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12/7/09

Is Tiger Yawning or Laughing?

I like to think she is laughing at something - maybe she is laughing about something we do which she finds amusing.

She is the sweetest cat. She loves to nuzzle me, nose-to-nose, when she wants something. It used to be I could not do that since I was allergic to her pet dander. My face would break out with puffy red blotching. I used tea tree oil to get rid of it. Then, somehow I must have developed immunity. I do not get the rash any more. If any of you have problems with this, here is a link you might want to go to for some reading.

Click here for cat allergy information

Click her for more cat allergy info

And I wish there would be something like a gerbil wheel for cats so she could get some exercise. She is getting a bit pudgy around the midsection since we never let her outside.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful day.

Please let people know about my blog. http://homelesscatcare.blogspot.com/

12/6/09

Tabatha Goes Wild










From time to time, Tabatha has to show Tiger Lily that she is the Alpha kitty of the house!


If you click on the photo of the two of them, you will clearly see the funny wild expression which is Tab's alter-ego.

The photo of where she looks sublime is her usual expression.

My husband took these photos. Many of his photos find their way to this blog. Although sometimes I want a photo sooner than he can get to take it. So if you see really bad, fuzzy photos on this blog, they are from my cell phone. I'm really grateful that my husband, Stew, has just the right equipment and expertise to get action shots like the one above!

Check out his website for more nature & wildlife photos -

http://www.nvpictures.com/nature.asp



11/29/09

Sammy Has Disappeared

















I agreed to take a new feral cat, transferred to me by a local rescue agency. Sammie could not stay in the garage arrangement any longer where he was being fed. So he came to me November 17, 2009, just having been neutered.



I kept him in a holding cage for about 4 days. We took his cage outside during the daytime (Arizona is temperate during daytime in the winter) so he could get acquainted with our cat colony and possibly gain some attachment to the place where we feed everyone. He was quite fierce, scratching and hissing when I put food in his cage or changed his litter (using heavy gloves was a must). Of course, as all the ferals are prone to do when caged, he appeared to become increasingly depressed. He ate once a day, but eliminated very little. Many other ferals before him have basically shut down even worse than that while recovering in the holding cage. I was not concerned about this since they always come back to life upon leaving the cage.


However, I was quite concerned about whether he would stick around after we let him out of the cage. The place where he was being fed in the garage is quite far away. Now, eight days after releasing him, there has been no sign of him. I know he saw the food as he was leaving (see above photo). And we made sure Sammie saw our colony eating each day.

Please pray that Sammie comes back to our Debby's home in Prescott Valley, AZ so I can be sure he gets the food and water he needs.


Thanks for reading my post - leave a comment if you like. I plan to share more about my experiences and what I have learned from managing this homeless colony.


And please let your friends know about my blog.


Debby Taylor



Tiger Lilly Cleans My Husband's Hair

I have posted so much which is serious that I thought I would post something which is rather humerous. I would love it if any of you who comment on this post would share if you have seen your cats do this in your household.

One of my indoor cats, Tiger Lilly, loves to sit on top of our sofa and clean my husband's hair. I imagine she thinks it is his 'fur' because he has a really thick head of hair. He lets her do it for a short while, since she seems compelled to 'help'. And when she is finished with her amazing kitty 'grooming service', she takes a well-deserved rest!


Update for Panther and the Caleci Virus

Panther's mouth has healed nicely. She no longer has the red on her gums from Calici virus. Plus, I have not seen any evidence of any vomiting. I used to see it either in the house or on the porch several times a week. So it looks like the procedure has helped her. Yippee! Since she was not using her remaining four canines for eating, she is still eating fine just like before.

Here are comments from one of my readers regarding the Calici virus and mouth problems with her cats Gerry and Angel which I believe could be valuable to those of you with rescued cats -

"Our Gerry was a Calici disaster when he was found abandoned and removing all his teeth was the best thing ever - (the depomedron didn't work, he kept getting Calici mouth ulcers) Our vet said that the constant drip of low level infection into his system would be another thing causing vomiting and may eventually damage his heart and kidneys, so it was a no brainer. He's now on Virbagen Omega (Interferon) orally, daily and it's kept the Calici at bay. He does get vaccinated yearly because there are several strains of Calici (the vaccines in the UK only protect against two strains) the newer substrains can be really nasty and fatal on occasion. Panther looks glorious in that photo - I hope she does as well as our Gerry has done - I bet Panther is glad those teeth are gone too.

