One I Hold in High Regard

It was touch and go for awhile, but it looks like the funding we were hoping to get to help us vet and transport 8 "HOLIDAY" kittens from Jasper County in Georgia have been successful!

THANK YOU to everyone who contributed! Now watch what we do with your donations! Hopefully next week we'll have photos of Gingerbread, Kringle, Jingle Belle, Candy Cane, Nina, Nino, Myles Standish & Mayflower once they reach Connecticut and new stories as we work with these little ones to prepare them for their forever homes!

YOU busted them out, but good! Woohoo!

The Cat Writers' Association Conference starts tomorrow night. I had planned to spend every second preparing myself. It's my first conference and I want to make sure I make the most of it. Thing is-cats come first and right now I'm spending late nights trying to nail things down, find resources (MONEY!) and look at hundreds of listings for cats that need rescuing, not polish off a query letter or run through the lists of people I should try to meet.

After yesterday's tragedy and loss, I do feel more conservative about what information I share with all of you. I feel terrible for upsetting anyone, but I also feel it's my duty to help people see the very ugly truth. If we can look, cry and build up our resolve, instead of cave in, give up, look away, we can REALLY kick some ass!

I vote for kicking some ass!

I love all of you for your endless support and I want you to know that I support YOU, your good hearts and your compassion. Some of you are just finding your way in the world of cat rescue and some have been in the trenches for too long. Regardless of your journey, we're here together and together we’re saving lives, as well as taking a moment to remember the ones we couldn’t reach in time.

Today I'm delighted to announce the arrival a very special kitty.

His name is Will and he is coming to Connecticut!

Clare and her lovely daughters, generously offered to help socialize Blueberry & Blackberry. For three weekends in a row, they made the long drive to Jennifer's house to work with the kittens. Clare became a friend of CiCH and started reading stories about the cats we rescue. When she heard about Will, her heart melted, but she was smart to think about taking on another cat into a family with three other cats and a dog. It was a lot to take on, but...there is always room for one more, right?

I can't speak for Clare, but I do get the sense that she and her family are smitten with this kitten. The girls are already preparing Will's "guest" room with their own blankets and comforters and they plan on sleeping with him the first few nights to make sure he doesn't get lonely. Of the 14,000 people that heard about Will, this would be the family I'd want him to go to-they really care about him.

On Sunday, after Will gets some rest from his trip, Clare's family will come to adopt him. Just barely three weeks after he was hit by a car, instead of being euthanized by a shelter, Will was taken by our great friend, Jenna to see Dr. Anderson, who patched him up and has been giving him a safe home at her clinic in Greenville, SC ever since.

These good people did not look away when trouble came to their door. They had to spend their time and resources caring for a cat that was not their own. Their efforts gave Will the second chance he needed and now thanks to the donations we received Will's Vet bill we be paid and he go on to live a long, happy life with his new family.

Go, Will! Wooohooo!

Henry County Care & Control is bursting at the seams. Our friend, Barb, at Winging Cat Rescue, has offered to pull some of the adult kitties out of Henry before they are euthanized. This is a HIGH KILL Shelter. More cats come in than come back out alive. It's a sad sad fact.

Barb and her team have asked me to include this fundraising widget for their latest "BUST" of cats from Henry. Even if you can only donate $1, it helps, so please consider lending a hand to our little furry friends.

As always, thank you so much! The kitties thank you, too!

No longer in a cage. No longer in foster care, our "little" friend, Sylvester was adopted this weekend!

We're so thrilled our 17lb, 36-month old kitten found his forever home. Congrats to his new family and THANK YOU to Barb from WCR for finding a rescue group to pull him from Jasper and THANK YOU to Karen, at Jasper Co. for being a great ACO and for giving this guy a second chance for so long.

Yesterday I had a good chat with Karen, the ACO at Jasper about the kittens. They just had their Vet visit and got their Health Certificates for travel. Thing is-they CAN'T go anywhere just now!

Turns up, some of them have coccidia, which if you don't already know, is VERY contagious to cats, dogs, people! Oops. It would be one thing if they had it here and we could contain it, but it's just not safe to transport them if they have it.

Karen was surprised at finding the cats have parasites because they didn't really show anything more than some soft stool and kittens have all sorts of funky stool and some times it doesn't mean anything is wrong.

The kittens will go back into quarantine for 10 days to get their Albon twice a day. ALL the animals at Jasper Co. are going to be treated, as a matter of fact, to make sure it doesn't become a nasty problem. What a pain in the butt!

