Friday, January 19, 2024
A Rescue Reset: Benji's Boost
The Kitty Kia's steering dissolved spectacularly on the notoriously steep and winding Swartwood Hill (luckily I was going UP) and I managed to limp to a mechanic/car dealership, where I abandoned her for $500 and went home with a 2017 Promaster City van that was conveniently sitting for sale in their lot. This meant when a person I'd helped in the past called to say a cat who had been limping around the village with a dangling leg was eating on her back porch the night before snow and sub-freezing temps were forecast, I said "yes -- but call the shelter first." No surprise -- the shelter did not call back, so by the next morning, Benji the big-headed tomcat was in one of my traps in the back of the new-to-me van. (Here's his capture video on YouTube)
Any cat owner probably knows your bank account is crap-out-of-luck if you have a cat with a traumatic injury. Private veterinarians now often defer to emergency clinics, and emergency clinics often (not always) require 50% down on the estimate for the full medical care plan. That's just not an option for my bank account (currently at $98) or my credit cards at the moment. Luckily a wonderful clinic called Spay Neuter Save Network recently mentioned to me they will also do amputations, and when I shot them an email they replied "come on down!"
I threw up a fundraiser with a silent prayer that we'd raise the money before surgery was over. This clinic not only expertly lopped off Benji's leg, they extracted some bad teeth, drained and repaired a hematoma in an ear, neutered him, tested him for FeLV/FIV (negative!) and vaccinated him -- all for about 1/4 of what an emergency clinic would ask. The fundraiser is coming along great, but I could really use a little more help if any readers would like to pitch in:
I'll follow up with more details, and some great video of Benji hopping around my bathroom like he could care less about what body bits he no longer has, now that he's warm, fed, and getting lots of love. I'm guessing he'll be an easy boy to adopt out. Stand by for updates. I'm shaking the dust off this blog! (Yeah, yeah, you've heard that before).
Sunday, September 3, 2023
Goodbye to the goodest dog
I lost my Molly this past week.
I tried to write a little about how she passed, but in addition to losing her, I'm also finding myself quite sad about losing two beloved veterinarians I really trust who have since retired. Molly's passing was a completely different experience than it has been for my many other animals when their final day arrived. But I try to remember she was a joyous little dog, who loved the roadtrips to animal welfare conferences and manning the Petfinder booth, camping trips and twice-daily walks on our beautiful country road. She loved playing with cats and kittens. it was probably Molly's love of hiking and camping that got me thinking about my future plan to travel and aid animals via fundraising and video, with her and Wiki with me, so that Molly would have some exciting final years.
I always tell people, when they ask when they should let an animal go, to see if they still enjoy the things they most loved. So, while waiting for the results of bloodwork from her vet visit, I took Molly to a new trail on some nearby farmland. Nice and flat, but with a little stream to explore. You could tell she wanted to like it. She trotted the first few feet, but then dropped to a walk. For the record, Molly NEVER walks. She always trots. She didn't sniff. She stopped dead if she had to push through grass or a weed. She was uninterested by the stream. Then she just looked at me. She wanted to go back.
So back we went, and I knew that was my last adventure walk with Molly. The next day, she died while waiting for late-afternoon veterinary appointment.
I got Molly after Mark left. She was supposedly a little neglected adult dog, sadly tied in a back yard, who frequently escaped to look for love. A neighbor contacted my friend and fellow rescuer Debra, who knew I was looking for a dog. While I always expected to adopt on from a shelter on one of my Petfinder trips, I agreed to take a look. From the neighbor's yard, Molly looked like an older adult little blonde Pomeranian mix, with tear-stained eyes.
In fact, when I knocked on the door, it turned out Molly was a well-loved but way-too-active 7 month puppy owned by a couple who loved her. They had two active little boys, and a labrador they'd adopted from the shelter and nursed through parvo. Molly was "tied in the back yard" because she should dig under AND climb over their sturdy chainlink fence. The mother was pregnant and about to have yet another little boy. Molly ran around like a happy demon while we talked. Turned out they realized Molly was just too active for an apartment with another dog, two small boys, and a baby, and were happy to have a Petfinder employee and rescue person knock on the door like an unasked-for solution. After a quick drive around the village to be sure Molly liked trucks and didn't get carsick, they handed over her veterinary papers and Molly came home with me. Turns out I was Molly's third home.