"It's emotionally a hard choice to make to take out a mouthful of teeth, we hummed and h'aaard about it for a little while, but seeing Gerry's gums on a cycle of inflammation, infection and ulceration within two weeks of the depomedron dose and learning about how low grade mouth infections contribute massively to the ability of a cat to thrive, was what swayed us. Out they came, instantly happier, healthier cat. Angel our oldest cat only has a few incisors at the front and one upper and one lower canine at the front left now, she had FORLS not Calici , but the result was the same, misery from pain and lack of zest for life - out the teeth came and she's made it to nineteen and a half with sweet breath and enjoys life without mouth pain. I would recommend it to anyone who had a cat with recurrent dental problems. I'm glad you took the plunge with Panther, she will be so much better off now."
http://everycat.blogspot.com/2008/12/chops-on-thursday.html


I have so many feral cats. I just hope none of them get the Calici since they are all trap-wise now. My vet said that often a cat will get Calici from it's mother.But I think they can also get it from another cat when older. Getting our ferals any care would seem to be next to impossible. Although if showed signs of being ill in any way I suppose I could try to catch him/her in our drop trap.


Thanks for reading my post - please leave a comment. I plan to share more about my experiences and what I have learned from managing this homeless colony. Please let your friends know about my blog. I would like to gather more followers.

Perhaps you know people who would feel inclined to donate to the management of this feral/abandoned colony, using the PayPal button on the sidebar.

May all of your pets be well and happy,

Debby Taylor DTConsult@cableone.net

http://homelesscatcare.blogspot.com/


11/15/09

Panther Loses Her Last 4 Teeth

Panther is a really sweet abandoned cat who arrived at my door some time in 2008. When I had her spayed, the vet recommended removal of most of her teeth due to severely advanced tooth decay. So, for a while now, she has had only her 4 canines.

Recently, a different vet gave Panther cortisone for her Caleci virus symptom, throwing up. For one of our indoor cats, TigerLily, this treatment has prevented vomiting for nearly 4 months. For Panther, it lasted only 3 weeks. Then, due to repeat office visits for routine shots, I discovered Panther had lost weight. This is likely due to the fact that daily she lost at least one of her meals to vomiting.

The vet showed me the bright red from Caleci at the base of Panther's four teeth. He said that if I had them pulled, it would be likely that the Caleci virus would become less active since it would lose the area where it was thriving. She was not using those teeth anyway since she does not have to rip or tear meat. So I became convinced that it would be good to have them removed. I will be more protective of her now since she has lost four weapons she could have used against the ubiquitous coyote (fortunately, she has all her claws).

Her surgery was 11/13/2009. She is doing quite well now. The vet said she might still throw up for a while. Giving it time, the vomiting should disappear. I remain hopeful.

I got the total price for her surgery reduced from $480.00 to $275.00. Yippee!

Currently, my personal finances are quite taxed, several major expenses hitting me all at once. If anyone reading this feels like contributing to Panther's fund, it would help me keep going with this homeless cat care. Anything above the $275. which I receive goes into a savings fund which is exclusively for the medical expenses for our feral/abandoned ones. I never use that fund for my two indoor kitties.

There is a PayPal button in the panel at the right of this post.

Another reason why I posted many details of Panther's health crisis is that I hope it can be of help to anyone reading this who cares for outdoor cats. Without a competant vet, the red at the base of a cat's teeth could be misdiagnosed as tooth decay. The vet says that sometimes cats get the Caleci virus from their mothers. And it is contageous among cats. I believe a cat can be vaccinated against Caleci with one of the routine cat vaccinations. But it's too late for that with Panther.

Here are some links if you want to read about the Caleci virus

http://www.cfa.org/articles/health/calici.html

http://www.cat-health-guide.org/feline-calici-virus.html


And if you are willing please help me by copying my blog link and sending it to your cat loving friends who might not be in the cat blogosphere -

http://homelesscatcare.blogspot.com/


Thanks so much for reading this,


Debby


DTConsult@cableone.net

11/9/09

We Will Be Building A Cat Run


I have less time to blog lately. The local incident with the coyote snatching some one's Chihuahua really shook me up. I am calling to get estimates on a cat run and cat door. I am hoping it does not cost too much. I sure wish my husband or I were handy that way - it would probably cost next to nothing for materials.

Here is a photo of one of our abandoned cats. What a strange one she is - Scrufty. She doesn't like to be held or pet. But she will let us pick her up to bring her in out of the cold. And sometimes she lets me brush her. What a coat she has, too! She reminds me of PigPen in the cartoon Snoopy. Only instead of whirlpools of dirt flying it is tufts of fur coming off of her. A few tufts fly off her whenever and wherever she moves!

If any of you has any links to information you thing would be helpful for anyone building a cat run, please add it to a comment. I did some research to come up with sites other than just the pre-fab stuff. Here are a few I found which might be of interest to some of my readers -

Blessings to all of you cat lovers out there!
Debby Taylor

11/1/09

Grizzly Saved Fitzroy

We have at least one desperate coyote in our neighborhood. Several days ago, a Chihuahua standing next to its owner their yard in the middle of a built up community was snatched away by a coyote. This happened in broad daylight.

