Savannah's Paw Tracks

Autobiography of a Former Shelter Cat

Archive for the tag “Community Cats”

What a way to start February!

HIYA!!   SAVANNAH HERE!!!

This was one crazy pants week last week!! At least in the world of rescue and humane management of abandoned community cats. Pardon me if I bore you with a long post, but oh well! It’s my bloggy, right?? MOL!!

We started the week with what we thought was a “new” cat that was dumped at our park colony. The cat is friendly for sure. But, when Mom L got a microchip check, that kitty was chipped to HER!!! Back in 2018!!! From the park!!! Mom L finally (*smacking hand to forehead) figured out that this cat was one she thought was friendly and could be adopted so she took it to our “back then” partners at our county animal shelter. The cat was pronounced “feral” and Mom L had to return it to the colony. She disappeared until NOW!!!

Talk about us cats having nine lives! This cat is about 5 years old. No telling where she has been. We fostered her for a short time and now she has been with the best kitty foster ever, Miss Yasmin! Because of Miss Yasmin’s way with scared, abandoned cats,  Senorita is on her way to adoptions this coming weekend!! Her foster adores her! You can see her eating when she returned to the park and now look at her looking at her foster with such adoration in her eyes!! Her name is “Señorita”. Please send her purrs of encouragement for her first time at the adoption even this coming Saturday!!

And not a day past by before my kitty sitter Miss Kandi called for help with one of her colony cats, Sweet Pea, that was walking like a tripod! This darling boy has been in Miss Kandi’s care for twelve years!! He gets fed mid-day and Miss Kandi sits with him in her van for about an hour so he can eat and then spend time in her lap getting and giving nose kisses! So Sweet Pea came to my castle over night and then Mom L took him for medical treatment from our county shelter. They were kind to him but nonetheless, Sweet Pea turned “feral” acting and any exam took sedation. Long story short, he is a senior mancat and likely has arthritis.

But check him out as he transitions behavior from being in a trap to being in Miss Kandi’s arms within thirty seconds of leaving that trap at my castle garage!

Out of the trap and out of the shelter!

Sweet Pea wanted to be back outside and that is where he will live out his life. My nonprofit, Delta View Cats, will make sure that Sweet Pea has a heated shelter where he normally sleeps. The resident at that home offered to run an electric cord for power out his window! And Sweet Pea will live out his nine lives loved and cherished by Miss Kandi and Delta View Cats.

I know you think that was enough for one week—but not in the world of community cat TNR and rescue. Remember, this is all happening in just one week!

A couple of our volunteers have been trying to trap a mom cat at their apartment complex for months and months! She has had four litters in three years! They have fostered the kittens from two of those litters. Finally, they trapped her!!! WOO HOO!!! And they also trapped another young female, less than a year old. Mom L and Dad P offered to recover the two girls as they need to be kept for a minimum of four to six nights. The black mom cat was in heat and the gray juvenile girl was pregnant with six kittens!

You can see mom cat outside the apartment complex, and then both of them as they are being transported to their “freedom” called SPAY surgeries, and then recovering in my castle garage.

The mom cat will likely be released in another 5 days, but the gray girl, named in the Nahuatl language as Tozi (Aztec goddess of healing and sweet water) will be going to Miss Yasmin for foster and then on to adoptions. If you are not in a hurry, please view Tozi’s first video the afternoon of her spay surgery. Would you adopt this kitty? Please do tell me in comments ‘cuz we think she is gonna be crazy adoptable!!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

Cats have deep feelings for each other

HIYA!!   SAVANNAH HERE!!!

I will leave it up to my readers to tell me different, but I purrsonally know, that we cats care deeply for our fellow felines who are in distress. Maybe we don’t show this in a way humans can understand, but we show it in ways only we can understand.

You have heard me report lots about Mom L’s years of volunteer work at the Kitchen Clinic, run about 2-4 times a month by our partners Community Concern For Cats.

They do so much for so many cats/kittens of all ages.

Mom L and her BFF Doc Josie, and Miss Gemma were doing the clinic a couple weeks ago and they witnessed the exceptional care bond between kitties who did not all know each other.

