Does Blanco County,Texas Need Animal Control?

Does Blanco County, Texas need animal control? I don't really know, many people think we do, I am not so sure. In the past I have been happy that there was not animal control, because it would give people an easy way to "get rid" of cats. Considering that 70% of cats that enter a shelter are killed and that number goes up to 100% if the cat is a feral, I am not so sure that cats in Blanco County need animal control. What is needed is for people to contact The Blanco County Cat Coalition (BCCC) and get "their" cats fixed and vaccinated. Then let the kitties live out their lives without adding to the overpopulation of cats. Please Spay and Neuter!

I DEEPLY REGRET THE DAY I TOOK A CAT INTO MY HOME by a CAT TRAPPER

I deeply regret the day I took a cat into my home. I hope you will listen to what I have to say with an open mind so we can teach our children well. The multitude of cats I have brought into my home now and over the years is way, way more than I care to think about. It took a lot of money – testing, de-wormed, vaccinated, spayed/neutered (before there was Fix Nation), antibiotics, sometimes surgery, diagnosing exotic diseases, cat food, cat litter, cat boxes, cat beds, cat carriers, cat toys, cat scratching posts, the extra money I spent on tuna, roasted chicken, and ham while trying to relieve my guilt because I wasn’t spending as much time with my older ones as they wanted, the brand new $200 VCR that went crashing to the ground after using it twice, etc, etc, etc, etc. not to mention the space it took to house the cats and their equipment. We all know how much money it takes to support such an effort (certainly some more than others).And you can add cat traps and trapping equipment (rope, towels, cage covers, quilts, etc) to the list for the trappers. And you can add trap-making equipment to the list for me. But it definitely was much, much more than the money. Staying awake all night with a really sick kitten and having your boss be really angry that you keep falling asleep at work. Socializing them 24/7, making trips to the pet store to buy those often really heavy bags of litter and cat food, cleaning litter boxes until life no longer becomes worth living, washing a newcomer in the bathtub –along with his brothers and sisters of course – so that you can get them clean and keep your other cats from getting their fleas, getting bit and ending up in the emergency room and then followed by the pharmacy until the late hours of the night where you do not even have the energy to get out of the car or know what day of the week it is and you fall asleep with your head bent against the steering wheel as the drool fills your lap when once more – you wake up to feel that life is no longer worth living. Spending hour upon hour at adoptions after you have just emptied your car of all it’s contents only to fill it back up again with cat cages, cat carriers, cat litter boxes, water, food, paperwork. Having no time to spend with your family (that is – IF you were lucky enough to have a family before you went into cat rescue) because God only knows there is no time to get one now. Having your husband divorce you because he is so tired of the dirty house, the smell of cats, his paycheck going to the care of cats, sleeping on a bed of piss, never knowing where his wife is all hours of the day and night, having to build a cat house so he can try to eat a TV dinner without cat hair in it. Having no friends you can call when you need them because you lost your “normal” friends a long time ago and now only have cat friends who are way too busy and overwhelmed to even help themselves – much less you. Worrying about what is going to happen to your cats when you die because there is no one available with the resources or especially the time to take them. OK, so I could go on and on and on and on but I think everyone gets my drift. What if all the time we spent taking care of these cats was instead spent TRAPPING the cats for spay/neuter? We are chasing our tales here ladies (and gents). And what if all the money we spent buying cat litter, cat food, vet appts, etc. we spent on donations to Fix Nation or other facilities as needed to stay in business to spay/neuter? Certain trappers I know could have the whole west valley trapped BY THEMSELVES if they didn’t spend every hour of every day running around like crazy taking care of cats that are/were in their possession. I could get the whole east Valley and Ali could get the central valley. But we all spend so much of our time either taking care of our cats or the feral cats that we feed that there isn’t much time for anything else. If we had directed all our efforts into trapping, there would be a ton less cats in the world so we would not be seeing cats lying dead in the streets, hoarding situations on TV, poisoned cats by the millions, incomprehensible death rates in the shelters. Not to mention it has ruined my life as well as theirs. When I walk by their screen door and they look at me with the longing look of a cat that wants to run in the grass, climb the tree, and smell all the things there are to smell instead of a small room where they cannot run, a room that  smells like antiseptic (and my cats STILL get sick on a continual basis), and an always dirty litter box, I am crushed. The thing is this. How am I managing NOT to take any cats in now that I am full and overwhelmed. Could I not have managed this from the start? Think about it. I should have left them out there where they took their chances at life and death like all creatures on earth. And what ever time they had on this earth was spent doing what cats like to do. Instead I spend my time and money taking them to vets that almost always charge me $250 for blood work (and antibiotics) and proceed to tell me the cat has an infection…….da……………like what, I didn’t know? Or charge me $200 for an exam and blood work only to tell me my old cat is in renal failure and there is only palliative care available. Again…..da. Or that the x-ray on his limping leg shows nothing and to wait and see what happens. I could have bought a house several times over for all the worthless advice and “diagnosing” my vets have done. And I find myself chasing my tail for tons of illnesses that I have given them  due to all the new animals I have exposed them to. What was I thinking? What were all of us thinking? Ask Cyndi Zacko what kind of difference we made. A tiny blip on the radar of all the cats that get euthanized each year at the shelter. For all the thousands & hundreds of thousand dollars and thousands & thousands of hours we have spent on our cats, we could have been trapping thousands and thousands of cats so that there would not be any homeless animals out there to deal with. And poop. Think about dumping the poop in your cat litter box in your front yard every few days. It is no wonder they poison the cats at every opportunity. My girlfriend has very poor eyesight for which she is scheduled to have surgery in the near future. I got out of my car recently at her house and was absolutely horrified so see all the piles of poop in her front yard. I am frightened for the day she has her surgery because when her eyesight has improved enough that she can see all the poop, there will be hell to pay. And of course not all of it may be from the cats but who cares. Certainly not her. Poop is poop no matter who it is from and her yard is full of it. I am sure if I wasn’t feeding ferals on her sidewalk that there would not nearly be as many cats in her yard to fill it with poop. And let’s face the facts, for every feral cat we feed to save their lives, there are thousands more getting  poisoned because no one is out there trapping them and preventing them from multiplying. Trappers are very valuable people and not everyone can be a trapper. I do not know many trappers. We all, as trappers, should have left the care of cats to the cat caregivers and concentrated on becoming better trappers. What were we thinking? 

