Laurie writes a blog

Cat mystery solved?

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:18:30 -0700

Sara, another volunteer with Annex Cat Rescue, who comments here on my Vox from time to time, found this intereting thing. She looked this photo of a Boxcar Cat, a big, gorgeous tuxie tom, who was in the colony when I first started observing it in summer 2006:

BOXTOMC

And she compared it with one of her own photos of a black and white tom named Oreo we trapped and got neutered this past winter in another colony, further east, and who I posted about trapping at the time:

Oreo

Same cat? Now look at this photo I just dug up from after trapping Oreo, where you can see bits of his front legs and the patches on them.

Oreo

The two colonies are only 800 meters apart (about a half a mile) as the crow flies. Sara and I are convinced it's the same tom. And if it is, it solves the mystery of what happened to him. He was one of my favorite cats when I started watching the Boxcar colony -- he'd lie majestically under a bush just a couple of feet from where I would sit to do my Jane Goodall thing, taking notes on who was in the colony (there were a lot more cats and kittens back then). And a couple of times I even got him to play with the end of a stick. But then, a few weeks after I started observing, he left. It sure is nice to know where he ended up.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Tumble-update

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:23:33 -0700

Hope I'm not jinxing anything by posting this but...

Lately, toothless Tumbleweed has only been wanting to eat crunchies. I started giving him some crunchies mixed in with his wet food a couple of weeks ago. He very much liked that. And would leave some of his wet food in order to race over to the bathroom where Sodapop eats in order to try and steal his crunchies. (Which left Macaroon to race over to Tumbler's wet food in order to glom that.)

I gave him his every-third-day pill in its yummy pill pocket yesterday, and he wouldn't eat it. Hungry, hungry cat, first thing in the morning, wouldn't go for the treat. Crunchies only, please. Naow. We've kind of been this route before, where I give him crunchies and they start hurting his mouth, then he gets glum and sore again.

Last night, before bed, I didn't feel like messing about with wet food, and gave him only crunchies, same as the other two. SNARF. More please? Same again this a.m. So I hauled him up on the bathroom counter and had a peek in his mouth. No redness at all. No wonder he doesn't think he needs pills any more. Of course I'm going to keep him on the meds, because it's the meds that got him to this fine state, but it looks like the Tumbler will be eating like a regular (and slightly lower-maintenance) cat again.

Tumblerseal2trim

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

New kitten pix

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:03:05 -0700

This is the trio of kittens I rescued recently. Today I went up to my trapping partner Joyce's place (she's fostering them) and did some official portraits to use on the rescue group's website. These are the squirmiest, most unable to sit still kittens ever. I don't think these are up to my usual standard (for one, we could not get them to sit on the colored towels we had for eye-catching backgrounds that would set off their coats), but I think they'll do.

Piglet 1

Piglet was my nemesis -- the one it took two weeks to catch.

Mouse is the stealth tortie -- most of the time you think she's a brown tabby, but she's got orange stripes on her belly and you can see that lighter band around her middle suggesting what's underneath.

Mouse 3

Hammie, below, was the hardest to get a photo of today.

Hammie 1

I just had to try and make your heads explode today. You're welcome.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The yummiest kittens evar go home

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:12:31 -0700

Butterpecan, Fluffernutter and Chocolate Chip, who I was fostering because there were no other foster spaces, have all gone to their new adoptive homes yesterday and today. Butterpecan and Fluffernutter went together to a young couple tonight, and Chocolate Chip, now called Charlie, went to a home with a teen daughter and a four year old resident cat yesterday.

I personally trapped them, I had them for just over a month, took them to the vet, and I like to think I socialized them, but they were really very tame right from the beginning. By the time they left, Butterpecan especially was really oriented to people (me, anyway) and had the habit of coming over to me whenever I was near, purring for attention. They didn't bother my big cats too much, and liked to sleep in high places. They also came to love, love, love Pill Pockets treats from when I had to give them medication for their diarrhea, and this became a guaranteed way to lure them out when people came to see them. I sent some home with the people tonight, and both families got a favorite toy, some of the food they've been eating, and a recommendation to my own vet. And they're getting, or have already got, photos by e-mail of these little dude's rescue history.