Molly unfortunately didn't have the best puppyhood with me. I was still upset over Mark leaving, so having a puppy tick-tick-ticking around on my heels meant she got yelled at far more than she should have, for things that were just normal puppy behavior. But once I finally grieved out, Molly came with me on roadtrips for Petfinder, and the last three years we shared a lot of camping adventures. My mom loved her, so she came along on most of my family visits, and my sister Linda also welcomed her. So Molly and I had a lot of fun, active times together.
When I first got her, I had dreams that she'd go everywhere with me. But too often the truck or car air conditioning was broken, or I was tied up taking care of the house and farm, and chasing cats. We didn't have the "joined at the hip" life I'd really dreamed about, and that she would have thrived with. Molly had a good life with me, but she could have had a far better life with someone else. She wanted to be a kid's best friend, not a cat lady's sidekick, even though she loved me and had fun with me. I guess that's true for many of us -- whether four-legged or two-legged.
As time goes on, I'll tuck photos I find into this post, but here are some videos being the bouncy sweet dog she always was, so I have one place to visit her, always.
Miss you, Molly. Love you.
Molly playing fetch, getting ambushed by a kitten in the curtains (with a cameo by three-legged Cricket)
Molly diving into the deep snow one winter, chasing imagined mice and bunnies
Molly enjoying a stream
Saturday, September 2, 2023
Rosemary checks in
Rosemary’s been a great buddy through everything. She loves snuggling and she knows a set of tricks, including sit, wait, high-five, and beg. Pepper, the neighbor’s cat, is her nemesis, and she really wants to murder any kittens we bring in to foster but she restrains herself because she can tell we like them. 😄Updates from past adopters really give me a lot of joy. If you'd like to let us know what you are up to, you can email us at owlhouseadopt@ gmail dot com . Even if you cat has passed -- since we've been adopting since 1993 -- we'd love to hear from you.
Sunday, June 18, 2023
Killian the Grey checks in
Killian checking in --- thin and fit! |
Pepper and Timea come to visit
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Waking up from hibernation
Sunday, November 13, 2022
A scrubbing Sunday, and my disillusionment with the hard turn in national cat rescue messaging
Saturday, November 12, 2022
A summer hijacked by cats
This was supposed to be the summer I worked on the house and got it ready for sale. It ended up being a a flurry of TNR starting in August, plus a bucket of kittens. I finally made a contact -- and a friend or two -- at a barn I've been wanting to address, and once I had a a paw in that door, I didn't want to put it off.
Saturday, August 21, 2021
How do old bloggers reinvent themselves?
Many of the blogs I used to follow years ago are no longer active.
I miss a lot of my blogging friends. Some of them I never met, but we exchanged comments, read about one another's lives, and even sometimes sent each other something in the mail. Luckily, I'm still able to follow some of them on Facebook, but some -- well, I never knew their names, so was never able to track them down...when I thought to try.
I was certain I'd never fall out of the blogosphere, but I have, like so many others. I spend a lot of time blogging in my mind, which doesn't do much good for anyone, even myself. I've reflected a lot: "Why am I not blogging?" "Why did so many others stop blogging?" I'd thought -- about others -- that they just got bored or distracted, or it was a fad that passed.
I've only posted about 11 times since I left Purina/Petfinder two years ago -- even though I've blogged in my mind about million times.
I began blogging back in the 90s, back when blogging wasn't tied to ads and SEO (search engine optimization -- using key words to make your content appear at the top of search results). Blog posts were shared organically. There was a lot of conservative and liberal blogging going on back then, and it wasn't as polarizing as the world of crazy we have now. (I even found my old blog -- actually 2 of my blogs -- here!) Cats were the excuse for a lot of those political posts...in fact, it's how the blog hop Carnival of the Cats got started (link is from 2015 but sums up a bit of history).
