2008 Colony Cats UPDATE

We had almost all the cats fixed in 2007, but a few new ones just showed up... A couple females, which turned out to be pregnant... and a couple new young ones, from who knows where...... The females, one siamese mix, and one grey with with white feet both had three kittens... The females were impossible to trap! (as for Sir Ocelot...) We eventually had to build a drop-box trap and january 2008 we finally caught all the "regulars".the females and their kittens!.. We just need Sir Ocelot but he is just too smart for us... Just the smell of a trap and he is gone!



Blackie Boy was in our home for a little while in December... He showed up one day at the office with the side of his head swollen and he was very listless... We brought him to the vet who said perhaps a dog had bitten him, and he needed surgery... He had a terrible infection. Surgery (>$500) went fine but we needed to bring him home and keep his wound open and clean... for over a month until everything was healed. The vet said that the wound actually looked more like a gunshot than a dog bite! It just amazes me. How can people be so terrible?!!
Blackie Boy healed just fine... and although we considered adding him to our indoor managerie at home, we knew he was happier at the office. At home, a couple of our cats didn't accept him, and always chased him under the bed, or cornered him then sat and growled at him. Back at the office he was free to run and gets along with pretty much all the cats. (Although likes to Bully most...) He is very healthy and happy now again.


If anyone wants to and is able to donate $$ to help offset vet bills or just help pay for food , or if someone wins the lottery and can buy a couple acres to create a cat sanctuary, where all cats would be safe.......it would be greatfully welcome!

 

Felix, one of the youngest at our colony, showed up with a cut and infection at his mouth, in March. We had him cleaned up at the vet , (they shave the spot, and flush out the wound, and check for deeper problems.) The vet said he had a puncture wound, either from a piece of wood, or wire, or another cat , which went all the way through his lip inside his mouth.They put him on antibiotics and instructed us to keep him in a clean place while it healed, and to actually keep the wound open, so it could drain. So the guest bedroom at our house was his. We also brought Trouble, his sister and bestfriend, to keep him company. They were still young enough that our adult cats didn't mind them very much... except, funny thing, a couple days of getting along great, all of a sudden, Trouble got scared of Shaggy!Something made her run and hide... and wouldn't come out of hiding if he were around. He is BIG. And perhaps she just realized this...

This same week, Pumpkin moved in with us... Another best friend of Felix and Trouble so after a couple days, and Trouble not happy at the house anymore, we brought her back to the office. Pumpkin and Felix played a lot, then Felix healed fine, and we returned him to the office a few days later.
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When Pumpkin, one of the new "WALK INS",
was fixed, the vet said he had a polip in his ear that needed to be removed... It was undoubtedly uncomfortable for the cat, and bothering his hearing, plus could be cancerous... SO we made an appointment. When the vet tried to remove it, which is usually a quick easy procedure, he had trouble finding the end of the polip... It went way inside his ear canal! It must have been very uncomfortable! The vet got it removed (biggest polip he ever saw!) and left a hole deep inside his ear... so we had to bring him home with us.... to keep it clean.
It wasn't cancerous, from what they removed, but it most likely will grow back, and if any dirt gets trapped in his ear could be very dangerous for him.... Well, amazingly, Pumpkin got along with ALL our cats at home! So he became number 11!

Baby Girl, our smallest cat, (who was an office colony cat too) chases all newcomers, but when she chased Pumpkin he just stopped and gave her a look, like "what's up with you!" She still tries to pick a fight with him, now and then, but he mostly ignores her. She does still bother Orangie though... He was an office colony cat whom we adopted in October 2007 (birthday present for Shaun...)
He had been trapped by the DLNR, twice inside a wildlife sanctuary, and given to the humane society. Since his ear was clipped and tatooed they knew he was from our colony. BUT, if he is caught a third time they just kill him! After the second time we couldn't release him at the office, and risk him being caught again., so we had the humane society put him up for adoption (We had 9 cats already at our condo, and Orangie being an adult, we knew it would be tough to introduce him to our cats....)
Sadly, there are so many cats in shelters that getting an adult cat adopted is rather hard... He was there a month. I visited him several times. He and and all the other cats were always just laying there..... bored, depressed..... When I would get there, I would say "Orangie" and he would look up, MEOW, and run to me! We played a little, and I played with the other cats... but I had to eventually leave... It is SO like a prison there! Please, visit any humane society near you.... play with the animals, bring them toys.... If you adopt an animal get one (two ) from there! Never, ever, get a pure breed or one from a pet store! There are thousands upon thousands of dogs and cats "put to sleep", aka killed, because no one adopted them! At the same time there are thousands of cats and dogs breed for sale, with mothers kept in cages their whole life, as breeding machines..... Almost all of their offspring have genetic problems, or will develop problems, because of all the inbreeding.... It is a terrible terrible industry!
People need to look at what's best for the animals and not only look at them as "something" for the kids, or a deterant to burglers. These are living creatures with feelings. We should all adopt no less than two, (unless it is known the animal wants to be alone.) Most animals are like humans... they need friends... someone to play with, and keep them company... They are less likely to chew on your shoes, too, if they have a friend...

