This post is for whatever didn't fit into the last three posts.
After trapping and before going to East Lake Animal Hospital, Lynne and I came back to Lynne's house and fed all of the foster ferals in the hutches. Right now she has two feral kittens she rescued from the shelter that have ringworm, so she dealt with those two, and two more that needed antibiotics while I did most of the rest. Everyone at that point was doing fine.
Then we both went upstairs to feed "the little monsters." Lynne is fostering three male black kittens that are too small to be neutered. The kittens were born under a shed, and their mom was injured and starving when she was found. She still hasn't been trapped, but someone is working on it. Lynne says it's likely that these kittens have been malnourished, because they fight over the food and are very small. When food is presented to them, they eat as if they are starving. They're covered in flea dirt, mud, and probably have worms, but are too small to treat, and too scared and aggressive to bathe. For now, Lynne has them in a quiet room upstairs. Three times a day, she feeds them canned food, using a chopstick to "hand" feed (these kittens bite hard!). She uses another chopstick to pet them a little while they're eating, so they get used to human contact. (I also got to feed and pet once too.) These kittens are unusually fearful and desperate for their age, and Lynne isn't sure if they'll ever be friendly enough to be adopted out. If they don't "go over the hump" and start trusting people, then they'll go back to the person who found them, where they will be fed and live happily as ferals.
After the kittens were taken care of, we went out to East Lake Animal Hospital. We dropped off the three ferals we had trapped that morning and the kitten I had trapped the night before. Surgeries weren't starting for a few hours, so we decided to explore around Watsonville while we waited. First we went to a store that had a back area where a mom cat and kittens had been abandoned. The owner of the store was not very friendly, but had loved the cat and kittens. A neighbor had been feeding the cats and had contacted Project Purr, and Lynne had been trying to convince the owner to let her relocate all the cats, but he was very reluctant. When we went to the store, the cats were gone and the owner said the neighbor had taken all the cats. She hasn't returned phone calls, but hopefully everyone will be spayed or neutered and found good homes.
After that, we went to the Watsonville Animal Shelter. I had never been there before, and Lynne wanted to get some fliers to put up around town. When we arrived, the shelter employees quickly explained what had happened the day before. Apparently, 23 cats had been brought in, 16 of which were nursing kittens. Thankfully, Animal Friends Rescue Project (AFRP) had taken the 16, but the shelter was strapped. They simply do not have the space for all of those cats. Unfortunately, the shelter had to make space by putting down some of the cats. Of course, the ferals were on the list first. There were four ferals, and Lynne had to decide whether or not to save them. They all had white noses (which means they could get skin cancer), but there was one of the four I liked. It was a big bruiser tom, a fighter with lots of scars on his face. Despite being mostly white, he was one who obviously could make it in the world- a survivor. Lynne spoke for him, which means after the mandatory hold period, he'll be neutered and then sent to Lynne to be a garden cat.
The other three were not as lucky. No one wants feral cats, and no one is going to rescue them. When the day comes, they'll be put down. It was hard looking at those cats knowing they had no hope. What was worse was another cat, a three year old tabby female, who had been sent to the shelter because her family wasn't allowed to have cats in their apartment. Looking at her, it was obvious that she was depressed. She was half hiding under her bed, and wouldn't let anyone touch her. She couldn't understand why she had been put in the cage away from her family. Apparently at home she had been a friendly, loving, domestic cat. The family probably figured she would have no problem finding a new home, but her depression was going to be the end of her. She was on the kill list too. The shelter was hoping that Project Purr would take her, but it was obvious that she was no garden cat. She was a chubby indoor pet, she wouldn't last two seconds outside. She needed love and attention, and a home where she would be spoiled. Instead, she was going to be put down.
As Lynne says, "this is the part of cat rescue that I hate."
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