Karen, a former Vet Tech, sighed and said how she wished she could get a microscope and some slides. She knows how to read the stool samples to see coccidia. If she could have caught this sooner, this wouldn't have been a big problem. It also would save her $10/animal for testing and that money could stay in her budget to make the shelter even better.

I told Karen to let me know what she needs. We'll do a fundraiser for them if the county can't afford to help her out. If we have someone willing to do the work, we KNOW it will pay off and then some. Karen was shy about asking me for anything. I don't think she understands how many people care and want to help, but just don't know how.

I think Karen may be surprised to find out!

If any of you have access to a great microscope that needs a good home, let me know. I'm going to wait until I hear more from Karen about what she wants, but heck, doesn't hurt to ask to "re-home" medical equipment if someone is not going to be using it any longer!

Sorry. There's no link or Petfinder ad for this plea!

Thanks to Winging Cat Rescue, Barb Lowe and Susan Birnbaum (who created the lovely graphic), we are now ready to ask for donations to help us move the 8 Jasper County Shelter kittens from their cages into loving foster homes in Connecticut. Once here, you know what we do! We find them great homes! These cuties won't stay long with us, we hope! Those sweet faces and personalities to match will make any cat lover's heart swoon.

Since we can't cover all the costs to rescue these babies, WCR is helping us by doing the fundraising-so all your donations are tax deductible! They are also doing all the paperwork so the kittens can be legally removed from the Shelter, since we don't have the proper license to do that. We just have a few empty rooms in our homes and anxious hearts to get them filed back up with more babies!

Please put out the word, so we can get funded quick! We need to get the kittens ready to go by next week...or else!

Thank you SO MUCH for your help! I appreciate it most sincerely. I promise we'll find each kitten a great Home for the Holidays!

P.S. Make SURE you check off "GIFT" with your donations using PayPal or else they deduct 3% of your donation for their fee!

Will continues to heal. He's eating well and his eye looks better every day. He's a far cry from where he was just a week ago-broken, bloody and dirty-either hit by a car or beaten by a cruel human. Regardless of what happened to Will, he survives as a loving, outgoing creature.

A lot can change in a week. Last Friday Will was at extremely high risk of being euthanized as he was taken to a place where they had no funding to care for him. Thanks to Jenna and Dr. Anderson, and LOTS of generous donations from all of you, Will got the chance to live.

Will looks clean and healthy. His eye is much better now and he just wants a home. His little tabby "cap" reminds me of my own cat, Spencer! Thank you for the photo, Jenna!

Our CiCH friend, Terry, helped get the word out on Will. He did a really fun poster for Will and tells me that over 14,000 people have heard about Will needing a home!!! So where is that ONE person who will step up and adopt this cute, 1 year old kitty??

Yes, Will still needs a home! Please visit his Petfinder Ad
and send it to all your friends! We can get this done, people! Will is waiting!

Will got neutered and while he was sedated Dr. Anderson took a better look at the injury in his mouth. It appears his palette is cracked, not surprising and pretty much cinches he was hit by a car, over being abused. His eye is healing, though it's not looking very pretty right now. In due time, Will should be able to heal from all of his injuries without surgery...knock wood.

Once Will was feeling up to it, Dr. Anderson let him out of his cage so he could stretch his legs and head to the second floor where comfy beds were to be found, along with some much needed peace and quiet. Will gets on well with everyone and has been assured that he has a place a the Cat Clinic for as long as he needs one. It's better he stay at the Clinic, than risk going to the local shelter. He's safe and getting stronger each day and eating well.

But where is a Forever Home for Will? Who would love a sweet, a "10 out of 10" on the friendly scale, kitten to call their own? So far, no one has stepped forward. Will doesn't need any further medical care and his costs have been paid for in full. All he needs is you-know-what (LOVE!) and a you-know-what-else (HOME!)

Will IS located in: Greenville, South Carolina.

Visit Will's Petfinder Listing HERE

Transport to the Northeast or Southeast CAN be arranged. If you're interested in Adopting or are with a Rescue Group and can foster Will, please contact Jenna Gutierrez (864) 801-3177 or email her: tomjeng@charter.net

No urgent plea for rescue today. We need a break from that. Instead, I wanted to share with you an experience I just had that was quite wonderful, though admittedly, bittersweet, too. I'll do my best to write while my eyes burn and my throat constricts from inhaling fumes. No. I'm not writing while my house is burning down. I made the poor choice to set my oven to "self clean," which quickly caused the house to fill with pretty blue, toxic smoke. I had to shut off the heat and open the windows. It's 48°F outside and now, inside. Why can't I just live with a filthy house? I like to vacuum at night so I don't have to work as hard to make it look clean. Why do I need my oven to shine? Sheesh!

