Robert's Mom = Our Weekend Plans

Hello, Everyone!

I'm sure you all remember Robert's Mom (also the mother of the kittens we're trying to find homes for)...
She was supposed to have an appointment at FixNation today, but, again, we were unable to catch her. We set up the trap and, once again, she used her paws like a raccoon to scoop up the bait without triggering the trap. Though, one time, we DID catch her kittens! And, man, were they pissed!!

So, from 7pm to 12am last night, we sat outside with a long piece of twine attached to the door of the cage. Like a cartoon trap... You know. With a box, some bait, a stick, and a piece of rope. Like the way you catch the rat in Monkey Island 2.

Anyway, she went in the trap when we did that too, but she managed to slip out as the trap was closing. She's FAST!!

We wrote to FixNation and got this in reply:

Will this cat go anywhere near your feet? If the cat will get close enough to your feet, you plop a laundry basket trap over the cat, then "spider" the cat onto a piece of secure plywood, which becomes the "floor", then duct tape the whole thing together. Bring along an extra empty trap for the cat to recover in. Make sense?

You're officially on the roving reservation list. Let me know when you've been able to trap her, okay?

Yes--keep the trap and keep trying!!!

don't give up--you'll get her.

liz

So, I guess you all know what we'll be doing Sunday night. Wish us luck!!

--Lauren*

Ziggy's Mom

Hey, Everyone!

Those of you who read my last post know that Ramiro and I trapped a feral cat the other night and took her in to be spayed yesterday. Here she is:For those of you who would like some history on this cat, we call her "Ziggy's Mom." Because, of course, that's who she is! (How appropriate that I should have a "mom" post right in time for Mother's Day, eh?).

Ziggy's Mom has been hanging around our house for a while now and is between 1-2 years old. Her first (that we know of) litter was during the Station Fires and contained one cat. She ditched that kitten at birth and refused to come back. Ramiro waited a whole day for her to return, but she never did. In the end, he ended up rescuing the kitten and, in the end, he was given to our friend Darlene. His name is Smokey and he's now a fat & happy cat.
Here's a picture of Ramiro with Smokey when we went to visit him (and Darlene, of course!) a few weeks after he was given to her:Smokey is much bigger now.

Anyway, right after she had Smokey, Ziggy's Mom got pregnant again right away (back-to-back litters!) and she gave birth to Ziggy, the angriest cat in the world:Photo credit goes to Sarahe for the Ziggy pic.

Ziggy's Mom took care of Ziggy for a few weeks (she put in an effort!) but eventually she ditched Ziggy too. When Ramiro and I started taking care of her, she wasn't even fully weened yet. Fortunately, like Smokey, the litter that contained Ziggy was a litter of one.

Ziggy's Mom was pregnant again a couple weeks ago. She didn't have the kittens in our yard this time, but we know that she had them somewhere. One day she was pregnant and the next day she wasn't. FixNation said that she definitely gave birth recently and they seemed a tad perplexed that she wasn't still lactating. Wherever those kittens are, they're probably dead. Looks like she ditched another litter.

Anyway, the happy ending of the story is that we released Ziggy's Mom this morning and she's doing really well. And she'll never have unwanted babies again! :)

Hopefully, on my next post, I'll be telling you all about Robert's Mom. She's next on our list to Trap-Neuter-Release. Especially since she's pregnant again! We have to trap her this upcoming week, so please send lots of prayers and "good luck" wishes our way. Robert's Mom is a tricky cat who seems to be savvy to what's up. We've already gotten her in the trap twice, but she somehow manages to eat all the bait without setting off the trigger! So yeah... Wish us luck.

Until next time!

--Lauren*
PS: This is what Ziggy looked like as a kitten:She was always an angry cat.

Robert & Ziggy Neutering

On Sunday, May 2nd, we kept Robert and Ziggy locked in our room overnight to a.) make sure they didn't eat anything after Midnight and, b.) to make sure they'd be here on time for their appointment at FixNation the next morning at 7am.

Robert was a bit confused about the purpose of the litterbox and seemed to think it was a bed:My mom says it looks like he's trying to hatch something.

The next morning, at 7am, we took them both to FixNation to be neutered. Ringo was very confused around breakfast time and spent the bulk of the day until they returned looking for them:
We brought Robert and Ziggy home at around 5pm that same evening. They were both neutered and ear-tipped (if you can't afford to pay, FixNation will neuter your cats for free, but only if you agree to let them cut off a part of your cat's right ear). We hated to do it, but seeing as we have no money, we had no choice. Thankfully, the people working there were very nice about it and made sure that the ear-tipping was minimal. You can barely see it:
We kept both cats in our room again overnight. The next day, Robert was bouncing around as if nothing had happened. Ziggy, however, was having a bit more trouble. Not only was her surgery much more invasive (spaying a female cat is an internal surgery whereas neutering a male cat is purely external), but she had been pregnant! On the 5th, she was still very very weak and wasn't looking so good. She didn't want to eat or drink.

We ended up keeping Ziggy in our room for one more night (we made our own litterbox out of her carrier. We took it apart and filled it with dirt. Unlike Robert, she was able to figure out what it was for). We managed to get her to eat and drink and poop and pee:
The next morning, Ziggy was starting to act like herself again.

We've been checking their incisions twice a day and so far everything is clean and good. We have high hopes that they'll both recover nicely and be happy cats again very soon. :)

In the meantime, Ramiro and I have set about capturing the feral cat colony that lives in our area. One of the females is pregnant again!

We set traps last night (provided to us by FixNation) and managed to catch one of the females in the colony, but unfortunately it wasn't the pregnant one. We were happy we caught her, but we're worried... FixNation is closed over the weekend and the pregnant female looks like she's ready to blow any second now! We're praying that she doesn't have her kittens over the weekend.

The female that we caught last night is at FixNation being spayed and ear-tipped right now.

More updates soon-ish!

--Lauren*
PS: This product is AMAZING! If you ever have animal "stinks" to deal with or stains/odors you need to get out, I highly HIGHLY recommend getting some Nature's Miracle.