Moving Garden Kitties To Their New Home

Today I spent the day helping Lynne do a relocation and various other Project Purr daily tasks.

The first thing Lynne and I did this morning was head straight out to the animal shelter to meet up with "Ella" and Paddington (the Great Pyrenees service dog), because their two foster kittens were going through the spay/neuter clinic. It was good to see them again! (I also ran into my middle school Spanish teacher, who was coming in to pet the shelter cats!)

After talking with them for a while, we went into the shelter and picked up two 5 month old orange tabby sisters named Pumpkin and Nutmeg. These two had been put on the rescue list, because when they had come into the shelter, they were acting a little feral, but when we got them we could pick them up and they never stopped purring. Project Purr rarely takes domestic cats, and works almost exclusively with ferals, but the shelter was just so full that these two made the exception. When we went to get them, all of the cat cages were full. The feral room only had one true feral in it, and the rest of the cages were filled to the brim with domestics. It's such a sad thing to see, especially since it's something that could have been prevented if people had taken the time to spay or neuter their animals. It hurts to know that these two adorable, healthy, purring kittens could have been put down just because there wasn't enough space for them.

Luckily for Pumpkin and Nutmeg, there was someone in the world who really wanted them. After we took them from the shelter, we went back to Lynne's house to prepare these two for their new home. While Lynne took care of her fosters, I loaded the car with everything two kittens could need for a new home. The entire package for garden cats had all of this:

• a hutch
• sawhorses to keep the hutch off the ground
• blankets to cover the wire on the bottom of the hutch
• a quilt to cover the hutch for shade and warmth
• a towel for underneath the litterbox
• a litterbox
• a 50 lb bag of litter
• a scooper
• a clamp to keep the litterbox from flipping over
• a doorless cat carrier for the cats to hide in
• a blanket for the cat carrier to make it comfy
• a water bowl
• a food bowl
• a big bag of food
• a claw sharpener
• toys
• cats

And all of this is completely free! What a deal!

After all the chores were done, we took Pumpkin and Nutmeg (and above list of things) to their new home. Unlike most garden cats, these two went pretty much straight from the shelter to their relocation. Most garden cats spend a few days or weeks in Lynne's backyard in hutches before they can find a home. Pumpkin and Nutmeg were very lucky, especially for garden cats. The home they were going to had a lot of space, and even some indoor places for them to live in. There was an older cat and a dog who lived there and could show the kittens how to live away from predators, and the kittens would camouflage very well with the yellow grass. This was the perfect fit for them, because the guy who wanted them was very happy to have friendly cats. He was cooing over them and was already inviting his family over to meet them.

When the relocation was done, Lynne and I headed back to the shelter to load up the car with donations. The shelter lets Project Purr have a big garbage can in the lobby for people to donate cat and dog food and related items. The donated items go to Project Purr, and Project Purr in turn takes them to the food shelf so homeless people can feed their animals. Today the can was overflowing with cat kibble, dog kibble, a litter box, litter, canned food, even some organic baby food. It was nice to know that people think to donate what they can't use instead of throwing it out.

Then we had some lunch and went back to Lynne's house. We discussed how we were going to use the rest of my time here before I head back to Vermont, and decided on lots of fun stuff. One of the things we discussed is tabling at the Farmer's Market downtown on Wednesday, so if anyone read this long, first of all- thanks! and second, we will be tabling at the Farmer's Market this Wednesday and next Wednesday from 1:30 to 6:30, so stop by and say hello!