A Ministry of Cats

INTRODUCTION

This blog is dedicated to all the people who have had faith in me; have trusted me and have supported me both financially and emotionally.  This blog was supposed to be my big Book that, like an egg that is left uncooked for too long - goes bad.  I started writing this “book” in January 18, 1999 with a very optimistic outlook and looking through pink glasses; today, I am wiser and not as naïve.  I decided to take the opportunity to use this blog to share events that led becoming  “The Cat Lady” published, once and for all.  Maybe the delay was a kind of good thing because a lot has happened since I stopped writing and I can just tack it all on now.

The cats that have become a permanent part of my permanent colony are “unadoptable” because of too many reasons that I can’t  understand:  too old at  2 months; has Fiv; has  Felv; is not a lapcat; not friendly enough, rescued from the streets, not declawed, sheds too much or just not pretty enough.  In one instance a pedigree was up for adoption.  We had of course had him neutered at 6 months of age.  “You ruined him!” the woman cried.  She decided not to adopt him.  Does love die that fast?  Some of these permanent guests are not socialized, they are learning to trust me but will lose all trust with anyone else  - they are semi feral.

I started doing rescue one cat at a time, never dreaming that I would eventually become the person people called when a cat was homeless or in trouble.  Yes, doing rescue tends to snowball and pretty soon you’re the Expert in the area.  Be careful, hoarding is the next step on this lonely ladder if you’re not careful.

It has been 20 years since my first rescue.   My experiences have exposed me to many types of rescue situations; rescue groups; cats and people.  The entire rescue “landscape” has changed with the introduction of “umbrella” groups and bunching of rescue groups.  TNR is currently the New hope of curbing the stray overpopulation. 

I do not regret any of the time spent on rescues, although some of the people I’ve met have served to educate me as to what is wrong with people in general.  They’ll run out to take kittens off your hands but refuse to even consider the homeless mom cat.  The entire Journey has been a Spiritual Path in that I have grown as a person and see the world through very different eyes; I have learned to talk to total strangers without letting their opinions overwhelm me.  I used to be a very shy individual and when I first started asking for donations I actually stuttered despite having a HS theatre background. 

Basically, I want people to know that rescue work will not generate financial prosperitys; like a Random Act of Kindness, it is a reward in itself.  When I look at Sweetie Pie, one of my rescues, I see that I gave her the opportunity to become the beautiful cat that she is today.  If I had not trapped her, she would have been run over by a train after going through sickness and trauma while trying to survive on the train tracks where she was abandoned at 8 weeks of age.

I grew up in various areas of NY and one of the constants everywhere that we moved to were abandoned kittens, cats and dogs.  In those days, dogs were tied to fences and the ASPCA truck would pick them up on a designated day of the week.  People have not changed very much today. 

Perhaps the frustration of not being able to help them has led to my insistence now that people stop putting these animals into harm’s way.  I want to say, “Listen people, animals starve, suffer and die because you insist on being irresponsible and ignorant.  Please CARE!  Love the animals; love each other!  If you can’t/won’t love them, then leave them alone.”  It seems like a weak cry into a very strong wind.

My Big Career Move Began with Individual Rescues

I have a lot of compassion for Individual Rescuers.  They have to use their own resources and doing adoptions is so hard that many become overloaded.  My exposure to rescue started out innocently enough.   As an Individual Rescuer I found a cat that needed help and took it to the vet.  After that I realized that in a building across the street from the local post office someone kept dumping kittens.  I kept taking them in and taking them to the vet and getting them adopted, keeping the ones that no one wanted.  I never charged adoptions fees and the people who adopted them kept in touch.  If I had a nickel for every person who told me, “this is your life work” I’d be in good shape now financially – if it actually generated money.  But apparently these people were right – this is my life work. 

I began to get a reputation as “that wonderful woman who saves cats.”  People began calling for me to help them.  Maybe they thought I had money.  I got the sickest cats on the street.   Many times they wouldn’t tell me who gave them my phone number.  I guessed it was from someone I helped in the past or maybe a vet tech.  Even my vet began calling me to bottle feed kittens and to foster cats! 

With Feral Cats I learned about Trap Neuter Return (TNR).  Trapping, Recovering and Returning cats that can't be socialized was another challenge that I had to get through.  The work got harder and harder.  The money kept going out.  The satisfaction of seeing cats transformed from sickly, skinney and scrabby was priceless.

 

 

 

The Orphaned Newborn kittens began coming in.  Bottle feeding is rough on your nervous system.  You don’t get any real sleep for about 2-4 weeks until the kittens can go for longer periods off the bottle.  When bottle feeding a kitten you do not hold it the way you hold a human baby.  The kittens naturally nurse on their belly, holding them in the human baby position (on their backs) will cause them to drown because the milk goes down into their lungs.

When they’re newborn to about 5 weeks, the feeding schedule is about every 30 minutes to about 1 hour.  At three weeks feeding is about every 2-3 hours and at 4 weeks every 3-4 hours (depending on the Individual Kitten’s need.)  Once they’re 5 weeks old, it gets easier; they can go 4-5 hours until the next bottle.  At this point I mix a little Beech Nut Chicken and Chicken Broth baby food with Nutrical (comes in a tube and is vitamins in a paste) into the KMR (Kitten Milk Replacer).  Giving cats or kittens regular milk will give them diahhrea and they can dehydrate pretty fast when they have the runs.  This picture was taken from This link:  https://pethelpful.com/cats/Newborn-Kitten-Care-The-First-Six-Weeks

It has more information on Newborn Kitten Care.  It has a link to a video about how to hold a kitten while feeding them.

At 6 weeks I start introducing them to kitten food with KMR.  The consistency of this is like oatmeal.  This bottle feeder began to look haggard at this point.

I was given a partner when I rescued a dog, Max, he was a Junkyard dog.  When the lot was sold Max was turned out into the street.  We ran into each other and he became a wonderful, loving part of my life.  He blossomed and began to look like the German Shepherd he was born to be.  The only “problem” is that Max became a cat rescuer.  Walking Max turned into a rescue operation.  “Max what are you looking at?”  Under a car or cowering in a driveway would be a cat or kitten.  “oh, Max please stop finding these cats.”  Of course, I couldn’t leave them there.  One thing that I believe is that you ought not to tell yourself that “someone else will help them.”  That’s not true and while the animal (dog or cat) is left without that “someone else” their situation gets worse and worse until they die or get run over by a car.  The ball is in your court – deal with it, help.  When I first started there were no resources for anyone.  Today there are resources that are available even for Individual Rescuers.