course, went exploring.

Sodapop wasn't quite as brave.

And Tumbleweed was his usual trepidatious self.

It's worth noting that, after being dragged to the vet every few weeks or a month for almost a year with his mouth issues, Tumbleweed's last visit was May 2008, because his mouth has been very good since then.  Our wonderful vet showed up and began exams.  Macaroon helped her get the vaccines out of the mini-fridge, where Dr. V. was surprised to see sour cream and salsa stored as well.  Super Bowl party ingredients for someone getting off work soon, I suggested.

After Macaroon got her shots, we moved on to Sodapop.  While holding Soda for his temperature-taking, we heard a rustling sound that I identified instantly.  Sure enough, when our hands were free, Dr. Vihos opened the cupboard.  "You've gotta get a picture of this," she said.  I was already reaching for my camera.

 We left her in there for the rest of the appointmet, because there was nothing harmful in the bin.  She got pretty cozy and hated to leave.

Tumbleweed's mouth still looked "fantastic", but Macaroon has a little gingivitis (just regular-type, not Tumbler's auto-immune disorder).  Apart from the pudge factor, they were all perfectly fine.  We've even cut Tumbleweed's precriptions from two down to one, just the Atopica, and are dropping off the Interferon.  I stocked up on his Atopica, and cat food, and reversed the process to get back home.

But there's more to Super Cat Sunday.  This morning I brought the last dozen cans of soft food that Tumbleweed doesn't eat any more upstairs to Joyce, my trapping partner, who still has the last two Boxcar cats in her place.  These are the two females we thought could be socialized.  When it seemed that maybe they couldn't, Joyce agreed to foster them until spring, because by then, it was late November and the weather had gotten very cold, and they hadn't grown their thicker coats.  (We have a barn lined up to take them in the spring.)  

I got pictures of Pretty Girl and Blanca, out and about at Joyce's. 

Joyce has four other cats, so Blanca has taken the solarium for her territory, and Pretty Girl hangs out in the dining room.  They're still not "social", but Joyce can pet them in certain places they consider safe.  And they play with catnip toys.  I'm really glad they haven't been outdoor ferals this winter.

 

Sara took Lincoln off to the farm this morning.  I asked her to ask how the other cats are doing when she got there.

When I went out for groceries today, I went by the boxcar restaurant.  It has this sign out:

Yes, it's called the Town & Country Buffet, not the "Boxcar Restaurant" as I've been calling it, but we volunteers don't reveal exact locations of feral colonies, lest someone take issue with their existence and do them harm. Here's the place in its full cruddy glory.

It's a crappy and cheap place to eat.  I had brunch there once just so I could casually ask the staff about the cats a couple of years ago.  Of course, tourist buses would come here all the time.  We'd have up to four or five buses show up in an evening, pulling into the back laneway right next to where we would be set up to trap.  (Sara had a tense couple of moments watching one pull past her parked car the other night.)  I guess the cats were used to them.  And I don't know about "maintenance and repairs" when the word I heard directly from the city is this place will be torn down completely.

I also put a note out for anyone passing by looking for the cats.  It hangs just above where the food bowls were on the north side, and is packing-taped to a piece of rebar.

I don't know how many people will go by here now and see it what with the fitness centre across the road closed and the restaurant closed (it's an industrial area, otherwise), but people who thought the restaurant staff fed the cats (um, not so much) might be curious when they see the restaurant closed, and come by the side where the cats would hang out.  The sign reads:

Dear Friends of the Cats:

 

Due to the waterfront development and construction that will be starting in the immediate area soon, the cats who lived here have been moved by animal rescue volunteers to safer homes:  some to a barn in the country, and the tamest ones are going to homes.

 

Thanks to all who cared about them, and cared for them over the years.

 

Annex Cat Rescue

 

If you wish to make a donation to help us help other feral cats, visit www.annexcatrescue.ca

 

I put it in a plastic sleeve because it's a rainy weekend here.

And with Lincoln's departure, this is the first weekend in a month I haven't had extra cat carriers or traps in my front hallway.  I like that!

That's it, we're done.  There's no more boxcar colony.  The boxcars are still there (for the time being), but the cats have moved out.

It took two years of trapping to work our way through sterilizing all the cats and rescuing all the kittens for adoption.  We hit the done point, where the colony could live the rest of its natural life, without continually contributing to the overpopulation problem.  Then we got the news the site would be razed for waterfront development.  We found in May that we had till the end of October to trap all the cats still there again, and find places to re-home them to.

Last night, we got the last cat.  One week before the end of October.  The area all around there will start changing soon.

