real rescue stories | Savannah's Paw Tracks

Archive for the tag “real rescue stories”

18 Apr 2022

The Hole in the Wall Gang: New Twist!

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!

Oh boy, oh boy!! Do I have an adventure to share with my loyal readers!! So pull up a seat and enjoy this kitten and mom cat rescue. Of course the rescue of the Hole in the Wall Gang started on a pretty normal morning for my castle. Humans and feline furramily all enjoying a nice morning stretch before Dad P goes down stairs to get our brekkies prepared.

Then about 8 AM, Mom L got a call from a lady she helped three years ago rescue a mom and 6 kittens. This time, the lady and her grown children think they hear scratching and maybe mewing in their garage.

Mom L, Dad P and my pet sitter Miss Kandi all go over about 10 AM and search and search. Nothing heard or seen.

Next day, April 6, Mom L gets a text about 6:30 AM from the same lady. This time they saw some wires up near the ceiling of the garage move and they heard mewing.

Mom L gets another rescue buddy, Miss Venus, and they go over about 8 AM. Nothing heard or seen—and then!!!

Mom L hears scratching in the wall above a freezer and sees the cable wires move a teeny bit.

The wires go into a hole in the back wall of the garage. Miss Venus and Mom L find a tall ladder from a neighbor and Miss Venus goes up to try to peer into the small hole using a flashlight. Nope! Can’t see anything, but now they can hear the scratching again and wait! Was that an itty-bitty mew???

They don’t have any tools to cut into the wallboard. So Miss Venus calls on her good friend, who is a contractor,—Mr. Ron. He comes right over! And he has just the right small power saw to cut through the wallboard. So up he goes to do some cutting.

Miss Venus goes back up and tells Mom L to get a soft towel and a carrier. She can now see one or two tiny kittens!! And they are ALIVE!!!

Miss Venus hands down about 4-5 tiny kittens, some with eyes still closed. Mom L takes a quick photo and so does Mr. Ron.

He is excited too! Then Miss Venus says “I can see more!” But they are too far away. Mr. Ron goes back up and cuts another hole to the right of the first one.

Miss Venus goes back up and YIKES!! She starts handing more kittens to Mom L until there are TWELVE!!

Mr. Ron decides that one of the kittens, a very tiny one, must be named “Tiger”! And he gets a selfie with that itty-bitty kitten! What a hero!!

Mind you, Mom L has only ever seen ONE mom cat hanging around all morning watching the action near her babies. She is a small all black kitty. But TWELVE kittens from one mom cat??? Mom cats only have eight “dinner plates” to serve their kittens. Maybe that’s why several of the kittens are clearly smaller?? Because they didn’t get to have as much time at the dinner table???
So Mom L, Miss Venus and Miss Jeanne set up a “kittens as bait” trap to hopefully trap the babies mom cat. The kittens are safe and warm in a carrier at the back and a humane Tomahawk cat trap is set up in front. We hope that Mom will hear her babies crying for food and come to care for them.

Long story short, by 8:30 PM, that same day, Mom L saw ANOTHER mom cat approaching the kitten bait trap set-up!! That’s it!! There are TWO MOM CATS who found the same birthing space most likely within 7-10 days of each other. We are betting that the moms are related!!

We tried the gray mom with eight of the smallest kittens and she refused to even look at them. So then we pulled them out and put in the four that were bigger. After about two hours, our gray mom cat started to nurse her babies!! It was midnight, but it was a day well spent!!

The other mom cat refused her eight babies for over 12 hours so Miss Jeanne, her foster human, had to bottle feed eight kittens. But the next day, by early afternoon, after placing each kitten, one at a time with their black mom cat, she was nursing them all!!!

I want to introduce you to the twelve members of The Hole in the Wall Gang!! I have Butch Cassidy( light gray tabby) and his gang of three living in my castle—The Domino Kid (black with white dot on throat), Jesse James (all gray), Laughing Sam (all gray with white speedo trunks between his hind legs).

Here are a few more action shots of Butch and his members of The Hole in the Wall Gang.

And Miss Jeanne has Sundance and his gang of seven at her home.

I know my story is long but I hope you will stay one minute more to enjoy the 60 second video I made showing my foster kittens growing up and learning to play!! Just shot yesterday!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

08 Apr 2022

19 Comments

Friday Smiles without the Memes

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!

LATE! LATE!! LATE!!!

