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  

The Eyes of Sorrow

To help those that suffer in silence, unseen, mistreated, abused.
Abandoned by the ones they loved, lost, alone, confused.

They live in the shadows hungry, and struggle to survive.
A scrap of food, a bit of warmth, they fight to stay alive.

To help those who cannot help themselves, together we can be stronger.
A broken heart can strengthen the will, they are alone no longer.

So hope there is, some eyes do see, but fixing cats, its sure ain't free.
If fact we've gone through all our stash, so now please quickly give us cash! :)

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.

My First Trapping Adventure or How I got My First Dog

I had started writing about my first trapping adventure at the old Blanco Monastery, but as I thought about it, I remembered that the first trapping project (except for the occasional mouse, which I would trap at work then release out in the country) I undertook actually involved puppies not cats. The year was 1986, the place Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF), the situation, someone had abandoned a dog at the end of faire and she went and had puppies under the King's Feast, a wooden pavilion. King George the owner of TRF had either shot or had ordered shot the mama dog, the pups had been left to fend for themselves, until they could also be shot. My boyfriend, who was later to become my husband, worked as horticulturalist for King George, he was also a dog lover, and he got permission from George allowing me to try and catch and rescue the pups. I am guessing they were about 6 weeks old and trying to survive by eating junebugs. It was spring in Texas when I approached the group of pups playing in a clearing. They had not had any interaction with humans, so they were not afraid of me. I was able to grab 2 of them, one in each hand. Not real smart, but then what did I know. One of them bit me, so I let go and only was able to hang on to one of them. Now, the pups where leery of me so the next time I approached them they would not let me touch them. I seem to remember using a net or throwing a blanket over one of them. They were smart little dogs and would watch each trick. Each time I had to think of some new way to catch them. Then I used a box propped up with a stick with a string attached. I don't remember how I caught them all, but I do vividly remember the Granddaddy of an opossum that I caught one night in the havahart trap. Boy was he big, big teeth, big tail, big balls and boy was he not happy! I also remember the second to last pup, he was a little black boy, short hair, with a bit of white on his chest. Not a pretty pup, but cute in a homely sort of way. As I caught each of the pups we would take them home clean them up and then ask everyone we ran into if they needed a dog. In this way we where able to save all of them. It took me days to catch the last puppy, even though she was starving she would not go into the trap for food. Finally it was loneliness that got to her. I ended up using her brother as bait by tying him up in the trap. That last little dog was so smart that she actually tried to chew though the knot that was holding her brother captive, only when she was unable to do that did she get into the trap with him. Caught her! What a smart doggie! Needless to say after I had put so much time and effort into trapping her she became my dog. I named her Buttons, cause in my eyes she was cute as a button, and boy was she smart. She would respond to whistle commands, she always retained her shyness and wariness of people, but she loved and trusted me and I her. When the children came along, at first she was scared of them, but soon found out that they where harmless, and then accepted them into her pack. She was a beagle mix and even though she accepted domestication she always remained a dogs, dog, bringing home bones and perfuming herself by rolling on dead things. What a good watch dog, she would hide from view and keep watch, sounding the alarm when an intruder approached. I remember one of her favorite hiding places was in the garden under the leaves of a squash bush. She was my first dog, she lived with me for about 15 years, before she disappeared one day. That is the story of my first trapping experience and how I got my first dog.

Thank you for reading it.

 

Ugliest cat I ever trapped

 

But, kinda cute for a dog.

 

Sally Sonic part 2, introducing Guy Gray

The very next day I got a phone call about a cat that had been hit by a car the previous week. I knew the cat, I had taken him in for surgery not long ago. I had seen him the night he got hit. I was on my way home from the library when I saw him too close to the side of the road. I had stopped the car and told him to get out of the road. I guess he didn't listen to me, most cats don't. Evidently there was a squirrel in the road that had been hit, that was more interesting than his fear of the road. He is a very handsome fellow, solid gray with a bit of white on his chest. Beautiful golden eyes, and friendly. A stranger to none, he has that innocence that some animals have whom have never been treated unkindly. The folks that claimed him had said that they would take him to the vet to get him looked at. A week had passed and the poor cat was still dragging around a broken leg. I had been hearing about this poor kitty off and on for a week, it seemed that a few people were concerned about him but nobody was willing to take action. I was fed up! I called the vet and explained the cats condition and made an appointment that very day. I didn't wait to get approval for payment from the Cat Coalition, I didn't want to wait any longer the cat needed help, Now! Then I stopped at Lew's apartment and told him I had a cat situation, that the cat had been hit by a car and I didn't know what the outcome would be, that it could be a broken pelvis or he may need to have his leg amputated or even may need to be euthanized. Bless his heart he said “Bring him here”.

I went over to the house of the people that had claimed the cat, they brought the cat out from inside, his back leg was just dangling. I asked if it was their cat. They said no, I told them that I had heard that they were going to take him to the vet, they said that they had hoped he would get better on his own. I told them I would like to take the cat and do what needed to be done, they gave permission. I took the cat to Lew's, we had cleaned out the crate that Sally had been in. On this day I was the one that had a Dr.'s appointment, so Pi took Lew and the cat to the vet. The leg was broken near the hip and had to be amputated. I visited Lew and Guy Gray (Guy because he is such a pretty cat that we need reminding that he is a boy) the next day and it was remarkable how well Guy was doing. I guess after dragging around a broken leg for a week it was a relief to have it cut off. The pain he must have been in, can you imagine? Something I have learned from animals is that they are not emotionally attached to their body, if they lose a limb or an eye, they just compensate. They don't mourn the loss like we do. They live in their bodies, they are not as attached to them as we are. Something for further contemplation.

Guy was still not sure about the dog, but it didn't take him long to figure out Fate was harmless and in a short time they have become friends. It is a wonder to see the three of them together. Lew needed something to keep him going, Guy needed a loving home and Fate just needs to have someone to please and someone to play with.

We all still remember Sally, but the pain is fading. Guy cannot take her place, but he is here now and she is gone. I can only hope that as more people practice TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) there will be less suffering in the world. There are many untold stories like Sally's, many that are much worse. Sally's end was peaceful, she wasn't hungry or cold, she didn't suffer cruelly.

I find it remarkable that Lew was willing to open his heart and home to Guy so soon after the heartbreak of Sally. I have had the honor of working with several veterans that have witnessed starvation and suffering overseas, it is these folks that are willing to sacrifice a bit themselves in order to alleviate the suffering of others. Thank you all that by your small and great acts of love you make the world a better place!