Buddies...

Imagine you and your sister/brother/best friend have been together your whole lives only to have a stranger come along and tear you apart - never to see each other again. I don't think we say enough about "Bonded Pairs".

Potential adopters call me all the time and want a new companion for their cat who has just lost their partner cat to cancer, old age, hit by a car...etc. We know animals grieve. I had two sisters - Newman and Whoopie. Whoopie died and Newman was left in total anguish. I remember three days after Whoopie died Newman sat in the foyer and howled. It was like nothing else I had ever heard. It could only be described as "total and utter grief."

Kim at the shelter is very conscious of bonded pairs. I remember when I first heard her philosophy of "they must be rescued together, or they die together." I thought she was crazy! Isn't it better to save ONE than lose two? I don't feel that way anymore. I agree with her 100%. The bonded pairs at the shelter huddle together - they've lost their home and they only have each other. It's really a pitiful sight.

I decided to write about bonded pairs today, because we have TWO PAIRS adopted in the past 2 days. What a victory this is to see pairs that love each other so much go home together forever. Adult bonded pairs are really hard to adopt. We always tell foster homes that they'll have them for a while.

Sometimes pairs that we THINK are bonded really aren't bonded at all! We had a pair named Tiggy and Tazzy. Tiggy was very outgoing and darling. Tazzy was very shy and hid a lot under the bed. The foster Mom was certain that they weren't bonded at all - even though they had lived their whole lives together. With a heavy heart, we permitted Tiggy to be adopted first. After his sister was adopted, Tazzy was a different cat. He no longer hid, and he was Mr. Social! Who would've ever guessed?

What would we do without our foster homes to tell us this kind of stuff? Another wonderful reason that a foster-based rescue is the best way to adopt a cat...or two...or three...

The Kitten Chaos

People ask me all the time why I don't foster kittens. The truth is...I *used* to foster kittens exclusively when I lived in California. I loved when they would come running to me when I walked into the room. It was an instant ego boost - I was loved!! I could turn off the t.v. and just watch them play - all the posturing and experimental Lion-like behaviour. Who can resist?

I contacted one of our foster Moms last night who is fostering a rambunctious orange kitten. An adopter wanted her as an "only cat". The foster Mom's response was this: "I strongly recommend that B--- go to a home with a playful cat friend, or with someone who will play with her a lot *LOL*. She has a hearty appetite and will try to eat your food as well as hers (Greek salad was a big hit), door-dashes, climbs in the stove, frig, dishwasher, races around behind the washing machine, and climbs under the covers with you. She loves her cuddles."

Yah. The Kitten Chaos. Thank you for the reminder! It's like having a 2 year old child on steroids in the house when you have a kitten. Nothing is safe and everything becomes a toy. Gotta love 'em.

Yesterday afternoon I had a litter of 3 kittens at my house for a few hours before I transported them to their foster home. My 20 year old son came downstairs to get me saying, "Oh. My. God. Mom. You should SEE what the kittens did in the bathroom!"
I sighed. I walked into the bathroom to find the shower curtain on the ground. What I didn't see right away - I could smell. (((Insert Psycho Theme music here))) Somebody had used the litterbox, walked through the poop and tracked it all over the bathroom. Tiny kitten poop footprints were on the floor, the wall, the front of the cabinets. How did they manage to get poop on the wall???

When I walked in, the little poopers were sound asleep in their cat bed...it was hard to believe they had made such a mess in a matter of a few hours. Now they were blissfully dreaming. Their little bodies entwined together made them look like one kitten.

The moment reminded me of when my kids were little. There were some days I couldn't put them to bed fast enough. I was burned out...fed up...and ready for a "Calgon Moment." But before I'd go to bed, I'd check on them and they'd look so precious. It was easy to forget that they had thrown temper tantrums, wet the bed, spilled cheerios all over the floor.

The foster family that took the little darlings yesterday was thrilled with them. They're fluffy lookin' little angels...angels with horns.

Gotta love 'em :)

Family First

I'm back....again. I feel like this has been a month of me apologizing for being gone, or being out of the loop on things. Life gets in the way sometimes.

I've always said, "Family comes first". No doubt about it. But I can't help but feel badly for the volunteers that I left in the lurch last week while I was away. We had a HUGE weekend with a waterfront festival and adoption event. I was supposed to help at both of them. Fortunately, they were able to scramble and things went on without me. But I know that we were really pressed for volunteers.

Looks like we had NINE adoptions while I was gone! Ahhhh.....the volunteers *ROCK*. Two cats went out on a trial adoption and I can only pray that they work out.