Lincoln was a challenge.  He was the most recent arrival to this colony and we had him trapped within a week of that late this spring when we were just interested in getting him fixed, so he was the wariest around any trap this round.  Probably remembered his alien abduction experience too well.  Friendly, though, and he would come to Joyce, who's been the godsend for this colony, our Cat Whisperer who has fed this colony for almost ten years now.  The cats know her and trust her.

Lincoln, for his short stay there, does, too.  We think he probably had human owners at some point, because Joyce could pat him, as I've posted before.  And this was the key to getting him, since he had the whole trap-savvy thing going on.

So here's how it went down last night.

Joyce, Sara and I load up at 8 p.m., an hour and a half later than the night before, when it took Mr. Lincoln forever to show his face.  It's hard enough trapping a black cat at night in the shadows of the feeding area when you're not even sure if he's there.

We decided to try my strategy of Joyce crouching by and luring him to the open carrier with mmmmm, roast beef gravy inside it for bait.   If he went even halfway in, Joyce would have been able to boost his butt in and slam the door shut.   Sara and I had to stand well back, beyond the hillock, beside the car, so as not to make Lincoln nervous.  We couldn't see anything that was going on, just a piece of the back of Joyce's jacket.

That didn't work.  So Joyce had a different strategy.  She would stand the carrier up on its end so the open door was on top, and then crouch down and lure him to her.  Then, she would pick him up and drop him down vertically into the carrier.  She said she'd practiced it that afternoon with her own cats at home.  And got scratched for her trouble.  Yikes, I thought.  If one of her own cats scratched her, Lincoln will be way worse.  I also pictured Lincoln splaying his feet out against all four sides of the carrier opening, refusing to be pushed in.  Then he'd get loose and run off and we wouldn't be able to get him for days more. 

Again, Sara and I had to stand way back, so couldn't help. After conferring with Joyce, I walked back to the car with Sara and flat out told her it wouldn't work.  About two minutes later, Joyce the Cat Whisperer proved me totally wrong.

We still couldn't see what was happening, but we saw some kind of quick movement, then heard the door shut.  "Did she do it?!" we asked each other.  "I think she did it!"  Then Joyce called out,  "I've got him!" 

We ran over, absolutely thrilled and I'm all "Holy shit!" and we're all nine kinds of happy, and close the latches on the carrier and before anybody could move, I said "I have to get my camera!"  I wouldn't even let them put the carrier back down the right way till I got a picture of the last capture.

This is looking down on him through the carrier door.  He closed his eyes against the flash.  That brown in the back is not cat diarrhea, it's the remains of the roast beef gravy, which he was sitting it at that point.  Unlike Pretty Girl getting muddy during her capture in the drop trap, Lincoln's fur would at least be tasty when he eventually cleaned himself off.

Time from start of trapping to Lincoln in the box?  Less than half an hour.  Maybe even 20 minutes.  How did she do it?  Joyce took hold of the scruff of his neck, lifted him up, stuck her other hand under his back end, and just stuffed him into the carrier, back end first.  She's a champion.  Though it was nail-bitingly frustrating to stand back and not assist in this last night, I'm very glad that Joyce grabbed up the last cat.  It's her colony really, and very symbolic that it be her (and the trust she engendered) that sealed the deal.

Because he had shown tame tendencies, before we took him anywhere else, we took him to the nearest vet to scan for a microchip ID.  But he had none.  So he's in my recovery cage till tomorrow, when Sara will drive him up to join his buddies at the farm in the country.

The last thing I did as we were cleaning up our gear from the trapping site was grab up the bowls I would fill up on the north side.  There aren't any more cats who need them there, though there is one skunk who came by the night before who's going to be mighty disappointed at missing the free meals.

I think I'll go down tomorrow and post a sign, "To the friends of the cats" and explain a little about where they've gone.  Anyone who works nearby and has seen us there trapping lately has been really pleased to know that they're being relocated.

I can't tell you how glad I am to have this done. 

Real post and photos to follow...this was just too exciting not to get the news up right away!

100 pounds of female

Long sleeved T-shirt

Fleece turtleneck

Fleece zip-up cardigan

Fall jacket (padded, lined)

Cotton tights

Extra pair of socks

Sneakers with thick soles (not crappy little Keds)

Jeans

Fleece sweatpants

Two pair of gloves (switched to fleece mittens for the last hour)

Ball cap

Ear muffs

Add:

5 degrees Celsius (41F for the Americans)

2.5 hours not moving, watching a cat trap.

I have a poor surface-area-to-volume ratio.  Bad thermoregulation.  No insulation.  I believe the technical term is "freeze-baby."  To me, Hell is cold, not hot.  I wound up with numb toes, numb fingertips and the cold getting deep into me through all the layers.  I'll be getting into a hot bath soon.