BACK STORY: A senior community cat, was brought in by her caretaker because the cat wasn’t grooming, getting thinner and very lethargic. She was a Seal Point Siamese, long hair, blue eyes—stunning—even with her furrs not well groomed. They first treated a walnut sized abscess on the side of her face. Then Doc Josie saw that her mouth was ablaze with inflammation and infection. Doc Josie did a  quick biopsy to send off to learn what was going on. In the mean time, Doc Josie suspected that the evil stomatitis was at play so she administered a powerful steroid.

Sadly the labs came back showing extreme severe stomatitis all over her mouth and down her throat. She was also consuming a lot of water and frankly, she smelled like a senior cat in renal failure. The decision was made, with her caretaker’s input, to send this precious sweet girl on her way to collect her Angel Wings.

In the photo below, she has been deeply sedated, in preparation for her euthanasia injection. Mom L, Doc Josie and Miss Gemma were collecting their own emotions about losing this courageous abandoned kitty—when Mom L saw a site that was amazing!!

First the white with black girl cat, Me-Me, slowly hopped onto the kitchen table and very carefully curled her warm comforting body very tightly against the departing kitty’s tummy. Then, orange Rocket, a male who loves everything people and kittehs, very carefully hopped onto the other side of the heavily sedated girl. Rocket first settled against her back, then—that wasn’t close enough for empathetic Rocket. He then resettled himself lightly onto her side so he could offer even more warmth and comfort.

I named her “Trooper”. She had to survive outside for so long, after abandonment by humans, and then she found she was comforted and loved at the ending of her life by her dear feline family.

Cats Have Deep Feelings For Each Other!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

Lives we shared—and lost

HIYA!!   SAVANNAH HERE!!!

You all know that we, meaning me, Mom L and Dad P, are very involved in our 501c3 non-profit we call Delta View Cats, right? We only serve on city of Pittsburg, CA and we are a very small all volunteer group that is passionate about promoting and delivering humane management of our city’s over population of abandoned community cats. Part of our work includes humane management of several small colonies around our city’s marina and waterfront area. Probably about 45 or so cats and sometimes, kittens.

This includes 13+cats we feed every day who live in a long standing colony at our waterfront city park River View Park. This park has long been a favorite dumping area for humans who want to get rid of their cats and kittens. You may remember, that our two foster kittens, Frodo and Arwen and their Mom Eowyn were all dumped at this very park August 26 of this year.

I want to share with you, my furriends and your humans, the side of our TNR work and colony management work that is both so fulfilling and also sometimes filled with sadness and loss.

We have come to know and love and share in the life of Elizabeth. A beautiful part lynx point Siamese girl who has lived at this park since she was abandoned there as a kitten, along with her sister. Her sister was willing to become socialized and lives a happy safe indoor life with a former colony feeder. But Elizabeth chose to live her life with the colony. We have shared her life for probably ten to fourteen years. Only recently she was beginning to allow our feeders to actually pet her beautiful furs.

Early the week of our Thanksgiving, a couple who feed noticed that Elizabeth was suddenly looking extremely poorly. We put out a call to all of our eighteen volunteers to see who was available the weekend following Thanksgiving to watch a drop trap so we could get her medical help. Thankfully, the day after the call went out, the couple who noticed her at first on the Friday, were able to pick her up late on Saturday and get her to an emergency vet hospital.

You can see how unkempt she is and she was very thin. Sadly, the vet found her mouth and throat were full of cancerous sarcomas. We agreed to keep darling Elizabeth from suffering any more and we asked the vet to give her help to start her journey to The Rainbow Bridge. I know many of my readers do not believe in this fantasy, but it helps me and Mom L and Dad P when we have to let go of one of the many abandoned community cats for whom we provide care and love. Elizabeth shared her life with us and we helped escape her earthly body that was in such pain and now wherever her spirit is, she is chasing butterflies and basking in delicious sun puddles, cushioned by soft, fresh green grass.

Please wave at Elizabeth next time you see a floofy cloud pass over that resembles a cat!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

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