We adopted Orangie and he gets along fine for the most part! And now Pumpkin and Orangie are best friends. They play a lot and Orangie even gives Pumpkin baths!.

Laptop showed up in April with a hole in his neck which was badly infected. We brought him to the vet who cleaned it out and put him on antibiotics. He stayed in our guest bedroom for about a week, to keep it clean, but then we released him back by the office.

Bunny and Boots also showed up with infections on their faces that same week! Boots healed fine but Bunny was super skinny, and very dirty! She wasn't eating or cleaning herself... She had a rip and infection next to her mouth, which, perhaps made it too painful to eat and clean herself. We brought her to the vet who put fluids under her skin, and gave her a vitamin B12 shot, which stimulates eating. The vet knew holistic care also and knew a spot, on the nose, that when tapped gently would also stimulate appitite! And it worked! She actually got Bunny to eat something right there, at the vet! Bunny and Laptop shared the guest bedroom for awhile. Bunny healed, and was even becoming playful, which is rare for her even at the office! I felt bad bringing her back to the office, she finally seemed happy. But after a couple days back, she ended her depression and seems happy again, choosing to stay inside more than before....

Laptop showed up now again, in May with another hole in his neck! We brought him back to the vet, who said perhaps it is a new injury, or the old one only seemed to be healed on the outside but was still infected on the inside. So he is back in the guest bedroom, and on more antibiotics... Make sure he gets ALL the antibiotics.

 We found one cat hit by a car, in February, and believe it was the big orange and white, unfixed, male from the back...

We haven't seen Tabletop or the "new" young grey Tabby with white feet,Sox, who showed up around the same time as Pumpkin, Fall 2007 nor have we seen Sister Oscar in several months....

July 4th we got a call from our recycling truck driver.... who found four kittens in a dumpster!!!
We tried calling the humane society, but they wouldn't answer, and never returned my call... So I went out and, with the help of the driver, we were able to trap four very wild and scared kittens from the trash!

I brought them back to the office... bought a huge cage for them and some kitten food....
They didn't want anything to do with humans!
One week later the driver found another kitten in the same dumpster! So I went and got that one too... The humane Society didn't want any kittens that were wild and in need of fostering... they would have killed them... So we ended up keeping them. I brought them to the vet.... All were fairly healthy, no major problems, other than fleas and worms..... We needed to keep them quarentined for a month, to make sure they didn't have anything contageous.... so we brought them to our apartment.... in our guest bedrooom, seperate from our other 11 cats....



Sir Ocelot... the only one not fixed

Blackie Boy



Felix at our house

Felix


Trouble  at our house


Pumpkin


Orangie


Pumpkin and Orangie

Laptop

Bootie Boots

bunny




Here are the kittens after only a few days with us.
dumpster kittens
October and the kittens have been spayed and nuetured...
Clockwise, starting at the left..
Granny, Ozzie (White Sox manager...), Bender (has a bent tail),
Taz (the wild girl), and Mouse!

And except for one kitten getting an upper resperatory infection, and another getting an infection from playing too rough... (antibiotics for both, and the vet had to lance and drain the others abscess......) the kittens are doing very well...
The black kittens were pretty quick in becoming friendly and trustworthy. But the two with gray took almost two months! Yet now, they all love attention and especially the gray ones love sitting on laps.
Unfortunately, these five kittens were the breaking point for a couple of the cats at our condo...
All the cats get along great with the kittens.... But our biggest, Shaggie, has now turned against one of our other cats, Spaz, and so Spaz hides all day and night behind the bed...
And Bug, has started picking on Blackfoot too...
We found some property that we invested in and will be able to move all the cats there some day, with the intentions of making it a cat refuge/sanctuary.

As for the other colony cats....
Sadly we haven't seen Couger in several months....

She is beautiful, and only one of very few that we have not
been able to pet on a regular basis...
She would sit about a foot from us, but if we reached out towards her, she would jump away...


We are also missing Stubbie.
on the left... He has a stubbie tail and is SO sweet.....

He had been gone over a month this summer, then we got a call from the Humane Society
that someone trapped him and brought him in... So we retrived him and brought him to the office
and he hung around... in the office, on my lap, for about 2 weeks,
and we haven't seen him since then!!!

The others are doing well, for the most part...
A couple with colds, or upper resperatory illnesses...
We have one new cat, a small orange guy, who showed up in early Spring,
who is now fixed.....

And one other gray and white one that comes around now and then...

The cats bring us mostly smiles... so we give them what we can back...

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