While at an adopt-a-thon, one of our prior adopters dumped her two cats there and said that I said it was "OK" to leave them. I didn't. I had been working with this woman who had family issues. She felt like she couldn't deal with two cats that she adopted six weeks ago AND her family issues. In the spirit of "Family First", I didn't mind helping her rehome the cats but she lied like a rug when she said I approved it. The poor cats are so depressed. They're sitting in a Petsmart cage right now not knowing what the hell happened to them. I sent her a rather nasty e-mail for which I make no apologies. I'm a little embarrassed about what I said, but at least I didn't use profanity. *shrug*

I'm going to the shelter tomorrow to rescue a few cats. We don't have room for them, but five of them are older kittens and I can't let them die. They're marked for euthanasia in the morning, and I'm a complete freak for thinking we can squeeze in five more cats in the program.


This is Pretzel. He's only 12 weeks old and he's supposed to die tomorrow. Hard to believe somebody gets PAID to kill him. It's even harder to believe somebody didn't pay the money to have their cat spayed so he wasn't born and unwanted in the first place.
(*stepping off the soapbox*) I figure anyone that reads this blog probably knows this stuff anyway, so I'm preaching to the choir.

Speaking of "Reading the Blog"....I was so surprised to receive such wonderful e-mails in support regarding my daughter. I didn't know that so many people actually read this thing! My daughter is getting better and we had a lovely mother/daughter time together. There's nothing like shopping, manicures and a fancy hotel room to make the most depressed person feel better. Worked for me!

Now if I can only figure out what to do with these cats I'm rescuing tomorrow. Maybe I'll think about it over a pedicure....(ha.ha.)

It Never Rains in California....Unless Your Daughter Lives There...

I'm heading back to California this morning on an emergency with my daughter. There's no time to do my usual "shaking of the finger" - and threaten everybody to feed cats, clean litterboxes and give medications.

Thank God for cell phones! (My son looks a little too happy that I'm leaving....)

I'm Still Alive...

What a crazy week it's been! I kept sitting down to write in my blog about some event or another then would get sidetracked. Can't believe it's been more than a week since my last post. I really missed writing. Where did the time go?

I'm pleased to say that I've finally finished and mailed the Charitable Tax Returns for the rescue. If there was a definition for "Ostrich Syndrome" in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me with my head in the sand and the Revenue Canada forms flung around me. I feel so much better now that it's done. It was late - but it's d-o-n-e.

We had two kittens pass away last week. They were from different litters, but seemed to both be genetic problems. As horrible as it sounds, I wish the kittens would die at birth rather than at 6-8 weeks old. The foster Moms are so attached and they're so damn cute. Poor D-- had to go to work after holding her kitten and watching him die. What a way to start the day.

We had a foster home leave in a snit. I don't know what her problem was, but she dumped her two foster cats at the vets after saying she would adopt them. We're all pretty relieved about it. She was a very difficult foster home and had to move more cats out of her home than she actually adopted out. I wish people knew how much time and effort it took to move one cat.

Over the weekend, we had EIGHT adoptions! I love it when we have weekends like this. My own foster cat, Magoo was adopted. The couple that adopted him were thrilled and I have no doubt he'll be loved forever. One of our new foster Moms had both of her foster cats adopted this weekend too. I hope she feels really good about it. One of the cats was a black kitten....it's such a victory when a black cat is adopted.

My internet connection was down for the past 4 days. It was surreal to watch my sons emerge from their rooms to watch T.V. with us. My younger son said that he had NO idea what was going on at school because he couldn't log onto MSN. You should've seen his face when I suggested that he CALL his friends on the phone. Obviously, I'm not connected to the high school communication scene anymore. I'm really no better - I didn't realize how addicted I was to my e-mail until I didn't have any! Rogers finally came out and did some rewiring. Poof! I have e-mail again!

It was probably a good thing for me to have some down time. I've been SO sick for the past 10 days with God-knows-what. Antibiotics haven't seemed to work, so it must be some nasty virus going around. If this is what our cats go through when they have URI....

It sure feels good to write again. :)

The Tide is Turning

Maybe it's been so long since good news has come through this rescue that when it finally started rolling in I didn't recognize it right away.

Within a 30 minute time period, we had 3 adoption calls: two of them were for black cats - Scooter and Annie. The other for a little butterball, older calico named Razberry.

If that wasn't enough good news, one of our foster homes tells me that $2500.00 is on our way from their employer who donates to charitable organizations based on their volunteer time of their employees!! Whoo hooo! I can pay the vet bill this week! This is a huge load off my mind. There were tears streaming down my face when she told me. I hadn't realized how worried I had been about it.

I'd like to put this bit of good news in a bathtub and bathe in it for a while. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

So this morning, I'm sitting here sipping my coffee and listening to the pitter-patter of galloping paws upstairs. My house is clean and my laundry is done. It's a rainy day and I'm hopeful that three hard-to-adopt cats will find forever homes this week, and I get to make a $2500.00 deposit.

Even if the adoptions don't go through, it felt so good to know that adopters inquired about them. Foster homes need good news too.

I'm lifting my coffee mug this morning in a toast to "Good News - I love ya, man - welcome to our rescue. Sit down and stay awhile"