So why mention this at all?
I'm planning a pretty drastic change to my life. For it to work, it requires a return to blogging, and the addition of video blogging/vlogging as well.
Before I gave up my own brand in 2004 ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of loose cats!") and took on the voice of the other businesses I worked for, I used to be a bit of a rebel.
When I jumped from the corporate ship after about 14 years, I envisioned a return of my rebel voice. That hasn't happened.
However -- damn! -- I DO have rebel feelings. There are some new trends in the world of cat sheltering that are really pissing me off. Instead of seeing more and better services for cats that take some of the load off of individual rescuers, I'm seeing trends that dumps every single cat rescuing responsibility -- with the exception perhaps of scheduling spay neuter -- into the lap of unfunded cat loving individuals, and small poorly funded rescue groups.
I plan to go right to shelters (big and small), cat rescues, and individual cat rescuers across the US, tell their story -- and raise money for them at the same time.
I'm going to stop there. All of this means nothing if I can't get back into the habit of blogging -- and get the equipment and skill to start vlogging. I need to rebuild my email list, and I need to wrap up a lot of loose ends.
So hopefully you'll be seeing more me...and more of this silly guy. His name is Wiki. He's fearless, and I hope some of that rubs off on me.
So, old blogging friends, how have you reinvented yourselves?
Sunday, May 16, 2021
My apologies to subscribers
For some reason, Blogger is sending messages to subscribers about past posts, anytime I log in and touch anything -- even if I'm just creating a draft for a new post.
I will be suspending notifications completely (Google is getting rid of this option next month anyway) and I'll send an email manually in June to see if anyone wants to sign up for manual notifications once a month. Again, I'm really sorry for the spam. :(
Here's a pic of adoptable Finn to make reading this message somewhat worthwhile:
Love you all!
Susan
Saturday, May 15, 2021
Saturday, March 27, 2021
My old sideboard...someone's new sideboard
So I mentioned I'd sold my huge old sideboard that had been given me by a good hearted neighbor years back.
A local couple who buys and repaints furniture bought and repainted it. Here it is three days later:
It'll sell for hundreds of dollars, I'm sure, down in Chandler's Market in Sayre. I knew when I sold it for $35 that it would ultimately be sold for a lot more because this type of furniture, chalk painted, is all the rage now in modern "farmhouses." It takes a lot of paint and skill to change a piece of furniture like this (for example, the refurbisher painted the inside, not just the outside as I did), and this took three coats of paint in different colors to get this effect, and I'd just slapped one coat on when I had it. I just don't have the energy or flair to complete re-do furniture for other people. I only do the minimum possible to make it acceptable in my own.
Anyway, it's on to a new life and it was fun to watch it's transformation on the new owner's Facebook page. And I have a TON more room in my house.
Monday, March 15, 2021
More projects done...more restlessness put behind me
I've talked to a couple of friends who are experiencing the same ailment. Here we are at home, so you'd think we'd get more done. But due to...what? Angst over the elections? Tons of snow? Isolation doldrums? Who knows. It's not getting done. It helps to know I'm not alone, but it's been dragging us all down.
I've finally taken some steps to get my butt in gear. I hope I can keep the momentum going.
Since the screen door on the stairs was added years ago, the screen has been getting more and more shabby. I sort of tacked a piece of wood at the left because the door was too small for the opening and I needed to attach a hook-and-eye. Of course, one hook-and-eye wasn't enough for cats intent on getting downstairs, so I added two. Plus one on the inside. It looked like hell (IMO) to visitors, and of course was difficult to explain how to latch as I led people upstairs and they were left to secure the door behind them. Two years ago I bought a new door and a door knob, but the bears destroyed my porch, and I used that door to replace the one they'd smashed to bits.
So a few nights ago I pulled down the old door, ripped off the screen, attached plastic hardware cloth that I'd purchased on Amazon, and installed the sitting-in-a-closet-for-two-years door knob kit. I also purchased some wooden ornamentation for the corners, to keep me from splurging on a fancy new door (the bones on this one were just fine). I got a new piece of wood for the door frame instead of the mismatched thing I'd had tacked up. Now people can go up and downstairs without wondering how the heck to open and secure the door. And it doesn't look a total mess. I can't begin to tell you how much joy I get out of opening and closing this door with a simple knob instead of messing with hooks on both sides.