Fluffernutter

Butterscotch

Chocolate chip

I'll miss their cuteness and energy around the place for a while, but after all the intense cat rescue stuff I've been doing lately, I'm very glad to be back to just my own three cats again. And I'm sure my three cats are, too. In fact, as a treat for my own cats, I got some skull and crossbones cat mats today (the non-catnip kind) that were going to be part of the Annex Cat Rescue yard sale, but Sara spotted them and thought of me and had them put aside so I could buy them instead. And when I picked them up from Raven today, there was a bonus, a skull and crossbones belt, thrown in as well! Here's Tumbleweed posing with my pirate booty:

Now what did she get

BTW Sara, the black mat one exactly matches a cushion I have on my black rocking chair!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Gotcha!

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:48:09 -0700

After two weeks of trapping almost every night, I finally got the little bugger!

After going to the vet's right after work for a refill on one of Tumbleweed's prescription, I had no time for dinner and headed out trapping instead. I set up the adult trap at 7:30 because this kitten seems spooked by the kitten trap after watching it close on one of his sisters. I pulled out couple of granola bars and a book and set out to do my time and kill an hour, trying not to obsessively watch an empty trap. Ironically, I was reading and am almost finished the novel Feral, by Bev Cooke, about a feral cat living in a subway station/tunnel, and it's told from the cat's point of view.

Feral

Bev Cooke

Though if I'm going to see the kitten at all, it's usually right after the trap is set up, there was no sign of him. I only saw a couple of the adult cats around briefly, gave them some food away from the trap, and kept reading. A half hour in, still nothing, and I was griping inwardly about having to come back out on Wednesday and how that would be my last attempt, because the kitten would be too old (past eight weeks) the next time I could come after that, the following week. I was already mentally composing the note I would leave for the office people who feed this colony about only one more night to try and then giving up.

I read some more, and looked up. The kitten was partway into the trap, nibbling. Yeah, right, I thought. I've seen this before. Then he backs out, ducks under the fence and I go home empty-handed. I didn't even watch the trap and looked down at the page again. CLANK! I looked up and there he was, in the trap. Score!

Piglet caught

I took him to Joyce's, where his sisters Mouse and Hammie are, we put Revolution on him (we're quite sure he's a he), and he even sat in her lap for some photos.

Piglet 7 wks

I just had an ice cream sandwich in celebration (wow, I really know how to celebrate, don't I?). And though these kittens' mother is still unspayed, and I saw her rather near a feral tom the other night, I'm taking a little week or two break from trapping for now. I feel like I have my life back.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Oh, bugger

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:34:20 -0700

One of my three 12-week-old foster kittens has vomited a couple of times today. All three have been on metronidazole, an antibiotic, for the last five days, because of diarrhea (suspected to be due to some parasite not killed by their previous deworming). The diarrhea seems to have improved some; from what's in the litter box only one seems to still have it, though I don't know which one, since I have to actually see each in the box in turn. And since I can't watch them all day long, I don't know which one is urfing, either.

I just looked metronidazole up online, and get this: it's used to treat diarrhea of unspecified origin, but one of the side effects is diarrhea. Oh, and vomiting. Fair enough, antibiotics cause nausea and diarrhea in humans, too, maybe I don't need to worry. But then it said this:

• Metronidazole should not be used in young puppies and kittens.

Nice.

Instead of moving the kittens from my bedroom to the bathroom tonight, where I usually put them when I go to bed so they don't keep me up with their tumbling about playing in the wee hours, I guess I should maybe keep them in with me, and plan to be woken up so I can see who's urfing. The sound of a cat throwing up can bolt me out of a sound sleep like a fire bell. On the other hand, bathroom tile is far easier to clean up than my bedroom carpet. Hmm.

Note to self: Whatever I do, make sure not to leave white jeans lying around.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Kitten update

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:36:28 -0700

I haven't been boring you with the results of every night's trapping attempts to get that last kitten of the litter I've been trapping. Suffice to say, if I'd gotten #3, you'd have heard it by now.

Last night we got rained out about five minutes before I was going to give up, anyway. The little beggar isn't hungry enough to go more than a little way into the trap, so I need more irresistible bait. I even put catnip in last night. No dice.