Right around this time, one of my friends could not find her cat, Fitzroy, for over two days.(see photo of Fitzroy on drop trap) For privacy’s sake, I will call my friend Anne.

While Anne was outside calling for her cat, one of our feral cats, Grizzly, began to circle around where she stood. Grizzly circled many times, meowing the whole time. Then, my friend asked her what she was trying to say. Anne followed Grizzly, who lead her to find Fitzroy stuck up in a tree. Anne was able to coax Fitzroy down. I am so proud of Grizzly for helping Anne find her lost Fitzroy. Here is a photo of Grizzly.
Ever since then, it is evident that Fitzroy was spooked by something – perhaps the coyote – and has not been the same since. He will not go out for long before asking to go back inside. Before this, he could not get enough of the outdoors.

We are now keeping Tabatha inside. Tiger has been exclusively inside all along. And I am telling all of the outdoor kitties to run up a tree if they see a coyote. Animal communicators say you can effectively get through to animals by sending them pictures from your mind to theirs. So I have been sending a picture of a coyote trotting down the street with all the cats climbing up trees.


The lesson from Grizzly here is: Our pets have refined intelligence and can guide and help us, if we learn to pay attention and listen with a different set of senses.

Thanks for reading my post - leave a comment if you like. I plan to share more about my experiences and what I have learned from managing this homeless colony. Please let your friends know about my blog.

I would be extremely grateful if you feel inclined to donate to the management of this feral/abandoned colony, using the PayPal button on the sidebar.

10/31/09

Nancy's Tale of Two Kitties

Here is a story from one of my friends about her two cats -


The Tale of Two Kitties

Two years ago, after our much loved cat of 19 yrs. had to be euthanized because she was terminally ill and suffering from cancer, my husband & I adopted two cats from a no-kill shelter.

One was 11 yrs. old at the time we adopted her. She is a "blended" calico. (Her colors run together and are not distinct like Tiger Lily.) She had been abandoned at the shelter two months earlier and lived in a room for shy kitties. After visiting a bit, I realized that she was traumatized and hiding by staying curled up in a basket, on her side with her paw covering her head trying to ignore what was happening to her. I picked her up and she gave a weak protest. She was very gentle and obviously used to people. My heart went out to her and she was one of two cats we ended-up adopting that day. When we took her home, while she was scared initially, of course, we could see she quickly realized that she was in a home and she adapted very quickly.

Not knowing her name, we called her Sweetie because she would come up to us and repeatedly and very firmly push her nose under one of our hands until we started petting her (she still does this). She learned her new name very quickly. Her favorite "activity" in life (aside from eating and having a clean litter box) is to curl up next to us on the bed or sofa, get petted, and purr contentedly. About twice a day she has what we call her "happy time" which is when she wants to play either by herself with a catnip toy, or with one of us using a small laser dot that she loves to chase. In many ways she is very kittenish despite her 13 years.

All the cats that have graced our home over the years have had unique quirks. Sweetie's is that she'll use her paw to pat the water in a water dish and then lick the water off her paw. I've never seen a cat do this before her!

When we first took her to the vet, she weighed only 6 pounds! The vet said she had lost one-quarter of her body weight. Once she realized that she had a new home, she started wolfing down food and soon was back to a healthy 8 pounds.

The other cat we adopted already had a name - Lukie. He had had a rough beginning in life. Originally adopted as a feral kitten, his owner apparently didn't have experience in how to treat animals and abandoned him at the vet's when he was 5 months old (at that gangly teenage period when a kitten is no longer a cute cuddly ball of fuzz). The vet gave him to the shelter. Lukie spent the next year of his life living in one room at the shelter, the room for shy cats. My husband fell in love with this handsome young gray tabby and I fell in love with "Sweetie", so we ended-up taking home two cats instead of one, as we had planned!

Lukie was a nervous cat. Judging from his behavior, we're pretty sure he had been abused by his original owner. We didn't start out right with Lukie and rushed him in trying to get him adjusted to his new home. He would hide and growl because he was scared. We were able to isolate him in a bathroom and I worked with him every night to slowly get him used to me and to gain his trust. Gradually he came to trust me and let me touch him. Then we gradually let him and Sweetie get used to each other and gave him more access to parts of the house.

He actually was starved for love and attention and he LOVED to be petted and played with. He was just scared to trust and accept a loving touch from people, since that had not been his experience before.

Now he is a wonderful, loving companion pet. He has always been very good with his claws and never uses them on us. Fortunately he only likes to claw on smooth carpeting and he uses the scratching posts we provide for him, not the furniture. (With previous cats I discouraged them from scratching on furniture by dusting flea powder on furniture that they wanted to scratch, and rubbing catnip on posts that they were allowed to scratch, in order to attract them to it.)