Jan Weber  

Cat Returns From the Dead or The Case of Mistaken Identity

Recently in national news there has been a story of a cat that had died, was buried and dug his way out of his grave. Well here in Blanco County, TX I was told a similar story. The following tale is based loosely upon the truth as told to me by Megan.

Once upon a time a young couple had a cat. This cat was very special to them as it was their first pet together. They named the cat Shelby and they all lived happily together in their very first apartment. Shelby was a rescue cat, that had been found outside lost and scared. Since she had moved in with Megan and Tim, she had shown absolutely no desire to go back outside. For instance when her people had the door open to carry in groceries the cat would only supervise from the safety of the living room.

Then one night somehow the patio door was left open and when the couple woke up Shelby was gone!

The couple frantically looked and called for her, finally giving up only when it was time to go to work. They left some food out on the patio, hoping Shelby would come back on her own. Later that day they continued the search, asking everyone they met it if they had seen Shelby. Finally some folks gave them the bad news that they had seen a cat dead on the road that looked like Shelby. Tim went and looked, he assured Megan that Shelby hadn't suffered, that she had been hit on the head and that it had been a quick death. He then brought the body home and buried it. Days passed and they both mourned, but life tends to go on, bills to be paid and jobs to go to. Then one day Megan got a phone call from the local vet saying that a lady called and they think they had found Shelby. “That couldn't be, Shelby was dead and buried.” Silence, either knew what to say next. Then the caller asked if Shelby had been a torby (markings like a tortoise shell and a tabby) and had been kinda overweight. “Yes.” Well they had the phone number of a lady that had a cat that looked like Shelby. Tim was sent over to the lady's house, while Megan stayed home afraid to hope. I can just imagine how she felt. Losing a beloved animal, grieving for days, then could it be possible? No, couldn't be, Shelby was dead and buried, but what if? The suspense must have been terrible. If the cat was indeed Shelby, then who was buried in the backyard? And if the cat was not Shelby, then who's cat was she?

Tim later admitted that the animal he had buried seemed a little to heavy and a little to long to have been Shelby. Poor guy, I can just imagine the questions Megan must have had for him. Hopefully she was so happy to have Shelby back that she wasn't too hard on Tim.

Shelby is back at home, having spent a few days visiting the neighbors. Whoever is buried in the backyard will forever remain a mystery.

Epilogue; I am very happy that Shelby is back home, but sad for the cat that had been hit by the car. Please spay and neuter your pets and any feral cats you might be feeding. Also, micro-chipping your pets is a good thing. Please share this story.

Sally Sonic

In the past two months I have had several outstanding cat encounters. The first kitty that touched my heart was a little fuzzy calico that I trapped behind the local Sonic. I knew there was something wrong with her 'cause she didn't run away when I first put the traps out. She stayed hunched up next to the dumpster, I have seen that type of behavior before. My little Mia kitty was like that when I first met her. The poor kitties just stay huddled up to conserve energy and also to make themselves a smaller target, less vulnerable to other cats. Cats like these have just given up, they try to stay near the food source and expend as little energy as possible. Unfortunately when food becomes available the other cats get it first, so the weaker kitties get weaker and just get to the point were they are waiting to die.