Since Tuesday morning about 6:30 AM PDST, it has been a very very busy 72 hours for us. I will tell all another time, because it is a long story. But the photos will explain why Mom L could not get my Friday Memes post done for me.

Mom L got a text then a call Tuesday about 6:30 AM. There was a neighbor with a possibility of some kittens stuck in the wallboard near the ceiling in her garage. And so Mom L’s long journey began. Shortly that same morning, Dad P and Miss Kandi went looking with Mom L and they didn’t find anything—until Mom L went back with a cat trapping friend, Miss Venus, on Wednesday about 8 AM.

So here are your Friday Smiles without Friday Memes.

GUESS HOW MANY KITTENS YOU SEE IN THIS CARRIER!!

Let me know in comments!! Here are four being fed by their mom cat now being fostered with her four kittens in my castle. Now ya know there are at least four!!

We pulled a whole bunch of seven to ten day old kittens outta that garage wall!! All from ONE MOMMA CAT!!?? Nope. We found a second mom cat, and she is being fostered with a pal along with her kittens.

Have a great weekend!! I won’t be back until next Friday to present the whole rescue story. Mom L and Dad P are taking off for a little getaway for their forty-fifth anniversary!!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

Posted in Feral Kitten Rescue, foster kitties and tagged feral cat rescue, paw it forward, real rescue stories

17 Jan 2022

25 Comments

Bittersweet Fostering with Happy Tails Endings

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!

Oh my cat! Do I have breaking news for you all!! I think my first introduction of our foster kittens, Arwen and Frodo was like December?? We have had them with us since late August 2021. They and their mom cat, our adopted Eowyn, Court Jester, were all dumped at a local waterfront park where our Delta View Cats feeds a colony of 12 abandoned community cats. The kittens were about 4 months old. Here are some videos of them at the point where our Delta View Cats feeders discovered them! FYI—Arwen looks like she has something wrong with her eye, but it turned out to just be a speck of dirt and her eyes are both fine!

Did you hear little Arwen’s teeny mew? They were so small. I know you can’t see Frodo, the orange boy too well, but you get the picture, right?

These cutie pies have been fostered in my castle for over four months, since August 26, 2021. Little Arwen has a little bobble in her head, especially when she is trying to keep track of wand toys. She also has short infrequent asthma episodes when she is overly excited, anxious or plays too hard. But she is a tomboy girl all the way! She may be smaller than her brother, Frodo, but Arwen gives him a run for his money when they play! Frodo is becoming a love bug! He likes a nice lap and ear scritches. They both give nose kisses too. Because they are very emotionally bonded, we could not adopt them separately so it has taken a long time to help their permanent family find them.

But Saturday, January 15, their new humans found them at last! Miss Alicia saw them on Adopt a Pet and traveled from her home in another city to the adoption event Mom L and Dad P have been taking them to every Saturday and Sunday since October, 2021.

ARWEN AND FRODO ARE ADOPTED!!

APAWS!! APAWS!!

They are going to a new human Mom and Dad and they also get to have a little eleven year old human to play with as well! Mom L and Dad P had leaky eyes of joy and sadness. They knew we could not keep them and yet their love, patience and long foster care brought them into a close bond with the two kittens. They are about eight to nine months old now. Arwen is still needing to put on more weight but Frodo is just fine as he is! What a chow hound Frodo is!! LOL!!!

Frodo

ARWEN

And here they are together! They were so little and then they could no longer comfortably fit the top of their tower!!

And, Delta View Cats, our nonprofit community cat group that Mom L and Dad P and I founded, had an even more amazing weekend! We pulled a colony cat off the street where his feeder, Miss Kandi, serves him because he had an abscess on his front paw. Turns out that Mango, who is only about eighteen months old, is a great ole big sweetie love bug and lap cat!!! Mango was not at adoptions this past weekend, but a couple showed up last Sunday and wanted to see him. Long story short, they visited him here at my castle and they took him home yesterday too!!!

MANGO IS ADOPTED TOO!!

Miss Kandi has cared for Mango since he arrived at one of her small colonies as only a nine month old kitten. She and Mom L and Dad P shared some leaky eyes but we all know that Mango is going to his best home ever!!!

Fostering adult cats and kittens is not for the feint of heart, let me tell you! It is so sweet when they are adopted, but losing their presence in our home is bittersweet. Even Katie missed having our foster guests! Hope my blog post was worth waiting for today. I am late ‘cuz Mom L was still sniffling last night and couldn’t see to type.