Monday, May 14, 2012

An Average Monday?

I was back at the "high kill" shelter this morning.  Last night I received a Facebook message from a favourite friend-in-rescue that was ready to adopt a "needy" cat from this shelter.  He gave me criteria and allowed me to pick for him.

It's never easy to make this choice on the day before a euthanasia day, but because he has other cats his criteria was specific:

1.  Female under 1 year old
2.  Submissive - not an alpha/diva
3.  Black or tabby OK
4.  Hard luck case is great:  Underweight, scabs, rough around the edges

In other words:  Somebody that needed him!  (Be still my heart!) 

When I first saw "Kesha", I knew she would be a great fit.  She was underweight, in the shelter's sick room and there was little doubt that they would consider her for euthanasia tomorrow morning.  I held her up to other cats - some where hissing, some were swatting towards her.  I held my breath praying that she wouldn't sabatoge her rescue.

....and she didn't! 

I didn't realize how much weight she had lost at the shelter until I looked at this intake picture of her.  It doesn't look like the same cat that I rescued.  Bless her little heart.  I put her in the front seat with me and she folded front paws under her delicately.  She lifted her face into the beam of warm sunlight.  I smiled and was so glad she Hit the Jackpot today :)

My Rescue-Warm-And-Fuzzy-Feeling didn't last long....

While in route with Kesha in the car, I received a tearful call from a foster Mom whose foster kitten had passed away.  She said he had been playing, etc, but found him passed away peacefully.  When humans have babies, we have ultrasounds and prenatal health checks to determine the health of the baby.  With kittens, sometimes it's the roll of the dice.  She's a veteran foster parent and this is the first time this has happened to her.  I think she's been fortunate, as I'm sure some of the kitten-foster-parents who are reading this will agree.
 
 Tomorrow, we're having another "Agent Open House" and I'll need to load up the cats and dog and be out of the house for almost 3 hours tomorrow morning.  What on earth will I do for 3 hours???   I'll bring my cell phone, foster list, and a roll of paper towels...we have several cats that poop the moment that they get into their carriers.  Good Time Tuesday...the title of tomorrow's blog post, I'm sure.

6 comments:

Debbie said...

Your welcome to hang out here.The cats can go in the cat room
And Meg can hang out with the dogs and bask in the sun

Random Felines said...

yeah for Kesha - and hugs for that foster mom. It is hard to lose one - especially unexpectedly. Every loss is hard, but the first one is hardest.

As for tomorrow - my head aches just thinking about it..... :)

Emsworth Girl said...

Ready for a foster

Rhonda said...

So glad for Kesha! And she's the spitting image of a couple brown tabbies I used to have. Never met a brown tabby I didn't like!

Connie - Tails from the Foster Kittens said...

Yea! for Kesha.. :)

and my heart goes out to that foster mom. I remember the first one I lost, they were FIV positive and put down. Then there was the one that I lost in my hand.. *sigh* it stinks that we can't save them all.

Renee said...

I feel so bad for the foster mom - I've been there. I can't decide which is harder, though... the slow, hopeless fade, or the shockingly sudden loss. I've had a perfectly healthy young kitten just die overnight. I've had a year-old cat fall over dead. And I had a whole litter of tragic little ones go all in a row. And the only good that I can come up with, is that their last hours/days/weeks were safe and loved, which is more than before they were rescued. And their loss means that another kitten can be rescued. That softens the blow a little, but I still remember the losses, for sure.