"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is."
I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I work with an animal rescue called "Dogs on Death Row". dodr.org
We only take the dogs and cats from shelters who are on their very last day at the shelter. The shelter workers will call my friend, Carol, and plead for her to come get the dog or cat before they are put to sleep. Some of the animals are older, some of them have been abused, others have just lost their homes for no reason other than their owners just didn't want them anymore.
There are just so many. The shelters can't hold them all.
Now I am going to shamelessly plug some of my kitty rescues, just in case anyone is looking for a new lap filler. Just like Amazon, we ship for free!!!
This is "Beatrice".
Sweet "Homebody"
"Baby"
And last, but not least, "Moosie"
Of course, all of the cats are neutered or spayed. They are only indoors. As you can imagine, they are all very used to kids, other cats and dogs.
So, if you are looking for a cat or dog of any kind, please let me know!
Sorry, I will try to write a funny post tomorrow, but sometimes, the unfairness of everything just gets me down!
are any of them good mousers?
ReplyDeleteThis post totally made me wish I wasn't allergic to cats! And that I didn't have cat-hungry dogs downstairs :)
ReplyDeletePlug away! These babies need good homes. We have two stray kitties who found us and your Beatrice looks just like one of mine. His name is Solomon. I, too, thought he was a girl for a long time (he was so malnourished and was a baby when we found him that I didn't see his boy parts). So he was originally Iona but we ended up naming him Solomon.
ReplyDeleteMy other stray baby is Beckett, a blue-point Siamese. His leg was broken and dangling at the knee when we found him mewing at our backdoor. He also had a BB pellet in his chest (when they x-rayed his leg they found the bullet). Even though he's been abused/neglected he is the SWEETEST cat. He thinks I'm his momma and will suckle on my shirt or a blanket draped over my chest. We've had him two years now.
Okay just had to share! I love talking about my furbabies.
I would love to have Homebody. Do you know how old she is? I have 2 kids, 3 cats, and a dog who would love to meet her. But mostly I think my husband would fall in love with her! We live in Kansas City, Missouri.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE kitties, but sadly we have one. He did not work out so well in our house once we had kids, so Im pretty sure I cannot bring in any of your babies listed. Wish I could.
ReplyDeleteOh, I think you and I would be friends in real life!
ReplyDeleteWe also do a lot of rescue and fostering. Our specialty is special needs pets (paralysis, neurological conditions, missing limbs, skin conditions, burn victims, Addison's disease and more) and animals with behavioral issues due to neglect, abuse or lack of human contact in the case of ferals.
Right now, we have 6 resident dogs and 12 indoor cats. There are also 9 strays/ferals in our care. We spay/neuter and care for them outdoors until they can be tamed. Several "live" on our back porch and in a special enclosure; we tame them and adopt them or find a home.
Ha -- we also have a boy cat with a girl's name! We thought Eliza was a girl. She was born to a feral mom and we rescued her, mom and mom's new litter of 3 kittens. Turns out that Eliza is actually a boy with undescended testicles! We discovered this when she went to get spayed! But Eliza is just so fitting and her demeanor is just so girly (right down to her soft, girly meow!) We couldn't change her name, and it's so hard to call her a "him!"
Unfortunately, most of the ferals/strays in our area are FIV+, so it's difficult to find homes. Hence the 21 cats. I cannot euthanize these sweethearts (especially the kittens -- they can retain mom's antibodies for 6 months, resulting in a false positive!), so I keep them in a loving place where they can live out their days. This also prevents them from spreading the illness.
Do you take in FIV+ cats? We didn't for the longest time, but then, we realized we had no choice, as all but 4 of the local strays/ferals we've rescued have tested positive (an 85% positive rate -- much higher than the national average of 2-3%). I realized how difficult it is to transmit this disease. We had two instances where kittens with FIV were in the same litter with FIV- kittens. They were born to the same mom and lived in close, close contact for months, yet it wasn't transmitted to the healthy ones. It's typically transmitted via milk, mating and bite wounds, just like HIV.
So we keep everyone spayed/neutered, vaccinated (the FIV vaccination is effective against 2 of the 4 strains), and supervise during introductions (when bites are most apt to occur) and so far, so good! Not a single transmission in the 5 years since we integrated FIV+ cats into "general population"!
That's so wonderful that you're saving these animals. We did a lot of work with rescues and shelters when we lived up north, but here, there's such a local problem that I've got my hands full with the animals that wander onto my property! (We're in a rural area, where "dumping" is common. My mom has rescued and rehomed more than 200 suspected "dumps" -- cats and dogs -- in the past 10 years.)
There are few things more rewarding than saving a life. From one animal lover to another, keep up the good work!!
Truewell
I am so horribly allergic to cats, but reading this, I wish I wasn't.
ReplyDeleteSome cats don't cause allergies in allergic people. I learned this researching "hypoallergenic cats". It depends on a particular protein in their spit (Fel D1) but some cats have much more of it than others. There's a way to test for it. The breeders of the hypoallergenic cats do test for it. And their Fel D1 low/free kittens are upwards of 2000 buck a pop. So no thanks to that for us! Maine Coons are also supposed to have very little of it.