So I went ahead and put the traps out, very slowly and carefully so as not to scare her away, hoping that the smell of stinky wet cat food would draw her in. She didn’t move, I continued on, setting traps behind and around the local feed store. When I got back to the Sonic she was gone and the trap was empty. What had happened was that someone had come out of the Sonic and put trash into the dumpster and had scared her away. Drat! That happens quite a bit when trapping, someone or something comes by and scares the kitties away. I did not catch her until the next night, by then I had caught 7 other cats from behind the Feed store and the Sonic. Early the next morning I took them all into the Austin Humane Society to be spayed or neutered. All the cats were deemed healthy enough to withstand surgery. Normally I keep the kitties one night after surgery to keep an eye on them and to make sure they are completely out from the anesthesia, then I release them back to were I trapped them. I really did not want to release this kitty, as I knew there was something wrong with her, but I didn’t know what.

Now comes the human interest part of the story, I have a friend (Pi) who knew of someone (Lew) that wanted a calico kitten. He wanted a kitten because he has a small dog (Fate) that he wanted to become accustomed to cats. He wanted a calico because he had had one back when he was younger and it was a really good cat. Now understandably most people that want a kitten want a friendly, healthy, happy kitten. I think that was what he wanted, but what he was willing to take was a scared, feral, kitty that was sick in some unknown way. Remarkable! We set him up with a crate, litter box, food and water and everything else we thought the kitty would need. The next day I get a phone call telling me the kitty is eating, drinking, pooping and peeing but cannot walk. This generated mulitable phone calls to other board members of the Blanco County Cat Coalition to get approval to take the kitty (who is now named Sally Sonic) to the local vet. It takes at least three board members to agree to spending money on medical issues, this is because our funds are limited and need to be spent on our main focus of spay and neuter. Well we all agreed that, because Lew was willing to adopt Sally and we had already invested in her getting spayed that we would approve to spend up to $200 to try and get her healthy. Yea! A trip to the vet, Dr. Philip, determined that Sally could move her head, had feeling in all four paws and her tail. Was eating and eliminating fine, he checked her gums and she did not look anemic, sure she was under weight, but a lot of ferals living out of dumpsters are. But she did not have an awareness of where her paws were. He said that she probably was not born like this or else she would not have lived this long, and that since there was someone that was willing to take care of her it would be worth it to give her a chance. That the next week or two would show either improvement or decline. Lew assured us that if there was any hope at all he would do whatever it would take to make her better. And he did just that, he cleaned her up, brushed her, cut the mats out of her fur. Cuddled her, gave her physical therapy moving her legs around and massaging down her back, cleaned her bottom after she pooped, and petting her. Fate helped, at first Sally was scared of the dog, but soon figured out that Fate was harmless. Fate helped with cleaning Sally, she especially was good at helping clean Sally’s face after she ate. For the next week we all watched for and celebrated every little improvement, hoped for the best, but tried to prepare for the worst. About 10 days later that day came, it seemed that Sally had developed an infection in her incision, and had started to act like she was in pain. So it was back to the vet. Lew could not take her because he had his own doctors appointment that day. He is an older gentleman that served his country in Vietnam and as a result suffers. I took Sally in, on the way she started bleeding from a sore on her bottom and had developed a sore on her mouth. Dr. Philip confirmed and assured that there was no hope for improvement and that she would only suffer if we did not put an end to it. I called Lew and he gave permission, he had said goodbye that morning before he had left for his doctors appointment.

Skip this next part if you don't want to read about Sally’s death. I am including it for various reasons. Such as; death is a reality that most of us do not want to face, none the less, it is a fact of life. Maybe if more people were aware of the harsh facts of life that feral cats face they may be more willing to spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets. After all the feral cat epidemic started with people not being responsible for their cats.

Sally's death was not horrible but it was not easy either. I have watched Dr. Philip euthanize cats in the past and it has not been horrible. But poor Sally, her veins, in her little legs collapsed as Dr. Phil inserted the needle. In the end he had to use a vein in her neck to administer the drug. He explained that using the vein in the neck was no worse than using any other vein, it just is something that might be upsetting to people, so he asked me to stop recording at that point. Maybe it is weird of me me to record a cat being put down, but it was done and posted on facebook in hopes that maybe, just maybe it will prevent suffering in the future.

Rest in Peace Sally Sonic!

What I find remarkable about this story is Lew, that he was willing to allow this kitten into his life knowing that by doing so he was opening himself up to potential heartbreak. Which indeed is exactly what happened. I really admire people like Lew that are willing to do good even if it hurts. He is one of my hero's! His story does not end here.....
To be continued...

Kitten being euthanized, hard to watch but not horrible