Since I'm freezing to death, typing helps keeps the circulation going in my fingers, though I think I need to get a hat. I stopped feeling my ears awhile ago.

Oh yeah, cats...so my foster room is empty and needs re-filling, I've been somewhat (you know me, hard to be subtle) quietly looking around for the next foster kittens. I looked locally, first. I really LOOKED all over the state and into NYC. Most cats were too old for me to help, so I went southward.

At Barb's (from WCR) suggestion, I reviewed a list from Jasper County in Georgia. I'm told their ACO, Karen, is super awesome and runs a very spic and span shelter. She also happened to have a LONG list of kittens available for adoption.

I went over the list once, twice, three times. I printed out each kitten's ad. I tried to do math (not easy for me!). I knew that I could take four kittens and Jennifer, with some coaxing jumped at the chance to take four kittens, too. Yes! That's a nice number, but I had twelve kittens picked out.

UGH.

After more reviewing, listing, adding, subtracting and some very powerful headaches, I cut the list down to ten. I got ahold of Karen, the ACO and we talked about those kittens. Thankfully, my job was made easier. Two of the kittens were spoken for and two that had been on the list were going to be adopted, as well. I had my eight.

But...there are a few kittens left I could not pull and I feel bad about them. I feel very bad about it. I hate to break up litters, even if they were already separated, but perhaps now that most of the kittens are gone, the ones that are left will have a better chance at finding a home? Jasper is not a High Kill Shelter, so my hopes are that all will work out.

There's LOTS of paperwork, emails, details and FUNDRAISING (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to work out, but with any luck, in a week or so, I'll have my room filled back up with bouncing babies!

I just stuck my neck way out and you know, it's not that scary any more. Sure, I have the same old fear that I won't find these guys homes, that they will be too darn big to adopt out by the time they get here, but I gotta try.

I feel like I just got to do the best kind of online shopping! "I'll take that kitten and that kitten and oooo look! That's a cute one! Yes!"

So without any further delay...here are our newest rescues if I survive smoke inhalation, that is!

Jennifer's Crew:

My Muffins:

Sam and I have a running joke. Often, we'll be watching mind-numbing tv shows about "real" life murder mysteries. Nine times out of ten, the narrator says; "We'll never really know for sure..." This is after we spent an HOUR of our time watching and wondering how the story will end. To hear it's "we'll never really know" not only defeats the entire purpose of watching the show in the first place, it also pisses me off good!

If I'm going to waste my time in front of the TV, I need RESOLUTION (pardon the pun).

So my dear Spencer and I went to visit Dr. Larry. I was fully prepared for him to give me shit about ripping out my own cat's fur, that I'm a stupid pet owner and it's nothing to worry about-other than being stupid makes me worry. I just wasn't careful enough removing Spencer's mats and "baldness happens."

Dr Larry didn't let me down. After a few minutes pretending he was calling the "authorities" to report me for abusing my cat, he sat down to take a good look.

The two, nearly symmetrical bald patches don't have any crusting or oozing. They're both about 2 x 3 inches. The skin is pink. Spencer doesn't seem to be itchy. Dr. Larry turned off the lights. We weren't alone so there was no hope for a makeout session. Dang! Oh, he was just using the Wood's Lamp to check for...oh shit...RINGWORM!

The smile on my face weakened into a razor straight line. I kept thinking; Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! NOT RINGWORM!!!!!!

I looked while Dr. Larry was talking. He saw some slightly reflective scaly areas that were tiny. One of the bald spots had a slight pale white edge to it.

Well? Was it RINGWORM?

"We can't really be sure right now."

SHIT! It's like watching 48 Hrs! Change the channel! Change the channel!

With no better programming available, I was stuck in an answerless void. Dr. Larry removed a few of Spencer's hairs and placed them into a vial with some goop in it (that is a technical term; goop). The test for ringworm takes 2-3 WEEKS. Meanwhile, there is nothing else to be done. We decided to run a full blood panel to rule out hypothyroid (even if it's rare in most cats, I've already had one cat who had it and Dr. Larry knows my cats get weird stuff-it's almost a rule). Plus, Spencer is due for a dental in January AND we can also check his BUN because now that we know he's a purebred Weegie (well, sort of), we're going to watchout for polycystic kidney disease, too. See? I'm smart! I know stuff! I spent $220 on the Vet visit. Wait? Is that smart? Not so sure.

Spencer did not care to have his blood drawn, as usual, but this time Super Deb showed me she still had all her fingers attached to her hand, after the blood draw was finished. The only injury was to the towel they restrained Spencer with. It had to be put down due to it being ripped to shreds.

So am I a stupid pet owner?

We'll never really know for sure...