Colds and colder

Wednesday, January 13, 12:16am
Slow week, getting back to English classes, but continued to spend some time working on the web site and cats’ pages. Finished tallying the Rescue List totals for 2009, and was surprised to see that we are only 2 kittens over the excess number that we had last year. We rescued 82, rehab/returned 10 of those, placed 46 of those (+22 placed from those rescued in previous years), and 5 didn’t survive. So that leaves us with an excess of 21 new rescues remaining, and we had 19 of the 2008 rescues remaining at the same time last year. Somehow it seems like we have so many more here this year! I imagine it’s because we have more younger ones, which are a bit harder to provide care for, but they should also be easier to adopt. The great thing is that we actually ended 2008 with 58 total in the shelter and ended 2009 with 57, and that’s having rescued 20 more cats this year than last. I haven’t received the last TNR reports yet, so haven’t finished tallying that number yet. Anyway, it shows us that we’re not in bad shape, compared to last year, so that’s encouraging! We have at least two new families adopting over the next couple of weeks and 1 offering to provide foster care. I missed the deadline for getting our classified ads in various publications coming out this month, but was able to work on those coming out in February. It has to be done the middle of every month, and if things are a little crazy around here at that time, It’s hard to keep track of it. Anyway, that should help reach a few more adopters before March.

David went out to the Biwako site with a volunteer, while I was teaching classes on Saturday. They were able to finally meet the main feeder! He goes there everyday–fantastic news!–and is happy for the cats to be spayed and neutered. He knew Bruce, and said that Bruce had been living at the site for a long time, but that he had caused a lot of problems by being a big fighter. Probably not the best idea to put him back. The feeder is not the person that took down the shelter, and is in fact, the one that assembled it a while ago. Not sure who took it down, but since we’re working with the city on this project now, perhaps whatever we put up will be less likely to be tampered with. We worked on building a couple of initial shelters using large rubber bins, with small doors cut in the side. I put bricks in the bottom (for weight against the wind), lined them with foam sheeting, and put blankets inside. We took them out to the site tonight, since we heard snow might be coming soon, and we wanted to be sure the cats out there have something for the time being. Nigel has been spending all of his time out in the kitten enclosure, and has sometimes been too afraid to leave his bed to use the litter box, choosing to go where he is hiding. This is dangerous, because it’s cold, but he will only stay in the room if we keep him caged. We decided to take him back, now that we’re sure he’ll be fed everyday, and that he has shelter. He ran away, as soon as he was released, but a volunteer is going back to the site tomorrow to check on him.

A few sneezes have cropped up in the kitten room, probably because we haven’t been able to air it out as often, due to the cold weather. Deb and Scooby both have had chronic upper respiratory infections that we’ve been treating them for, so it’s no surprise to see a bit of that spreading, but it’s disappointing, since we’ve been able to contain it until now. We just switched everyone back to Royal Canin , which includes Lysine and other immune system modulators. We’re also keeping most of the kittens caged, with only limited group playtime, so hoping to see some improvement soon. The room is a bit more crowded, now that the colder weather has made even the bigger kittens and adult cats choose to stay inside with the heater, rather than out in the enclosure with hot water bottles. It doesn’t help that Bruce All Mighty prefers the enclosure…Even George avoids him. Jellybean is the only cat determined to stake her claim to the area, but her strategy is to mostly stomp around and complain loudly (not too different from her strategy for everything!), which does put Bruce off a bit. David is planning to take the sneezers out to the vet tomorrow morning, so hoping it doesn’t snow, which makes bicycling difficult. Add balancing several cat carriers, and it becomes more of a circus act, than a trip to the vet…except without all the laughing or the clowns, I guess.

Fantasia has become the house-cat that she always wanted to be! She’s a lot happier, since Rosie and Daisy went back, and lounges comfortably in the favorite spots. She seems to find it warm enough, even without 24 hour access to a heated area, which she craved last year. Perhaps it’s due to her newly fluffed out fur coat! That’s her having a cute stretch, in today’s photo.