Here's the advice needed part:

Lincoln the cat didn't go near the drop trap.  He was hungry, though.  He likes my mom's turkey gravy.  He's also lonely, now that his pals are all gone.  He responds very well to Joyce.  She can pat him.  And pat him and pat him.  She thinks he may not be a feral (he's a late addition to the boxcar family, only arriving in May this year).

Joyce is too hesitant to just grab him and stuff him into a carrier or throw a towel over him and snare him that way.  Sara or I would do it, but he won't come to us.  He trusts Joyce.  It's almost harder to catch this relatively friendly cat than a fully feral one.  Anybody got any ideas?

I'm thinking tomorrow she puts food in an open carrier and sits beside it.  He comes to her, she pats and pats him and hopefully, he finds his own way into the carrier.  But it will still probably require her having to boost his back in the last bit and slam the door shut.  But I'm open to other suggestions, too.

 

We got Pretty Girl with the drop trap tonight! 

I didn't get photos during the process, because it took three of us to make it work, and work it was.  Here are some photos showing the setup:

This is the distance we were working from.  I was Wile E. Coyote on the top of the hillock, holding the string.  That red box in the distance holds up the front edge of the trap, and the little brown square is the portal at the front of the trap (the trap is flat on the ground at this moment).  Sara was to my right, holding a blanket to throw over the trap when we got a cat.  And Joyce sat on the red stairs, to help lure Pretty Girl toward the trap with some food (Pretty Girl comes to Joyce).  Here's a better view of the trap when we reset it later. 

The trap is propped up.  It's made of weighted PVC pipe lengths, with plastic chicken wire across the top (not really visible here).  And under it you place a plate of gooshy food to tempt the cat into the strike zone.  When you yank the cord, the red box pops out, and the trap drops on the cat.  Two people run over and stand on the sides of the trap so the cat can't throw it off if they start thrashing around.  Someone drops a blanket over the trap to calm the cat and keep it from thrashing.  Then (this is why a third person is helpful) someone bungees the back end of a trap with a rear access panel to that wooden door, then one lifts that little panel in the wooden frame, and hopefully the cat goes into the regular trap from the drop trap.  At which point you replace the wooden panel and the rear access panel of the box trap.  Neat as you please.

In theory.

This worked to a point.  We had Pretty Girl trapped, then covered the regular trap with a towel, so it became the desired dark hidey-hole, and began to lift the blanket off the drop trap.  She did as expected, and darted into the regular trap.  Then, perhaps because of her trap experience this morning, darted right back into the drop trap, because we weren't quick enough with putting the barriers back up between the two!  Then she wouldn't budge to go back into the box trap.  It took us about fifteen more minutes of poking and squirting and pushing (all through the plastic chicken wire), to turn her around (because she pointed her butt to it), and we still only got her head into the wooden opening. 

It's important to note that Pretty Girl is not a slim cat.  The wooden opening is about 8 inches across.  We know she would fit through, because she already did it once.  But if you think it's hard to stuff your cat into a carrier, try stuffing a traumatized semi-feral fat cat into an eight inch opening, working through chicken wire, when you can barely fit your (gloved) fingers through the holes, and can't get purchase on, say, the cat's butt to give her a really good shove.

I wound up convincing Sara to lift the edge of the drop trap a few inches (breaking Rule #1 of drop trapping:  Never Lift the Edge of the Trap While the Cat is in It, because even a fat feral will suddenly pull a Houdini and squeeze out those few inches).  And I stuck my gardening gloved hands in and unbraced her feet from the edge of the wood, and shoved, and finally, after five more minutes of struggle, we got her to move.  The final thing that did it, though was again, manipulating light and dark.  We covered the far end of the trap we wanted her to go into, and exposed the transition point.  And squirted her with the plant sprayer some more, for emphasis.  Against all these forces, she moved.

I should point out at this time that I thought from the beginning, Pretty Girl would be the easiest cat to get.  Boy was I wrong.

With all that commotion having gone on, it was unlikely we'd get another cat tonight, but after Pretty Girl went to Joyce's place, Sara and I saw Lincoln around, so we reset the trap for him.

By now, we were trying to trap a black cat in the dark.  Which meant keeping a flashlight on the trap so we could see if he went in.  But it wasn't happening, and also by now, I was kind of shaky with hunger and exertion (Laurie's new Rule #1 of Trapping:  When you go trapping at 5 p.m., eat dinner before, not after.) and cold from being on the damp ground while wrestling with Pretty Girl, getting the knees of my jeans wet, and my gloves, and the wind had picked up, too.  So we called it a night around 7:15.  But we're feeling pretty good, all told.  The Boxcar Colony is down to one cat, and Pretty Girl will never live outside again.

