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Kitten Blogging

Ckitten6.jpg
Well, I still don’t know how to publish decent-quality photos using WorldPress, but here is a tiny snap of two of the new babies.

And here’s their story:

This morning I got a call about a woman who lives near me who had some kittens she wanted us (the rescue) to pick up.  It seems that she found them in box in the creek behind her house last night.  There were 6 of them, but one had already drowned.   Yes, people here DO put kittens in dumpsters, in gunny sacks, in the river, etc.  That’s why my state was solidly for Bush/Cheney.  Anyway, the woman who found them didn’t want them in the house (she claims she’s allergic), so she left them in a high-sided vacuum cleaner box on her porch.  She checked on this morning, and two of the kittens were gone, as was their blanket.  She thinks that one of her neighbors heard them crying and took two home to care for them.  I’m hoping that that’s what happened.

They are cute little things, but they are just babies (maybe 4 weeks old), and not fully weaned.  They were starving when I got these three home (the woman who found them gave them cow’s milk in a bowl, but they didn’t know what to do with it).   So, I put them in my bathroom and gave them kitten formula, and they drank until their little tummies were as round as Jonah’s.  Maybe I will name one of them Jonah in his honor.

So, that’s how the Wall Street crash is affecting kittens.

Posted by s.z. on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 12:12 am.

16 Responses to “Kitten Blogging”

glad I could help out with the kitteh formula. careful with naming them after the doughy pantload, you’re likely to find a load in your shoes one morning ;]

Left by preznit giv me turkee on September 20th, 2008

Don’t you just love bottle feeding kittens? How about wiping their butts so they move their bowels? Aaw, memories. Every 4 hours, 6 of the little monsters, oops, I meant angels.

Left by merl on September 20th, 2008

Actually, the one named Jonah could probably help him out with the hard work of writing, all he would need to do is take the transcription and add a few things…

Meow meow meow meow The Simpsons meow meow Star Trek meow meow meow. Meow, meow meow meow didn’t have time to research it, but meow meow meow meow, but that is obviously central to my point.

Actually improves the prose, strangely enough.

Left by Ugluks Flea on September 20th, 2008

If the intelligence of the real Jonah transfers to this four legged Jonah in proportionate value, that poor thing may very well starve for inability to learn how to eat.

Left by kate on September 20th, 2008

Does your state have a Humane Society or SPCA? Tough for you to have to do it all!
I feel sorry for the mama cat whose babies were thrown away! I guess the “owner” doesn’t know loosing her little ones so early will cause her to go into heat early?

Left by Kathy on September 20th, 2008

Even if that “owner” knew, they obviously wouldn’t give a fuck, or that mama would’ve been spayed by now, and these kittens wouldn’t have been attempted-murder victims.

In case y’all haven’t noticed, humans SUCK.

But bless your heart for all of the good work that you do, Sheri. I wish to hell that I still had a house, so that I could do amazing foster-care work like you do, but I have to improvise with the ghetto apt. and two very surly cats of my own. They love me, and the Boy loves everybody (except my exes), but other critters and bipeds can kiss their furry asses. Thank goodness for bathroom doors, when the ferals need to recover from their anaesthesia hangovers.

Gustav has wreaked havoc with my long-suffering vet, so we won’t be getting back to the TNR for a couple more weeks, but at least we will be able to get back to it. Every time that people evacuate up this way, animals get dumped all over the fucking place. Hurray that you took ‘em out of the “major” danger zones, but why in the FUCK are you dumping them NOW?!?!?! WTF is wrong with these people?!?!?! Yes, there are a lot of shelters who won’t take animals, but there are an ASSLOAD of animal shelters set up, every damned time. After Katrina, we passed LAWS about that shit. How somebody can just throw any animal away, I’ll never understand.

And yes, Kathy, there are shelters and humane societies in most semi-civilized places (still trying to get one started up here in Hillbilly HellHole), and they’re the ones who can’t function without selfless volunteers like S.Z. to foster babies who are too young to be adopted. If it weren’t for the volunteers, most shelters would go under from the overload. Plus, foster animals get “humanizing” influences at their foster homes, so that they’re much more “adoptable” when they do go back to the shelters, so it’s a good process all-around. When it comes to ferals, there simply wouldn’t BE adoptions without the foster parents.

