PAWS

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hi furriends!!  Meerkat here.  first of all, i want to purrsonally thank all of you for your kind birthday wishes for Panda Bear and me. it is so nice to hear from so many furriends on our special day.

as some of you may know, Daddy does a radio show on a local college radio station. he plays show tunes and sound tracks. the Tony Awards are awards that recognize excellence in Broadway theatre, and are on tv right now. which reminds me about Antoinette, a former foster kitteh here.

two years ago, on Sunday, June 13, 2010, a young kitteh showed up at our back door and applied in purrson to enter Furry Bambino Foster Academy.

of course, we accepted her application. Mom named her Antoinette because it was the day of the Tony Awards, which are named for Antoinette Perry.

initially when Mom saw Antoinette on the back porch, she thought i had gotten out! Antoinette bears a striking resemblance to me. don’t you agree? that’s me on the futon.

Antoinette has a gold flame mark on her forehead.

i don’t have a gold flame mark on my forehead, but Cookie does.

Antoinette was young, approximately 10 months to 18 months old. as we soon found out, ahem, she was strongly desiring a ManCat’s attention. loudly and repeatedly! not to worry, Mom got Antoinette an appointment for her ladygardenectomy just a few days later!

Antoinette was affectionate, but would abruptly swat at Mom and Dad (with claws extended) when she had had enough petting. Mom and Dad were concerned about how they would be able to get Antoinette adopted if she might swat at somebody!

in addition, Antoinette was VERY unhappy to be confined to the kitten room, but she hated all of us Furry Bambinos, so she could not have access to the rest of the house. she meowed out the front window to complain about her plight.

one evening, our next door neighbor and his girlfriend knocked on our door because they could hear Antoinette meowing. Tiger Lily, the girlfriend’s cat, was missing, and they asked if we had found a cat. the next door neighbor was a young big burly guy who worked at a fitness club. mom was worried what he might do about us having his girlfriend’s cat. (well, most of her anyway. heh.)

luckily they were just happy to have their cat back. so, Antoinette graduated from Furry Bambino Foster Academy and was “adopted by” (AKA “returned to”) the next door neighbor on Friday, June 25, 2010.

Post Script from Mom: When I tell this story to most people, they find it hilarious that I accidentally had the neighbor’s cat spayed. However, another volunteer in PAWS one-upped me and said “I spay my neighbors’ cats on purpose! If they let their cats outside and they have not been spayed or neutered, I catch them and have them fixed. They go missing for a day or two and then show back up fixed.”

Our now former neighbor let his house fall into disrepair (let the gutters fall off and left them off for several years as one example), quit paying the mortgage, and the house went into foreclosure. His house has FINALLY been sold at auction at a ridiculously low price, which has lowered the values of all the houses on our street. The house is currently being renovated by the new owner who we suspect will try to flip it.

So, yeah, we are REALLY glad that we got that cat spayed!!!  Would do it again, on purpose.

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Hi efurryone! I’m Sky! I would like to tell you about National Feral Cat Day (October 16). I will tell you about it, by telling you my story, and the story of my parents, Mama Rose and Daddy.

Last year, my brothers and sister and I were born to Mama Rose. We don’t know exactly when, but it was probably in July 2010. When we got big enough, Mama started bringing us to visit the back yard at Casa de Furry Bambinos. Mama was young, probably less than a year old herself. Our Human Mom and Dad began feeding us in a special cafeteria.

One day, the cafeteria door closed behind us while we were eating! We were trapped! That’s my brother Rusty and sister Marigold (now Mia).

Our Humans kept us in cages in the garage at first. Every day they fed us, scooped our boxes, and tried to cuddle and hold us. They gave us Baby Food as a reward for cuddling with them. That’s Sunny and me (Sky) huddling and trying to hide in our cage. Back then, Sunny was known as Mr. Wild Child, and I was Mr. Hissy.

Then one day we were all put into PTU’s, and taken to the Cleveland APL for our hoohaectomies and ladygardenectomies.

This is Woody, Hunter, and Sunny in the PTU. (Note the airplane ears and scared little faces.)

Soon after that, my sister and brothers and I moved into the Dormitory at Furry Bambino Foster Academy (Kitten Foster Room). That’s me on the right, hissing at Woody and Hunter. I was kind of crabiliated back then.

Mama was released to the Outside.

Our Human Mom and Dad feed her every day.

Recently, Mama has started TALKING to our Human Dad!!!  For those of you who know something about feral cats, you know that this is HUGE!!! And yesterday, for the First Time Ever, Mama said Hello to our Human Mom!!!

Per usual, our Biological Daddy was never part of our little family. He planted his seeds and left the scene. Our Humans saw him from time to time in the neighborhood.