Before:
After:
I had some help from Mocha who didn't seem to understand that he was doing an "if it fits, it sits" in a contraption meant to cut things in half.
Then the front storm door blew off the hinges in a gust of wind earlier this winter, so I ordered a new one from Home Depot (the cheapest brown one available, because I was damned if I'd be scrubbing dirty fingerprints off a white door before every visitor arrived again). It barely fit in the car, and it was a pain to put up (thank you, YouTube!), but now that's done as well. There was quite a bit of swearing involved, and I really hope no one was enjoying a country walk at the same time as I was exercising my vocabulary.
A few years back, a neighbor renovated their kitchen and gave me the vintage furniture they'd been using as a pseudo-kitchen until then. I chalk-painted it up and it's been hugely helpful. But one of the sideboards is absolutely huge (72" long) and the amount of storage it provided in return for the space it took up was insubstantial. For about a year the room it's been in has seemed more like a repository of extra furniture than an actual room I could hang out in. I put the sideboard up on Facebook Marketplace for the cost of the paint and knobs I put on it ($30) (since it had been given to me for free) and quickly got a taker.
To replace it, I picked up a beat-up but sturdy dresser at the Re-Use Center in Ithaca, and threw some chalk paint, wallpaper, and Mod Podge at it. I already had the supplies. So I have as much room, but I can put the dresser along a small wall instead of it taking up the entire length of the room.
Before (well...during)
After:
Now the couch, which was literally sitting diagonally in the middle of the room before, can be along the wall. The sideboard is waiting to be picked up tomorrow -- you can see how huge it is, at the right. And now all the furniture that was pretty much just thrown in there is an actual room.
I've been getting some professional coaching, and I really haven't been able to explain to her how much all these undone projects have been preying on me. Every time I see something that I've started and just haven't finished, it ties up my brain so that I can't even think about the things I ought to -- and really want to -- do. Take photos of the cats, paint the art walls I have planned for the cat rooms, make videos to help with adoption processes... So I've just decided these projects HAVE to get done so I can be mentally free to work with the cats.
The two biggest things remaining projects are the backsplash wall in the kitchen, and the last of the flooring. Then I won't be tripping over the boxes of flooring that sit in the great room, or the box with the new kitchen light that's on the floor in the pantry. I'm already thrilled that the boxes of doorknobs are on the doors and not in a pile in the closet, and that the stair door is actually pretty instead of a wreck. And that I have a storm door again so cats are less likely to zip outside.
I'm getting there.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Cat stretch in three movements, performed by Daphne
Daphne's (formerly Goggles) mom, sent these photos over, titled "A demonstration of the evolution of the the streeeeetch (with bonus teefs)" The teefs are the cutest:
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Princess Peach and her escaped-being-feral kittens
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Turning the clock back on the house, one project at a time
This is a door knob in the Owl House.
This is when I purchased replacements, in my baby steps to make the house look a bit more like a farmhouse again:
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Cats be gettin' all judgy like....
Anyone else getting the winter/COVID blahs? Wow. I feel like I'm swimming (unenthusiastically) through a fog. I've been trying to focus on getting a few things done (checkmark by checkmark) so that I don't pile more crap on that heap o' blah by falling behind on projects and day-to-day stuff. I need to at least keep creeping forward.
Oliver can tell when I'm just noodling around, not actually getting anything productive done. Or maybe I just like to think he can. At any rate, he lets me know by plopping a paw -- or sometimes his entire butt -- on my hands.
We've had a shit-ton of snow. Some of your probably got whomped with it, too. It's time to take down this garden flag, I think, lest Mother Nature continue to take it literally. (If you are on your phone and you refuse to admit your eyes are getting old, like me, the flag reads "let it snow.")