 Oh, and I almost forgot to add:

While I was waiting for Sara to come back after driving Pretty Girl and Joyce to Joyce's place, I took these awesome photos of the sky.

 

There are SO many other things I'd rather do on a Sunday morning (several of them without leaving the bed), but the first two hours of this Sunday morning were spent cat trapping at the boxcars again.  We're down to Pretty Girl and Lincoln.  Pretty Girl showed up right after we got there and set up the traps, and did a big circuit around them, but didn't really approach.  Both Sara and I had previously-opened cans of food that had been saved in the fridge.  It wasn't till I took a walk over to the nearest grocery store and got some new cans and popped the top so she could hear and added the fresh stuff to the bait that she started to take any real interest.

After some tense moments, she approached the double-ended trap -- one where both ends flap up, so the cat can see through it like a tunnel and possibly doesn't feel as hemmed it as with a regular trap.  And the cat doesn't have to go as far in to be trapped, only halfway, to trip it, because the trip plate is in the middle, not near the end.  Then both ends snap shut.

In theory.

Pretty Girl nibbled her agonizingly slow way in, with some false starts and backing out, and tripped the trap.  But she wasn't far enough in for the door behind her to close cleanly; her butt was still partway out, and she wiggled backwards and shot off under the boxcars again.  Bugger!  Now the chances of getting her to go into any trap, even a regular one-ended trap again any time soon are slim to none.

We'll be going out tonight and may have to resort to our last-chance strategy:  the drop trap.

If it looks like a cartoon contraption, well, that's the principle it works on.  It's a slightly more advanced version of Wile E. Coyote's "box on a stick with a string" kind of trap.  We literally yank on a cord when the right cat is under it, to make it fall.  Further updates later tonight if we deploy it.

On another note:  if you're fascinated by any of these cat-trapping goings-on, or squeed at any of the cute rescue kitten and foster cat photos I've put up, and can spare a few clicks to support Annex Cat Rescue, the rescue group I volunteer with, the Animal Rescue Site (which many of you already know and click on daily) and Petfinder are holding votes to award cash grants to animal rescue groups (“shelters”).  ACR is eligible because ACR is a member of Petfinder.  The prizes are:
 
Grand Prize:  One $25,000 grant
Runner Up:  One $10,000 grant
State Winners*:  Fifty-four $1,000 state grants
Weekly Winners**:  Eleven $1,000 weekly grants
*The organization with the most votes from each U.S. state, one in Washington D.C., and one in Puerto Rico, as well as the top two organizations in Canada, will receive a grant of $1,000 at the end of the Challenge.
**The organization with the most votes during a week will receive a grant of $1,000. Each weekly voting period begins on a Monday and ends at midnight PST the following Sunday. Participants are eligible for only one weekly prize during the Challenge. Winning a weekly prize does not preclude receiving a final prize.
You can vote for ACR once each day.  To do so:
-          Go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com
-          Click on the purple button marked “click here to give – it’s free!” (which I know a lot of you do anyway)
-          You will be redirected to a “thank you” page.  At the bottom of that page, click on the button marked “Animal Rescue Site $100,000 shelter challenge”
-          There is a pink box in the middle of that page where you fill in Annex Cat Rescue, select Canada and Ontario, then “search”
-          Then vote for ACR!  You’ll be asked to confirm your vote by identifying an animal in a picture. (It's not hard.)

Thanks in advance to anybody who does!

Tonight, we trapped another Boxcar cat.  Sara and I weren't after Blanca, because she doesn't have a foster home lined up yet, but she went in the trap anyway.  You can't tell feral (or semi-feral) cats what to do any more than you can tell your housecats.  She'll be housed by a volunteer until a fosterer turns up.  There's no point in rereleasing her just to try and trap her again in a week or two.  And remember, we're supposed to have all the cats out by the end of October, fast approaching.

I didn't take Blanca's post-trap photo in the cage or trap -- it was getting dark and Sara and I have turned into such a well-oiled machine as far as transferring cats from trap to carrier, and then Sara had the carrier tucked into the back of her car with a towel over it so lickety-split, I missed my chance.  So here's a photo of Blanca before she became unhappily (hissing and growling) and temporarily confined in Sara's bathroom.

That leaves Lincoln, the black cat, and Pretty Girl, the other long-haired calico, at the boxcars.  I wonder what they're thinking these days as their companions keep disappearing...

Here's a bonus photo taken tonight:  Toronto's downtown skyline as taken from the boxcar site.