My brother Woody and I look  A LOT like our Kitteh Daddy, which is why our Human Mom was convinced that Daddy was: a) A Male Cat, and b) Our Biological Daddy.

Then this summer, Daddy started showing up every day …

… to nom on Mama’s foods on the porch. Do you see Mama in the photo, too? She’s waiting for Daddy to finish eating. She always lets him eat first.

Our Humans got a Cafeteria (trap) and after some resistance on his part, trapped Daddy in July. He got his hoohaectomy at the Cleveland APL, and was released that night.

Now Mama shows up just about every day, and Daddy shows up often. Mama spent most sunny summer afternoons napping on the porch here at Casa de Furry Bambinos.

To celebrate National Feral Cat Day, our Human Mom is shopping online for some better ideas for winter shelter for Mama and/or Daddy. Our Human Parents are discussing the best way to keep Our Biological Parents safe this winter.

This Just In: Please if you could spare some purrs and purrayers, our Dear Friend Perfectly Parker and her family could use some.

And, while you are purring, please send some purrs for Carol, a Very Kind Human who is the volunteer coordinator for PAWS, the animal rescue group for which Mom and Dad volunteer. Carol is in the hospital right now after a terrible fall, and she and her family could really use all the purrs and purrayers you can muster.

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Greetings, furriends! It is me, your Floofy Furry Bambino, Caramel, with today’s update on our second class of Kitten Season 2011.

Meet Joan, Jett, and Braveheart! Sisters Joan (back) and Braveheart (front) are huddled together in the kitten bed. Brother Jett is sitting next to the kitten bed. (Mom and Dad considered naming Braveheart “Blackheart” to be consistent, but thought that was too unkind. Plus, Mom hopes that little Braveheart’s name becomes self-fulfilling.)

That’s because Joan, and especially Braveheart, are feral. Presently, Joan is “semi-feral” and Braveheart is about 90% feral. Brother Jett is the most trusting of the three siblings. They were found in a cat carrier along with their three other siblings in a local park. Because all six kittens were all skittish, the litter was divided up between two foster homes to socialize the babies.

Soon after enrolling in Furry Bambino Foster Academy, Jett developed some weird lesions on the bridge of his nose. About the same time,  Daddy casually mentioned to Mom over dinner that (another PAWS volunteer) “Eileen called this afternoon, and said that the other three kittens in the litter might have ringworm”.

Mom stopped eating, and replied: “R-r-r-ringworm? Do you know what that is? It is SO contagious! Aaahhhhh! That must be what the lesions on Jett’s face are!!!” She fled the dinner table and immediately called Eileen.

At the time, Daddy didn’t understand how serious ringworm is. He thought Mom was just being melodramatic (again). A lot of people think that ringworm is a parasite because of the name. Actually, ringworm is a skin infection that is caused by a fungus, the same one that causes Athlete’s Foot. Its spores become AIRBORNE and it can spread rapidly, and the spores can survive a long time (like a year) outside the host.

So Mom and Dad removed Joan, Jett, and Braveheart from the kitten room and moved them into a cat condo in the garage. Unfortunately, Nadia and Bart got exposed to Joan, Jett, and Braveheart, and would need to be quarantined for 14 days to see if they developed ringworm, too. Luckily, Lilia and Vitaly had just gotten adopted, so they were not exposed.

Next time: Treating the feral threesome for ringworm! Good times, kittehs, good times.

P.S. Joan, Jett, and Braveheart are the 13th class in the history of Furry Bambino Foster Academy. Not that we’re superstitious or anything …

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Mom here. The Furry Bambinos have graciously allowed me to borrow their blog to tell you the story of trapping a colony of 15 feral cats in a local neighborhood. When I left off last time, all 15 cats had been trapped, spayed or neutered, and vaccinated.

The first night we trapped 7 cats on Sunday May 15. They had surgery on Monday, May 16, and recovered overnight in my friend Diane’s Mom’s garage. That night, Monday, May 16, we trapped 5 more cats. Their surgery was on Tuesday, May 17. The last three cats were trapped on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning.

To make things “less complicated”, Diane’s Mom wanted to trap all the cats before releasing any of them so we wouldn’t have to figure out who was who. The problem with this plan was that the feral cats were returned after surgery in cat carriers, with the idea of being released very soon, not in a day or two. So Diane’s Mom cleaned the cat carriers and transferred the cats from a used carrier to a clean one.

One of the feral cats got loose in the garage during one of the transfers.

On Wednesday night, instead of releasing the first 12 cats back into their home territory, we had 11. Believe me, we tried to convince the missing cat to join his brethren for the Big Return. We searched all over the garage (which I have to say, is the CLEANEST garage I have ever seen), but there was no sign of him. So I suggested that he *might* be inside Diane’s sister’s car which was parked in the garage.