So how are you getting through it all? I'm able to get myself outside to walk now and then by reminding myself that warm weather will be nice, but it will also bring ticks, and it's glorious to walk outside without having to strip and shower after every short hike or trip to the woodpile. If you've had motivational success with anything you've tried, let me know. I could use any techniques that have worked for you.
I've been trying to erase some of the negatives in my daily attitude. One of those is (no surprise) the number of unfinished projects I have around here. For example, my kitchen and walk-in area need a paint refresh. But this is how I roll. I repainted the kitchen white a few years back, and this is the area around one of my outlets:
Friday, January 1, 2021
To survive, you've got to take a moment to stop for beauty
Thursday, December 31, 2020
On the road with spay/neuter
What we TRY to do with the American Cat Project, is fix cats (not shelter and adopt cats out). When I first started working with a national website that helped adoption groups, TNR was new. At that time, we did phone interviews of every new member. Every week a new TNR member would join, and inevitably they said "We were told that all we had to do was spay/neuter with TNR, but we've found we always have friendly cats or kittens that shouldn't be put back, who need homes, so we need to post them for adoption."
They were always a bit shell-shocked that TNR often meant becoming a small pseudo-shelter. Some groups were lucky enough to have good contacts with actual shelters, and could turn socialized kittens over to the shelter. But 15 years ago, many TNR projects were started because the local shelter was so overwhelmed they simply didn't have room.
(The change of TNR over the years is a topic for another post. Sentiment has very recently swung toward returning almost every healthy cat -- even friendly ones -- with "return to field" or "shelter/neuter/return." I don't agree with this practice except in large municipalities who are so swamped with cats they can't get ahead without this emergency practice --I would argue short-term for 10 years or less. But...didn't I say that was for another post?)
So what the traditional view of TNR often requires, to save on gas and time for all parties involved, iis "cat smuggling" in parking lots.
It's NOT cat smuggling, but it often feels that way, as you swap cats back and forth in carriers while nearby people look at you in curiosity. After an initial site visit, the caretaker and TNR group find a halfway point, meet in a parking lot, and the cats are transferred from car to car so one person isn't spending hours and gas on very long drives.
Most recently, my rendezvous point for a Chemung County colony has been Sportsman's Warehouse. It's clearly a building that's hard to miss, and the parking lot is a reasonable size so caretaker and rescuer can spot one another. Although this week the caretaker's truck was hidden behind a huge bank of plowed snow, so it took awhile for me to track him down.
Saying goodbye to adopted cats
Emmett and Eveline (now Gracie) went to their new home in the Binghamton area this past week. I try to say my goodbyes before I crate them up, because when they are released in their new safe room, they tend to head straight under the bed and there's no chance for a cuddle. Most safe rooms are a guest room or the new guardian's bedroom.
Sometimes I forget to say goodbye when I pack them up, and it's always somewhat bittersweet when I leave them behind.
Emmett surprised me by checking things out first (how could he resist all that cool cat stuff?) but soon joined Gracie in the usual kitty safe spot. Kim, their new guardian, and a previous adopter (Tyler, a Russian blue type cat who was a close buddy of mine when he was growing up), sent an update:
"Emmett and Gracie have full run of the upstairs when I am home and then just their room when I am not. I sleep in the other room upstairs and wake up to find both of them under my bed. I learned that Emmett can be had for treats so while he is still not all in on pets he will come right up to me, show me his belly and talk to me. Gracie loves to sleep under the comforter so I lift it up, give her pets and talk to her then leave her be. She doesn't move so that is good. Tyler has seen them both through the gate. There has been a little hissing but no hair up and neither Emmett or Gracie seemed impressed so I think that is just him being nervous. They are all very curious about each other."
It's always a bit interesting to see how cats act in their new home. Kim chose both Gracie and Emmett so that Emmett would have a brave cat to pull him out of his shell. But in the new home, Emmett is the brave boy and Gracie is cuddling under the comforter.
If only they could talk to let us know how they really feel, because just watching cat behavior in their first home (here at the Owl House) just doesn't really give a good window into how they'll act when they move on to their next chapter of life.
Here's video of the beginning of their journey when they were being trapped! SO cute.