Chloe and Sasha

Dear Reader,

        Chloe and Sasha have grown quite close over the past few days, which has been an absolute pleasure to watch.  Sasha is usually quite scared of new cats, and she was actually terrified of this tiny little kitten for the first few days.  However, she and Chloe are like sisters now, they play all the time!  I saw Sasha kneading today for the first time, so she must be rediscovering her inner kitten.  Here are some videos, in chronological order.  Happy viewing!

Chloe

Dear Reader,
          I was giving Chloe a bath and I realized that she had a ton of fleas on her!  I'd never dealt with fleas before, so I went into panic mode and actually tried removing fleas by hand.  And I mean without a flea comb or anything.  I actually killed a good 20-30 fleas that way, but it took like close to 3 hours.  The amazing thing is that she didn't complain at all!
          Well today, I treated all of the cats with Revolution and washed all the bedding so that problem should be contained.  She has a heck of an appetite, today she ate two small cans of Wellness.  She does have a cute little quirk though.  She normally never complains about handling, but when she's eating and you pet her, especially her feet, she sometimes lets out this loud squeal.  At first, I thought she might've been hurt or something, but since she never makes that noise when she's not eating, I'm convinced that it's just her being a a bit of a drama queen :p.  I'm trying to adjust that by consistently handling her while feeding, and so far, it seems to be working.

I have a bunch of awesome footage of the little girl, but unfortunately, my iPad cable just stopped working so I'm waiting on a new one to get my videos up.

More Cats

Dear Reader,
          Yesterday, Alaska was returned to me by her adopter.  She and Persia (Alaska's mother) had a nice little reunion.  Apparently Alaska scratched and bit the adopter's girlfriend, which really surprised me, since she was curled up in my arms last night, purring.  I'm guessing it wasn't Alaska's fault since the adopter changed his mind and is coming to take her back at the end of the week.
          Today, I got ahold of a stray kitten who was left in a building out in Brooklyn.  A very nice couple sheltered her last night and I picked her up a couple of hours ago.  She is about 4-5 weeks old and her eyes haven't changed color yet, but she's the sweetest and most playful little girl.  I've decided to call her Chloe for now, we'll see if the name sticks.

           Chloe is apparently really smart as well.  The couple told me she didn't know how to use a litter box, but I decided to set one up for her anyway.  I nudged her into it and she started doing her business right away.  Thank God for that!

Ear Tipping

Dear Reader,
          Some people who have come to view our cats at adoption events have commented on the fact that our cats have been ear tipped.  Most instinctively see this as cruel as wonder why anyone would do such a thing - I did too before I was educated on the subject.  While I certainly don't love the idea, I now realize that it's a necessary evil, done for the benefit of stray and feral cats.  Neighborhoodcats.org provides a terrific explanation.  Their article can be found at http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_EARTIPPING.  I'm going to quote the article below in case the link changes in the future.

"Eartipping is the universal sign of a neutered feral cat. The procedure involves removing approximately a quarter-inch off the tip of the cat's left ear in a straight line cut. This is done while the cat is anesthetized for spay/neutering and healing is rapid. As a guide to veterinarians, a detailed description of the procedure is provided at the end of this page.

When we first started working with feral cats, we avoided eartipping as it seemed like a kind of mutilation. But everything else we tried failed. Taking photos of the neutered cats was fine if you saw the cats often and could easily tell similar-looking ones apart. But in colonies where the cats were all black and white and the caretaker caught random glimpses, the photos were useless. We tried tattooing the inner ears, but then it was impossible to tell at a distance whether the cat had the tattoo and needed to be trapped or not. Ear tags, which are small metal clips, can get caught in twigs, branches or the like and cause the ear to tear and become infected. In some cases, they fall off.

We were won over to eartipping when we had a cat operated on who had already been spayed, but not eartipped. Fortunately, the veterinarian saw the scar and stopped the procedure. Nonetheless,
the cat was unnecessarily trapped and anesthetized, with all the corresponding stress.

In addition to avoiding needless trapping and surgery, eartipping also benefits the cats by clearly identifying them as members of a managed TNR colony. In New York City, animal control notifies us whenever an eartipped cat ends up in one of their facilities, giving us the opportunity to find the caretaker. In addition, depending on local policies, animal control may refrain from trapping eartipped cats, knowing they "belong" to someone."

I hope you learned something today!

The Good and the Bad

Hi Reader,
         Lets start off with the good.  Today, I delivered Sherri to her forever home.

         She now lives with a very nice family and has a new brother, who I'm sure she'll become great friends with.  The lady who adopted her asked me why I think we may develop deeper bonds with our cats than our dogs, and I didn't really have a good answer, but I think I do now.
         I adopted my dog when she was 2 months old and she's been a perfect little puppy.  She loves everybody and everything.  My cat, on the other hand, hid under my bed for a good month and was still quite shy for a few months afterward.  I got her when she was about 3 months old.  When she was about 7 months old, she finally grew close to me and started snuggling with me, even grooming my hair when she catches me off guard!  She now sleeps with me every night and is supremely comfortable sitting on my lap.  My dog trusts me fully as well, but I didn't have to work nearly as hard to gain her trust, and she's basically comfortable with everybody.  My cat, on the other hand, is really only completely vulnerable with me, and that is why I feel I have a deeper bond with her than I do with my dog.  Of course, I love them both with all my heart!

         Here's the bad: Last week, I was showing my foster cats at an adoption event when someone came up to me and asked if we had any declawed cats.  I told her no, we didn't, and we would never think of declawing any of our cats.  It shocks me how backwards America is when it comes to this issue.  Most countries in Europe and even elsewhere have banned this cruel practice.  It's basically mutilation and serves no purpose other than saving someone's precious furniture.  If they really cared about their cat, they'd clip their nails or use Soft Paws.
         However, what's even worse is that there are vets out there who not only perform, but encourage this cruel procedure.  These vets deserve to have their license taken away because they clearly care more about making money than they do about the welfare of their furry patients.  If they treated people instead, they would never get away with this blatant abuse of power.
         If you're interested in reading more about why declawing is such a horrible practice, check out Gary Lowenthal's article Why Cats Need Claws: http://halrescue.org/declaw.html

Sasha

This is why I can never get any work done!

Dear Reader, I just took Sasha to the vet for her spay surgery. I was so nervous that I couldn't sleep all night, but at least I was able to cuddle with the best cat in the world. Hoping to bring her home safe and sound tonight. Joe