Since I went trapping with Joyce, she invited me up to her place to see the other two kittens from this litter that were trapped over a week ago, Mouse and Hammie. And I got a couple new photos to share with you. I had to use a flash, unfortunately, because the light was crappy where they were playing. Mouse poses wonderfully, but Hammie never stays still for more than a second. I love Hammie's face and coat--she looks like a little jungle cat.

Mouse 7 wks

Hammie 7 wks

Callie in the next photo is one of Joyce's cats. She's four and Joyce took her as a kitten from the boxcar colony Joyce has been feeding for nine years (and I came along and started helping with two years ago).

Hammie & Callie

In other kitten news, the three kittens I'm fostering at the moment are just great, and a woman and her daughter came yesterday to meet them and decided to adopt Chocolate Chip (the one who cleans bathtub drains). They've done all the paperwork, but they won't pick him up till next weekend, because I'm still dosing all three to get rid of their diarrhea (it's working!).

Chocolate chip

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Value-added kitten

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:32:51 -0700

Not that I'd put this in his adoption writeup, but here's a selling point you don't get with most kittens: Chocolate Chip cleans the hair out of drains! It's true -- he likes to chase corks and toys around the bathtub, and twice now I've looked in the tub and seen him pawing my clumps of red hair right out of the bathtub drain.

If he also did vacuuming, I'd keep him myself.

Chocolate chip

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Friday night trapping: The Frustrating

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:18:34 -0700

One more kitten down, one to go. Tonight I got the second kitten of the litter I'm trapping. Had her in less than 15 minutes. I checked with the people who work in this building by phone in the afternoon, and the woman who feeds them told me she hadn't seen the kittens all afternoon. Good sign for me, because when she does see them in the afternoon, I don't tend to see them in the evening. If she doesn't see them, it means they're napping the day away and will come out when I'm there. Anyway, I'm calling this one Hammie or Hamster, or Hammie Hamster, because her colors are kind of hamster colors.

Hammietrapped

The orange and white one (henceforth Piglet (for guinea pig) was out with Hammie checking out the two traps I had set, and I thought I was going to get both, but when this trap sprang with Hammie in it, Piglet was just outside the mouth of it and got a little spooked. Piglet was back out nosing the remaining trap only ten minutes later, though, which was good. Then I decided to use Hammie as bait, by putting this trap at the end of the other trap, to see if that would draw Piglet into the end of the open trap.

Well. Piglet went around, and around the trap, listening to Hammie mewing, but I think really more interested in how to get at the food in the back of the trap.

Don't get your hopes up, that's as far as Piglet went, despite Hammie mewing all the while. Piglet backed out, made many more circuits of the trap, but never went back in past the front lip. I sat for a long time watching and hoping I wouldn't have to come back out again this weekend. Their mom, Gracie 2 (yes, we have to get her soon, too), even stuck her head out under the fence at the sound of Hammie crying, but seemed to see the trap and think "You're on your own, kid" and ducked back under. Tomorrow is going to be very, very hot and humid, so I'm going to give it one try for an hour at 9 a.m., the time of day the cats are used to being fed by the staff here as they arrive at work, and then leave it till Sunday.

Here's Hammie up at Joyce's place, showing off her tabbico coat.

Tabbico Hammie

And here's Mouse, her littermate, who is a calico herself, it turns out, because she has orange stripes on her tummy (which I tried to get a decent photo of, but failed on this occasion).

Mouse in house

Mouse belly

And I am dead tired again now, so relocating the kittens in my own place to the bathroom so I can get a better night's sleep without them rambuncting around at 5 a.m.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Mouse: trapped

nobody@vox.com(Laurie) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:07:07 -0700

Back out trapping tonight and after a real nail-biting time watching the little brown tabby nibble his/her way toward the trap (kittens have such little mouths it takes them so long to eat anything), and then watching him/her go halfway into the trap, then back out, the kitten went back in and tripped the trap!

I'm still calling him/her Mouse. And Mouse went straight up to Joyce's place, where she will be foster mom. I can't go out for the other two for a couple more nights, so Mouse will be on his own for a little while. Mouse is already very placid -- no hissing, scratching or doing that whole ball-of-razor-blades thing some feral kittens do.

And now, the obligatory photos:

Easterntabbycaught

Mouse & Joyce

Read and post comments | Send to a friend