Sure enough, there he was, sitting on the engine block. He was so startled to see us, and we were so startled to see him, that we all froze for an instant. Before I could scruff him, he disappeared down into the engine. I donned a pair of gardening gloves, and reached in, trying to scruff the guy. He was so bony and at a weird angle, that all I could feel was his shoulder blades.

And then I felt his teeth, when he turned around and bit me.

OK then. Plan Q: we would set a trap for him and hope he would be hungry enough to get trapped again so we could return him back home. We waited around awhile, but he was not budging from the innards of the car.

We loaded up the other 11 cats in our cars and headed back to their home. Of course, it was cold, windy, and it started raining as soon as we stepped out of the cars with the cats. We carried the cats into the back yard (squish squish squish through the muddy grass), and set the carriers down on the patio.

We unlatched the doors, and swung them wide open.

Free at last!

Free at last!

All but one of the cats shot out and took off headed back to safety of their thicket of shrubs. David carried that carrier closer to the thicket and then the cat sped out and joined his buds. Diane’s Mom returned the other four kittehs to their home a few days later, including Engine Kitty, who did get trapped overnight inside the garage.

Despite all the logistics, the cold, the rain, the dark, and the exhaustion, it felt so good to know that these cats will not be reproducing. They will be healthier, and will no longer contribute to the population of cats in the area.

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Mom here, again. The Furry Bambinos graciously allowed me to borrow their blog to tell you this story. When I left off last time, what we had been told were “six or eight friendly kittens” turned out to be at least eleven adult feral cats in need of TNR before they started reproducing. TNR stands for “Trap Neuter Return” which is the best solution to manage the population of a colony of feral cats.

After much discussion regarding logistics, we borrowed eight humane traps from the Cleveland APL, and returned the following Sunday evening at 6:00 with more Stinky Goodness. It was raining, windy, and cold. The newspapers we used to line the traps kept getting blown around, and some of the traps were so sensitive that just picking them up would trigger them to close. Not optimal trapping conditions, to say the least. We set out the traps, and returned to our cars to wait. Nothing. So we left to grab dinner, dejected that we would catch any cats that night.

We returned an hour later to find four cats in traps! Woo-hoo!

We covered each trap with a towel, and instantly the cat inside quieted down. We transferred the trapped cats to our cars to keep warm and dry. After moving the remaining traps to different locations, we were able to trap three more cats before it got too dark to see what we were doing. We were pleased to have caught seven feral cats, but we counted at least five more, including a few clever ones who managed to eat the food without stepping on the trigger.

We brought the cats in the traps back to Diane’s Mom’s house, where we set them in the garage overnight.

Here are photos of the cats we trapped that night. Kitteh #1 is a long-haired orange and white male (I think). Orange cats are usually male.

Kitteh #2 looked to be a Siamese flame point mix.

Kitteh #3 is an orange tabby with some white on his chest.

Kitteh #4 is a long-haired brown tabby with white bib.

Kitteh #5 is a long-hair dilute calico female.

Kitteh #6 is a black, gold, and white calico female. Do you see two other sets of glowing eyes in this photo?

Kitteh #7 is a different orange tabby male.

We returned Monday night, May 16 (Panda Bear and Meerkat’s birthday) with five more traps, and with a nifty Drop Trap as well. Again, it was cold, raining, and windy, making trapping conditions less than optimal. The ground was saturated after weeks of rain, so there was a lot of squish squish squish through muddy grass.

I now have a new definition for Insanity: Standing in the bushes, in the dark, in the rain, holding the pull cord to the Drop Trap, and trying to trap a solid black cat! We gave up trying to trap the black cat in the dark, but did manage to trap five others. But we saw at least three more cats, including “Blackie”, the solid black cat with a noticeable limp.

Diane’s Mom and her friend were able to catch the last (we hope) three cats, and all have been spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and ear-tipped. Ear tipping is the universal symbol that a feral cat has been neutered and vaccinated. It is done while the cat is under anesthesia. It is done so that if they get trapped again, they won’t go in for surgery because the ear tip will indicate that they have already been neutered and vaccinated.

We were worried that Blackie might be euthanized due to his limp, but the APL did not note anything wrong with the paw. We had implored the APL staff to let Blackie live, since the property is on a quiet dead-end side street. So either Diane’s Mom caught a different black cat (not Blackie with the limp) or Blackie’s limp was not due to a fracture. We’ll never really know.

Next, releasing feral cats back in their home territory!

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Mom here. The Furry Bambinos graciously allowed me to borrow their blog for this post. As regular readers know, my husband and I volunteer for a local animal rescue group called PAWS (Public Animal Welfare Society). We foster kittens, I screen applicants for cat and kitten adoptions, my husband does transports locally taking cats and dogs to and from appointments, etc.