I’m still (a year in) trying to find homes for two tame boys who were dumped-off here at L’Hotel du Fucktards, fliers all over town, the usual stuff. Apparently, the cat market is saturated, because I haven’t gotten one call for them, and they’re the best two boys (Moose & Craig) I’ve handled since I started volunteering with Cat Haven. If y’all know of anybody who needs a good house cat or barn cat or whatever, tell ‘em about Moose & Craig, because they’re beauties, and total affection-sluts.

Okay, finally shutting up now. And please don’t curse that baby with that Doughy Pantload name — nobody deserves that, except for the scum who dumped them in the creek. (Firefox spellcheck wanted to change it to “Doughy Pantaloon”… too bad that Talk Like A Pirate Day was yesterday…)

Left by Anntichrist S. Coulter on September 20th, 2008

Kathy, I don’t know about where Sheri is, but here in NH cat overpopulation is a real problem and the Humane Society shelters, ASPCA and the city shelters are always packed to capacity with cats. Their criteria for accepting new residents is pretty stringent.

Last month in an apartment I cleaned out (I do maintenance/management) someone abandoned three cats. It took three days to find somewhere for them and after the three the local animal patrol finally picked them up to go to the shelter. Around here its a crime to abandon animals like anywhere else, but to try finding the culprits is another thing.

Also, slum apartments are prime habitats for feral and semi-feral cats to roam — abandoned by impoverished owners who can’t take them upon eviction and of course animals never spayer or neutered. Its a real problem.

Even here in the supposedly “good” part of town there’s a tom that roams free, I think people feed him and he has never been caught yet. He wonders around, breeding with stray females and spreading disease, thus furthering the problem.

When I talked to a volunteer for a small non-profit that fosters abandoned cats she said its near impossible for local animal control patrols to take cat over population seriously.

Cats don’t have to be registered and of course activists can’t get the bone-headed state legislature or even more bone-headed municipalities to pass spay laws. And who would enforce them anyway?

Left by kate on September 21st, 2008

Sheri,

You sure make a difference. Thanks…from me AND them!

Left by Don on September 21st, 2008

How are you taking your pictures? It looks to me like the camera is too close.

Left by Me on September 21st, 2008

Everybody: I’m sorry if I sounded critical, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t realize the situation was so awful *everywhere*. My daughter thinks good names would be “Scooter” and “Cha-Cha”.

Left by Kathy on September 21st, 2008

Kathy,

You didn\’t sound critical, just concerned. And yes, in most normal (and like Annti said, \”civilized\”) places, they do have Humane Societies (or the like) that get some local government funding to deal with homeless pets. These groups run animal shelters that are open-intake, so that people who don\’t want, say, a litter of kittens can drop them off, and the Humane Society keeps the kittens for at least a couple of weeks, and tries to find homes for them.

Here, there isn\’t even a municpal animal shelter in the county, so animals that are picked up by animal control are taken to the vet clinic that has a contract with that individual town or city to board stray animals (or in a couple of small towns, impounded dogs are kept in a pen in the town office building).  Impounded pets are kept for 3 days, and then euthanized if the owner hasn\’t claimed them by then. The vet clinics (and animal control) make no effort to find new owners for the impounded pets, and few lost cats are found by their owners in 3 days, so hardly cats any make it out of the impound facility alive unless a rescue takes them (there is one other rescue in this area, and they are at their limits too). And in most of the county, animal control doesn\’t even deal with cats at all, so lost cats are never reunited with their owners, and not even sick or injured cats get any attention.

So, the rescue group I volunteer with gets several calls a day from people trying to get us to take animals they\’ve found, or more frequently, pets they are tired of (yeah, they say they are allergic to them now, or they are moving. or something else that doesn\’t make them sound so irresponsible, but I think in most cases, they are just tired of taking care of their pets). And almost every day we get calls from animal control officers who ask us to take nice dogs that are scheduled for euthanasia at the impound facilities. We do what we can, but because we are a no-kill shelter, we basically can only take in one pet for every one we find a home for. So, every day we are having to turn away pets that we know are going to die because we couldnt take them. It\’s really sad.

Anyway, that was a long way to say that I really, really wish we had some organization like at ASPCA or humane society to help out, and it was nice of you to be thinking of solutions, Kathy.  And I love the names your children thought up for the kittens.  Thanks!