Anyhow, if you ever see that someone who normally has awful allergies visits, plays with one of your kitties, and doesn't react... email me :)
love the last cat but we are in the uk xxx
ReplyDeleteLove your kitties! We have four (and the newest doesn't always get along with the others--in fact, the oldest doesn't, either! That's why we think we need a couple of kittens to liven things up...)
ReplyDeleteAlready have a cat that I rescued that some folks down the street left when they moved out. He had a leg injury and I took him to the vet.. cost me $2500. to fix his leg. And I have several dogs and a bird and a monkey. But I always seem to have room for one more.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog for a while, but never comment. Some of your blog entries just crack me up with everything you deal with in a days time. And know I found out you work with Animal rescue, how do you find the time. I work with Basset Rescue in Illinois doing transporting and pulling from the shelters. I know how hard it is to not want to pull every single one of them and take home. You are doing a great thing and I wish you luck on finding them homes. We have 21 outside cats that I manage. We have a program called Sterile Feral that assist you in spay/neuter then they are returned to your area to take care and manage. My front step looks so funny in the morning when they come running to eat, I can hardly walk out the front door with stepping on them. Keep up all the good work you do with rescue and loving on them kids of yours. I have a dog blog so if you need a good laugh outside of kids, check us out. Sherri (www.hounddogmom.blogspot.com)
ReplyDeleteBeatrice reminds me of my Vision, who is also all black but short haired and is also one of those rare kitties who love his tummy rubbed and flops down on the ground..
ReplyDeletewell at least he used to, my poor boy is sick and we don't think he is going to last much longer.. breaks my heart, he was our first kitty and is only 7 yrs old.. the vet cannot figure out what is wrong with him, but he has stopped eating and drinking for the most part.. I have been giving him IV fluids the vet gave me but they don't seem to be helping..
Our poor lovable guy is going and we are trying to love on him the best we can until that day.. I keep hoping he will perk up and start eating again, we have tried everything from tuna to babyfood and he won't eat more then a couple bites
I hope you find good homes for your guys in the post.. If we did not have a baby on the way I would take poor Beatrice in a heartbeat..
If my hubby would let me have 4 cats I would be all over Beatrice. He is beautiful. I have a soft spot for black cats... especially with green eyes.
ReplyDeleteHow do you ship a cat?!
ReplyDeleteI only have one cat right now, so I would like another. Gretta is also one of those rare cats that likes her belly rubbed. She will lay stretched out on her back on the floor until someone comes along and rubs. She sleeps with my 5 year old every night, just laying at the foot of the bed watching over her! The last picture of that dog, the white one, are you trying to find a home for him? I think I want one of your kitties! Email me at thegoggblog@gmail.com (if you ever have the time!)
I forgot to tell you which one! Moosie!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you've read any of my other comments yet (still reading through your blog in reverse order, probably the third or fourth day) because I only comment every once in a while, but this post brought one out. I'm a HUGE cat person, we have two kitties (both what I consider rescues - one FROM a rescue, and one from a woman who was going to dump him at 6 weeks old with no mother in freezing weather. He's smugly licking himself on my couch right now) and I volunteer for the cat rescue where we got our second kitty (of three. The two we have now are 2 and 3, first one passed on in February after 16 years). Anyways. I'm long-winded, just a warning. I volunteered at the rescue for the first time the other day and it was amazing. They all come rub up against you and love on you and are just SO EXCITED to be the center of your attention. It was actually only a week or so after I found Reece's Rainbow that I started there, and I remember thinking, wow, if this isn't a hint from above, that I'm meant to follow my dream of giving homes and love to the neediest members of society (both feline and child), then what is? LOL.
ReplyDeleteANYWAYS. It took me that long to get to the point of this comment. The orange kitties have a special place in my heart, I think my next kitty will be an orange tabby. My best friend Angie passed away after a 6+ year battle with cancer in July. When her terminal diagnosis came down, she'd been asking for a cat (she was 20 and still living at home and going to college). Her mom told her no at first for some pretty valid reasons, but me and her friends and her siblings kept working on her mom, and finally she agreed. Angie brought home her 6 month old orange tabby (from the rescue where I now volunteer) and named him Sir Charles Fitzpatrick the Third. (Go find a book called "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness. My Angie and her Charlie are featured strongly.) That cat, my goodness. He was a lap cat. As long as you were sitting (and Angie always was, she was an amputee), he was on your lap.
I still remember the day before she died, she was unconscious and we were taking turns coming into her room and sitting with her and talking to her and saying goodbye. We knew it wouldn't be long. Somewhere in all this, Charlie turned up and decided he needed to sleep right in his favorite place - with Angie. I remember him sleeping on her bed almost all day that day... and again after she passed and her bed lay empty. Little guy stood by her until the end.
Angie wanted to adopt twin boys someday. Looks like I'm going to have to take that one on for her ;)