Lukie loves to play, run around the house, chase heavy-duty string cords that we pull, pester his "sister" Sweetie, bat around balls and catnip toys, and especially to run up and down his cat "tree" (tall scratching post with three different levels).

Getting the "tree" was the best thing we ever did for Lukie. We rubbed it with catnip to encourage him to explore it and that worked very well. It functions as a kitty jungle gym and lets him work off some of his energy by playing on it. We just got it a few months ago and it has made a big difference for him. He now has a place that he knows is his. He loves to lay in the top part and be king of the roost over all he sees. He can also see out the window from his perch. Sweetie only rubs against the bottom part but otherwise ignores it. She came to us declawed; she can jump but she can't climb, so the jungle gym is all his. I've put her on it at different times but she just jumps off and goes and settles on the sofa or on the pillow in the window.

We are so glad we adopted both of these cats. They are wonderful, entertaining, and best of all, loving companions.

People think cats are aloof. But all of our cats have been very loving and affectionate. They, including Lukie, show affection by greeting me at the door when I come home, come when I call, "talk" to me, follow me around the house, like to play and be petted. Even Lukie now lets me pick him up and carry him around a bit, nuzzles my face, purrs loudly when petted, misses us when we're gone, and likes to get into a bit of mischief so he can get attention. Most of our cats have been "puppy dog" cats, but still have cat independence. We have had dogs in our lives too, and we love them tremendously also! At one time we had 2 dogs & 2 cats, which was plenty for us. But given our work schedule, we are not home enough to give a dog a good life, so we are happy to give cats a good home. They enrich our lives tremendously. - Nancy

10/24/09

Tiger Lily Loves Her Rubberband


Tiger Lily is one of our indoor cats. If you are new to this blog you can read her story in my June post called Tiger Lilly's Journey from Feral to Domestic .

Tiger is usually more playful than her indoor compatriot Tabatha. But there are many toys I have purchased from the pet store in which Tiger has no interest. She seems to have her own ideas about what is fun. Tiger loves tug of war with some shoestrings I tied together. She loves to run across our kitchen as I toss a piece of dry food like a hockey puck - she will eat it once she captures it. And her latest pleasure comes from batting a rubberband around on the rug .. not just any rubber band. It has to be the small, thick variety which is used to hold stalks of broccoli together. Usually, her favorite games have been interactive with me. I have been interested in finding something which prompts her to play on her own. She won't play with those motorized feather toys from the pet store. But with the Broccoli rubberband, she will bat it around for a long time with no participation from me. Yipee! She can finally amuse herself.

I am often astounded how each cat I deal with has such a unique personality!

Thanks for reading my post - leave a comment if you like. I plan to share more about my experiences and what I have learned from managing this homeless colony.

Please let your friends know about my blog.

I would be extremely grateful if you feel inclined to donate to the management of this feral/abandoned colony, using the PayPal button on the sidebar.







10/20/09

I Wish I Handled Samantha's Treatment Differently


Samantha is our homeless abandoned cat with only one eye. She smells like vomit because she has something like a fungus or yeast growing in the open socket. The vet said to put hydrogen peroxide in the socket with a little soft dropper. The first day, she did not struggle. The second day she did. The third day she would not even let me get near her. I made the mistake of giving her the treatment without loving her before and after (a friend suggested this to help her see I’m trying to help her). So now she avoids me much of the time. I just stopped trying to capture her for now. When I get back from a short trip in a week or so, I’m going to start again, making sure I love and assure her before and after each treatment.

Thanks for reading my post - leave a comment if you like. I plan to share more about my experiences and what I have learned from managing this homeless colony. Please let your friends know about my blog.

If you feel inclined to donate to the management of this feral/abandoned colony, use the PayPal button on the sidebar.

10/15/09

National Feral Cat Day and Feral Care

I have been getting email from Alley Cats Allies about October 16 being National Feral Cat Day. (see button to reach them, further down on the right sidebar)


As a way to celebrate National Feral Cat Day I just want to thank anyone reading this who is caring for feral cats. I know from our feral crew that it can be both challenging and rewarding. And they are all so blessed for the commitment you have all made to them. You deserve a big round of a-paws from the kitties.


I hope all your ferals are as contented as they can be! Ours seem to be thriving. The one above is Sherbet about 2 years ago. She is still very healthy. Recently I began giving them a supplement in their food for immune systems. It is called

"Multi-Vitamin Mineral & Herbal Supplement for Cats"

by Dr. H's Health Formulations Inc, Keansburg, NJ

Only time will tell if it helps them. Mine are not exhibiting any medical problems for now, thank God.


Please feel free to leave a comment - maybe to tell us about a supplement you use to help your ferals or domestics that would benefit others reading these posts.

Thanks for loving your kitties as much as you do!

Debby
and her homeless ferals

DTConsult@cableone.net