And Annti, you amaze me with all the good you do! Way to go, girl!

Left by s.z. on September 22nd, 2008

I don’t know s.z., like I said, ASPCA is active up here in that they have a large shelter (in fact a new facility built a couple years ago) but they can’t keep up.

The animal shelter here won’t take any animals but those “abandoned”. In other words, if landlord suddenly tells someone, “Get rid of the cat I changed my policy.” The owner is essentially stuck and will have to hold the animal until a reservation opens up at the ASPCA and oftentimes, people just can’t wait that long. Its either them or the animal.

Now that I do property management, I have made a part of getting an apartment in any of our buildings a requirement that prove that they have their animals spayed and shots updated. I have had myriad excuses as to why they don’t have the paperwork or can’t get the deed done.

There is an organization south of here, close to Boston that will spay a feral cat if you catch it and bring it in. But they make you sign an agreement that you will feed the cat to perpetuity.

That means putting food outside, which to me only means that people can rationalize that they don’t have to do anything about strays because they are “fed”.

When I had my remodeling business I worked for a woman doing her condo that she had her schizophrenic daughter living in. Everyone in the world dumped their cats on at the daughter’s place, she had four of them, all with severe disabilities, mental or physical, and here she could barely take care of herself. I had to remove the cats, it took a drive down to a Boston suburb to find a shelter that would take the cats. They were elderly, or near-feral and their future life was not guaranteed. But they were destroying this woman’s house and getting sicker due to neglect.

So its not always an easy call. I just wish there was some way to enforce or motivate people to spay their pets.

Left by kate on September 22nd, 2008

Hey, why not name it Jonah?
Just make sure you stock up on the mega-size Cheetohs.

Left by heydave on September 22nd, 2008

And here I thought you said “Jonah” because kitty had been in the water a long time. So I didn’t get the “round belly” thing. I wish I could come pick these babies up and wipe away the memory of being in that bag in the creek. My heart also breaks for that mother cat, who is probably still confused and depressed over the sudden loss of her kittens. People can be horrible. But luckily people, like Sheri, can also be wonderful.

Left by Lu on September 22nd, 2008

Well, Lu, I don’t know if it will help you feel better, but one thing that I’ve learned about mama cats, especially feral cats, is that all of them are not “born mothers.” Just like humans should have to pass IQ tests, skills-sets exams, psych profiles and general competency requirements, not all mama cats ought to be mama cats.

Our very own Lex Luthor here, mother of four litters (at least) in my time here at L’Hotel du Fucktards, never once raised ANY of her own offspring, nor did her sister. They had Papi, the greatest tomcat who ever lived, who raised ALL of their offspring for them.

So hoping that the mother of S.Z.’s new charges is alive and well, I totally understand. But it’s probably a 50/50 chance that she actually misses the babies. Her little body is probably riddled with hormonal hell, unused milk, and pure exhaustion, so she’s not partying it up, by any means. But emotionally, not all cats connect with their own offspring (like far too many so-called “humans”), so she may not be mourning as badly as you fear. I dunno if that’s any consolation for you, but it is a more realistic view of animal husbandry, of a sort.

If you’d seen Papi in action with his offspring (and after his neutering, the offspring of just-passing-through toms, which is downright BIZARRE, as most cat species, from lions to feral “housecats,” usually kill the offspring of other males as soon as they boink the mothers), letting them pounce on him from every direction, gnaw on him like a chewy toy, wrestle him on the parking lot under the night lights, you’d have been every bit as awed by him as I was. He was truly exceptional, as a tomcat and as a living creature. And I still miss his ornery old ass every damned day.

So yeah, some cats are as sentimental and attached as the softest-hearted humans, but not all. Let us all hope that the lowlife bipeds who “own” that mother cat are at least human (“humane” is way outta their capabilities) enough to take care of HER, despite how they treated her babies. Personally, I’m just damned thankful that these kittens found their way to Sheri’s house, because even amongst the many amazing animal-rescue people as I’ve known, she’s still the best. Any animal that winds-up in her home has hit the jackpot.

Left by Anntichrist S. Coulter on September 23rd, 2008

how are the kittens doing?

have you had them to the vet for a look-see?

Left by karen marie on September 29th, 2008

Something to say?