Now, we can also say that we have experience trapping a colony of feral cats.

It all started when my friend and co-worker Diane (name changed to protect the innocent) told me that her Mom was visiting a friend, and that there were “about six or eight friendly kittens” living outside the friend’s house. Diane’s Mom thought the kittens might be 2 to 3 months old. So Diane told her mom about me and PAWS.  I checked with PAWS if it was OK for me to “harvest the kittens” (as we say), and was given the OK and eight appointments for spay/neuter at the Cleveland APL.

On a warm sunny afternoon after work, Diane and I went over to the location to assess the situation. We were armed with the smelliest Stinky Goodness they make (Flaked Fish and Shrimp Feast, in case you were wondering), plates, water, dishes, surrender forms, and cat carriers. We were prepared to collect “friendly kittens” should they present themselves for collecting. We set up on the patio, and as Diane described it, “an army of cats” began appearing from the bushes once we opened the cans of Stinky Goodness.

It’s hard to estimate the age of a cat, especially when you can’t get close enough to hold and examine him or her. By my best guess, the youngest of the felines were in the 10-month age range. And all were skittish and afraid of us – feral. We counted at least eleven – possibly more – adult feral cats.

The difference between a stray cat and a feral cat is how they feel about humans. Stray cats are homeless cats who would make good companion cats for people. They like and trust people, and will let you pet them if you encounter them outside. Feral cats are not homeless – their home is the Great Outdoors, however inclement the weather or climate may be. However, they have not been socialized to trust people, and are therefore afraid of humans.

If a kitten is not socialized with lots of human contact early in life, they will grow up feral. There is debate as to what the critical age is, but from my experience, I would put it at 3 months. Which is not to say that an older feral kitten or cat cannot learn to trust people, but it will take MUCH MUCH longer, and A LOT of work. For more information about feral cats, please see Alley Cat Allies web site.

So, our hopes of harvesting young trusting kittens were scrapped – replaced by a TNR situation to get this cat population under control. It’s Kitten Season, after all, and by the looks of a few of the cats, some might already be pregnant. We needed to move fast to trap these cats before they started reproducing!

Tune in next time to find out if we were able to catch any of the feral cats!

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Greetings, furriends! Thank you all so very much for your birthday wishes, and for visiting in our Open House of the Furry Bambino Foster Academy! It was lovely getting to visit with all of you. We are planning to catch up reading and commenting this weekend.

As Headmaster of Furry Bambino Foster Academy (FBFA), it is my pleasure to introduce our first SQUEE-worthy class of Kitten Season 2011! Here, they are practicing their Itteh Bitteh Kitteh Nap Pile Committeh! Clockwise, from top: Nadia (grey tabby female), Lilia (Lynx Seal-point Siamese female), Bart (house panther), and Vitaly (Lynx Chocolate-point Siamese male).

The Gymnasts joined us here at the Academy on Wednesday, April 13. Guidance Counselor Panda Bear welcomed the bebbehs to FBFA.

They were eager to get out of the PTU and check out their dorm room!

We estimate that they were six weeks old at that time, so they are about 8 weeks old now. They had been found in a box on a porch in Cleveland. They are all in relatively good health. Three of the four have umbilical hernias which will be repaired when they have their ladygardenectomy or hoohaectomy surgery.

Lilia …

and Vitaly …

have already been “pre-adopted”. PAWS (the rescue organization with which FBFA is affiliated) has a very firm rule that all animals must have had their ladygardenectomy or hoohaectomy before they can go to their Furrever Home. Lilia and Vitaly are scheduled for their surgeries next Tuesday, May 3.

Nadia (grey kitteh with pretty grey stripes) and Bart (house panther kitteh) …

are scheduled for May 20. Bart has a slight heart murmur, and the V-E-T wanted to give him some more time hoping that he would outgrow it.

In case you were wondering why Mom named the kittens for famous gymnasts, see the following series of photos. Bart begins his climb with a flying leap to Mom’s knee, then shimmies up her leg, digging in his claws for traction.

Next, Bart is seen clinging to Mom’s hip before he begins his final climb to the top.

Bart on Mom’s back – climbing Mount Ve-Sue-vius.

Bart is pleased with himself for reaching the peak – Mom’s shoulder.

(Mom trims the bebbehs nails every few days because they grow back pretty fast.)

Mom is taking Nadia and Bart to an adoption event at our local PetSmart today. Hopefully, they will get “pre-adopted” too!


P.S. Bonus points if you KNOW the last names of the famous gymnasts for whom these bebbehs were named.

P.P.S. Double bonus points if you can SPELL the last names correctly!  🙂